578 



NA TURE 



[October 12, 1905 



one may suspect the contrary, there may have been 

 a scorpion in Carboniferous times with the appendages 

 segmented as shown in the figure of Isobulhiis 

 kralupeiisis (p. 71); or another with an additional 

 sternal plate between the normal second and third 

 of the opisthosoma, as in the restoration of Microtabis 

 stcrnbergi (p. 69). Most of the specimens are in 

 continental museums ; but it so happens that there is 

 in the British Museum a fossil scorpion which Fritsch 

 figures and describes in the present work as 

 EobiitJiiis rakm'iiiceiisis. To one acquainted with 

 recent scorpions, it is obvious that this fossil resembles 

 them in all essential points. Yet Fritsch 's restoration 

 represents an animal differing from all known forms 

 in characters falling so wide of one's experience that 

 it is impossible to estimate their systematic value. 

 If this be taken as a test case, it supplies convincing 

 proof of the untrustworthiness of the drawings and 

 diagnoses in the book; for it shows that the author's 

 anatomical knowledge is too superficial to enable him 

 to distinguish between fortuitous fractures and inter- 

 segmental joints in the fossil examples. 



Haase's classification of the Carboniferous .Arachnida 

 is followed tolerably clo.sely. To the .Aranete (spiders), 

 however, is added the new suborder PleuraraneEe ; but 

 its genera seem to be nothing but .Anthracomarti. 

 Promygale, for instance, differs from .\nthra- 

 comartus only in the alleged presence of abdominal 

 appendages. The evidence, however, for the existence 

 of these seems to be of the slenderest kind. In the 

 Opiliones figures the new genus Dinopilio, which 

 presumably should be classified under the .Xranese. 

 perhaps near the .\rthrolycosidee. 



The volume nevertheless contains some valuable 

 work, in addition to its usefulness as a catalogue 

 and bibliographical record. The discovery that in the 

 Carboniferous scorpions the lateral eyes are in advance 

 of the medians, as in recent species, disposes of 

 Thorell's classification of these animals into -Anthraco- 

 scorpii and Xeoscorpii. The author is also to be 

 congratulated upon .showing that the structure from 

 which Cyclophthalmus took its name is a half-circle, 

 not of ocelli, but of granules. 



It is impossible not to regret the necessity for giving 

 an unfavourable notice of a volume which has cost 

 its author much time and trouble; but since his high 

 reputation as a pateontologist and the style of the 

 illustrations are likely to deceive the uninitiated into 

 regarding this treatise as an epoch-making mono- 

 graph, it would be unfair to do otherwise than utter 

 a note of warning against putting reliance in its con- 

 tents to those not in a position to judge of its merits 

 for themselves. R. I. Pocock. 



THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE. 

 The Citizen, a Study of the Individual and the 

 Government. By Nathaniel Southgate Shaler. 

 Pp. viii + 339. (London : .A. Constable and Co. , 

 Ltd., 1905.) Price 5.?. net. 

 "pROF. SH.ALER, who is professor of geology at 

 -»■ Harvard, has set before himself the practical 

 and unambitious task of instructing the youth of the 

 \0. 1876, VOL. 72] 



United States in the first principles of citizenship. 

 In this he has succeeded; his work is interesting, 

 suggestive, and extremely sensible. Not being written 

 for the specialist, it is hardly to be called profound ; 

 and the theoretical considerations which are brought 

 forward are of the simplest. But the author's sound 

 common sense generally carries the reader with it. 

 .A favourable specimen of his mode of argument may 

 be found in the discussion of woman's suffrage. 

 There is no reference to the various views held by 

 thinkers from Plato downwards; but probably Prof. 

 Shaler's one-page argument is quite sufficient, that 

 women, owing to their usually secluded lives, are not 

 fitted in the same way as men to form judgments on 

 political questions, but that, after all, if a majority of 

 women should desire to vote, it w-ould probably be 

 best to give them the franchise, for the reason that it 

 is most ftidesirable to have any considerable body of 

 the people in .-i discontented state. 



Only a few of the topics discussed in this booli can 

 be referred to here. Prof. Shaler takes the moderate 

 view that it is more profitable to the commonwealth 

 to engage the interest of a hundred thousand well- 

 informed men in politics than to have a hundred able 

 statesmen created for public affairs. He depreciates 

 the importance of oratory for the statesman in the pre- 

 sent condition of .American society, regards a sound 

 head for business and a faculty for clear statement as 

 much more valuable, and contends that the most suc- 

 cessful statesmen in America are not (as in England) 

 gentlemen of independent means, but lawyers and 

 business men, whose training has taught them how 

 to enter into associations with other men, to limit 

 themselves to practical aims, and to form the schemes 

 necessary for their realisation. 



Naturally, in a work proceeding from the United 

 States, one looks for, and finds, the glorification of 

 the ideals and great men of that country ; the contrast 

 drawn between Washington and Napoleon ; the conten- 

 tion that the War of Independence broke out because 

 the .American colonists had outgrown the system 

 of the mother country; the distinction, too, which 

 is drawn between the soldier and the citizen spirit. 

 Prof. Shaler sees clearly, and discusses with impar- 

 tiality, some of the most pressing difficulties of 

 .American politics. Not much is said about trusts and 

 tariffs, and the currency is dealt with briefly. But 

 immigration, foreign possessions, and the negro ques- 

 tion are quite adequately treated. Prof. Shaler 

 laments, of course, that the streams of immigrants no 

 longer come from the most healthy strata of society in 

 Europe; and, in addition to criminals, paupers, and 

 other defective persons, he would exclude those who 

 are not able to read and write in the English lan- 

 guage or their own. He gives no support to the 

 view that the mere profession of the doctrines of 

 .Anarchism should be followed by condign punish- 

 ment. He sees no necesslti,- for any attempt to ex- 

 tend the possessions of the United States beyond the 

 sea. " Lynch law " he holds in detestation, and calls 

 upon young .America, on the occasions of any out- 

 bursts, however natural, of the lawless desire for ven- 

 geance, to put itself under the orders of the sherilT 



