November ii, 1922] 



NA TURE 



631 



healing miracles were suffering from what would now 

 be called functional disease, but seeks to support his 

 thesis that these works of Christ were in accordance 

 with natural laws, by quoting cases (not always con- 

 vincing) of the effect of psychotherapy on organic 

 disease. 



The general impression of the book is that while the 

 author has made out a plausible and even probable 

 argument that the miracles were not supernatural 

 phenomena, his parallels are not sufficiently exact 

 to carry absolute conviction. Such exactitude could 

 never be obtained in view of the unscientific observa- 

 tions of the New Testament cases by men who certainly 

 thought these works were supernatural and were quite 

 untrained in medical knowledge. As the author points 

 out, even Luke " the physician " uses terms rather 

 less exact from the medical point of view than do the 

 others. The book is certainly readable and interesting, 

 but belief that the ministrations referred to in it were 

 miraculous is not likely to be disturbed by the author's 

 scientific consideration of the evidence upon which it 

 is based. 



A Book about Sweden. Pp. 183. (Stockholm : A.-B. 

 Nordiska Bokhandeln, 1922.) n.p. 



We have received through the Swedish Consulate- 

 general in London a copy of " A Book about Sweden," 

 published in Stockholm by the Swedish Traffic Associa- 

 tion. It is a compact guide, very fully illustrated, 

 written in English for those who may wish to visit 

 Sweden, or for those who have not yet realised what a 

 charming and novel field awaits the tourist, accustomed 

 to think of Europe as centred in Grindelwald or Assisi. 

 The photograph of the s.s. Saga, now running between 

 London and Gothenburg (Goteborg), invites the 

 Englishman by a reminder of his Viking blood. The 

 description of the country and its human occupations 

 is geographical, and many of the views, such as those 

 in Lappland, are difficult to obtain from other sources. 

 That of the iron-mountain of Kiruna, lit up electrically 

 for work in the long winter night, illustrates one of the 

 great romances of Swedish industry. The account of 

 power-developments in general will interest scientific 

 readers. We are shown the fascination of Abisko, 

 remote within the Arctic Circle ; but nothing is said 

 about the summer mosquitoes, and the happy tourists 

 at Tornetrask seem to be going about unveiled. The 

 manifold charm of Stockholm, a city unlike any city, 

 the sweet clean beauty of the forest country, the rush 

 of waters at Porjus and Trollhattan, are here simply 

 set before us. If one knows Sweden already, it is all 

 the more delightful to turn these pages, and, as the 

 Dalarna poem says, to long for her again. This little 

 handbook may be recommended to British teachers 

 of geography. G. A. J. C. 



14,000 Miles through the Air. By Sir Ross Smith. 

 Pp. xii + 136. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 

 1922.) 10s. 6d. net. 



This small volume by the late Sir Ross Smith marks 

 an epoch in the history of flying, for it is a record of 

 the first flight from London to Australia. Sir Ross 

 Smith and his brother, Sir Keith Smith, accompanied 

 by two air-mechanics. Sergeants J. M. Bennett and 

 W. H. Shiers, entered a Vickers-Vimy aeroplane for 



NO. 2767, VOL. I IO] 



the prize of 10,000/. offered by the Commonwealth 

 Government in 1919 for a flight from England to 

 Australia in 30 days. As is well known, the two 

 brothers won the race. They left Hounslow on 

 November 12, 1919, and reached Darwin on December 

 10, 1919. From there the flight was continued to 

 Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide. The actual time 

 spent in flying between London and Adelaide was 

 188 hours 20 minutes. The longest spells in the air 

 were 730 miles from Bundar Abbas to Karachi, and 

 720 miles from Karachi to Delhi. The brevity of the 

 book makes it all the more vivid, and helps the reader 

 to realise the speed of travelling by air. The author 

 gives few incidents and certainly dwells lightly on the 

 difficulties encountered. But there are some exciting 

 passages, of which one of the best is the flight through 

 the clouds between Rangoon and Bangkok, and the 

 groping descent with the fear of collision with the 

 heights of the Tenasserim Ranges. The book is well 

 illustrated, the pictures of cities taken from the air 

 being very striking. It is much to be regretted that 

 this high-spirited airman lost his life at the very start 

 of his next great adventure, a few years later, of the 

 flight round the world. 



Evolutionary Naturalism. By Prof. R. W. Sellars. 

 Pp. xiv + 349. (Chicago and London: The Open 

 Court Publishing Co., 1922.) n.p. 



The author of this book is one of the " critical " 

 realists. The difference between a neo-realist and 

 a critical realist would seem to be that the former 

 regards the datum of perception as identical with 

 the object of knowledge, while the latter distin- 

 guishes between them. The neo-realist says that 

 we know the physical existence in perceiving it, the 

 critical realist says we know the existence of the 

 physical thing but what we perceive is its essence. 

 Objects exist, but only their content and not their 

 existence is perceived. The special theory which 

 Prof. Sellars names evolutionary naturalism is based 

 on this distinction. Its two great enemies, we are told, 

 are Platonism and Kantianism, both of which are 

 supernaturalistic. The theory is worked out in 

 laborious detail and applied to the different problems 

 of philosophy. 



Greek Biology and Greek Medicine. By Dr. Charles 

 Singer. (Chapters in the History of Science, I.) 

 Pp. 128. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1922.) 2s. 6d. 

 net. 

 Dr. Singer here gives a succinct account of the general 

 evolution of Greek biological and medical knowledge. 

 The biological portion of the book is arranged in three 

 sections, " Before Aristotle " (18 pp.), " Aristotle " 

 (36 pp.), and " After Aristotle " (24 pp.) ; the remain- 

 ing 50 pp. being allotted to Greek medicine. The 

 section on Aristotle appears here for the first time ; 

 the others are reprinted, with slight amendments, from 

 " The Legacy of Greece." All who are interested in 

 the biological sciences will be glad to have in this cheap 

 and convenient little volume an authoritative account 

 of the works of Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates, and others 

 who laid the foundations of the science of life ; and 

 the majority of readers will be amazed at the extent of 

 our indebtedness to Greece. 



