June 27, 1907] 



NA TURE 



195 



Every designer of any originality, however, feels the 

 necessity of providing his own raw material, and 

 what is suggestive and valuable to one may by no 

 means prove equally so to another. The designer's 

 best reference library is, of course. Nature ; but 

 Nature is ahva3's changing her dress, and her wealth 

 of floral pattern is transformed with each season, so 

 that unless we presuppose good opportunities com- 

 bined with immense industry on the part of the 

 artist, he must occasionally run short of working 

 notes, and may be glad of the help of a herbal or 

 a book which will give him the essential facts of 

 the forrn, growth, general appearance, and structure 

 of particular plants and flowers with which he is not 

 familiar. 



Such a practical aid and friend in need may be 

 found in the admirable series of photographs from 

 nature by Mr. Henry Irving and the valuable notes 

 by Mr. E. F. Strange which constitute the volume 

 before us. 



The latter contributes a well-informed and interest- 

 ing introduction to the book, as well as a series of 

 notes upon the plants figured, which show his historic 

 knowledge as well as his artistic svmpathies. 



While quite of the opinion he expresses as to the 

 value of the study of the human form for all designers, 

 it appears to be quite possible to attain great skill in 

 purely floral draughtsmanship and design without 

 any corresponding power over the human figure. 

 Mr. Strange, too, hardly seems to appreciate, perhaps, 

 the value of practice with a f.rm point — the severest 

 test of draughtsmanship — the power of clear defini- 

 tion and definite e.xpression being most necessary in 

 all kinds of working designs intended to be carried 

 out by some process of handicraft or manufacture. 

 He is also a little severe upon what he describes as 

 ■' brush-work " — the power of clear definition of form 

 in the mass by means of brush and colour being also 

 essential to a floral-designer's work, and needing 

 much practice to gain facility and sureness of touch. 

 The dexterity and directness of the method of 

 Japanese artists have taught us much in this wav. 



Mr. Strange gives an admirable risiim^ of the 

 treatment of plant form in the history of decorative 

 art, and in speaking of the utility of such examples 

 of plant form as are given in Mr. Irving's plates, he 

 very pertinently remarks upon the beneficial effect 

 upon a student or designer having to make their 

 notes and drawings direct from nature or from 

 photographs such as these, " uninfluenced by the 

 versions, however admirable, of others." 



If a designer cannot refer directly to nature, photo- 

 graphs are next best for most purposes, that is to 

 say, for all superficial facts about a plant which can 

 be disclosed without colour. 



Mr. Henry Irving has made an interesting and 

 judicious selection of plants and flowers likely to be 

 useful to designers of all kinds, and he has been 

 successful in presenting them by photography in a 

 clear and tasteful way, often usefully silhouetting 

 the stems and leaves against a light plain back- 

 ground, and giving the scale, and in some cases 

 showing the seed vessels and the root. The plate 

 NO. 1965, VOL. 76] 



of the tulip tree gives a singularly complete exposi- 

 tion of the characteristics of the tree — stem, leaf, 

 bud, and full flower being given, and, moreover, 

 quite decoratively spaced. Among the most successful 

 plates, perhaps, may be named the wild rose, the 

 yellow iris, the wood sorrel, the lily of the valley, the 

 thistle, the teasle, and the catkins of the hazel. 



More of the lily tribe might have been given' 

 perhaps with advantage, seeing that the structure is 

 so beautiful and well defined, and it is the structure 

 of plants and flowers above all that a designer needs 

 to understand. Altogether the book mav be heartily 

 recommended to students and practical designers,, 

 and, indeed, to all interested in the beauty of plants 

 and flowers. Walter Crane. 



SOME RECENT PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS. 

 (i) Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. New 

 Series. Vol. vi. Pp. 402. (London : Williams 

 and Norgatc, 1906.) Price 10s. 6d. net. 



(2) Rene Descartes' Philosophische Wcrke. Erste 

 Abteilung (Fortsetzung). Ubersetzt und heraus- 

 gegeben von Dr. .Artur Buchenau. Pp. xviii-t- 

 149. (Leipzig : Diirr'schen Buchhandlung, 1906.). 

 Price 1.80 marks. 



(3) Herders Philosophic. Herausgegeben von Horst 

 Stephan. Pp. xliv + 309. (Leipzig: Durr'scher> 

 Buchhandlung, 1906.) Price 3.60 marks. 



(4) The International Scientific Series. The Mind 

 and the Brain. By Alfred Binet. (The authorised 

 translation of " L'Ame et le Corps.") Pp. xii-l- 

 280. (London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and! 

 Co., Ltd., 1907.) Price 5s. 



(5) Essay on the Creative Imagination. By Th.. 

 Ribot. (Translated from the French by A. H. N. 

 Baron.) Pp. xix + 370. (London : Kegan Paul,. 

 Trench, Triibner and Co., Ltd., 1906.) Price 

 ys. 6d. net. 



(6) Structure and Growth of the Mind. By W. 

 Mitchell. Pp. XXXV 4-512. (London : Macmillan 

 and Co., Ltd., 1907.) Price 10s. net. 



(i) ' I " HE sixth volume (new series) of the Proceed- 

 -L ings of the Aristotelian Society contains the 

 papers read before the society during its twenty- 

 seventh session, 1905-6, and is unusually bulky, as 

 publication has now become a much more important 

 part than formerly of the society's work. .'Vmong 

 other articles, it contains one on teleology by Dr. 

 Shadworth H. Hodgson, the veteran ex-president of 

 the society; a symposium " Can Logic abstract from 

 the Psychological Conditions of Thinking? " to 

 which contributions are made by Messrs. Schiller, 

 Bosanquet, and Rashdall ; and the records of a con- 

 troversy (on Kantian and anti-Kantian lines) between 

 Dr. G. Dawes , Hicks and Prof. Stout. Scientific 

 readers will turn with interest and profit to a paper 

 by Mr. T. Percy Nunn, entitled "The .Aims and 

 Achievements of Scientific Method." Mr. Nunn de- 

 fines the aim of the scientific process as an endeavour 

 to render the Objective in its actual determinations 

 intelligible. He points out the stages of Aniniism> 

 and Hylozoism through which pre-scientific thought 



