98 



NA TURE 



[June 4, 1908 



The book requires, no praise from us. It is enough 

 to say that it sustains Mr. Gomme's high reputation 

 as a folklorist, and that those who devote time to its 

 study will be amply rewarded. It possesses an addi- 

 tional source of interest in its well-chosen illustrations. 

 " The Two Scenes from the Life of St. Guthlac '• 

 bring before us with peculiar vividness the unseen 

 world as it presented itself to some of our forefathers 



.4 ZOOLOGIST AS .-ESTHETE. 

 Asthclik dcr Ticrwdt. By Karl Mobius. Pp. v + 12,*; 



3 plates and 195 figs. (Jena : G. Fischer, igoS.) 



Price 6 marks. 

 A S director of the great zoological museum in 

 -^^ Berlin, the late Prof. Mobius was naturally led 

 to consider the aesthetic value of the various forms of 

 animal life as well as their scientific interest. From 

 time to time he published brief essays discussing 

 different types of animals from the Eesthetic point of 

 view, and as he found the inquiry very profitable 

 — increasing his delight in the animal creation — he 

 gathered his reflections together in the beautifully 

 illustrated book before us, which bears the pleasant 

 title "Asthetik der Tierwelt. " 



Certain animals cannot be seen without being 

 greatly admired, others are regarded with com- 

 placency but without enthusiasm, others with entire 

 indifference, .and yet others with repugnance — which 

 is often affectation. Prof. Mobius sought to discover 

 some of the reasons for this diverse asthetic value 

 that animals seem to have, and his a priori method 

 led him to judgments which it would be of great 

 interest to test statistically, by collecting opinions 

 from, say, 5000 of each of the following groups : — 

 country children, men in the street, well-dressed 

 women, naturalists, and artists. It is notoriously 

 difficult, however, to get a frank expression of 

 aesthetic emotion (especially in regard to animals), to 

 allow for conventional prejudice and posing, for sheer 

 uneducatedness of vision, and for entirelv artificial 

 associations which lead many people to recoil from 

 forms of life which the artist admires. We find in this 

 book many statements like this : — " Die Fledermause 

 findet niemand schon," and the author tried to show 

 that this universal disapprobation is justified according 

 to certain canons of aesthetic criticism. So much the 

 worse for these canons, it seems to us, not that we 

 can believe in the universal disapprobation of bats. 



Prof. Mobius pointed out that our aesthetic judg- 

 ments as to animals rest on a complex objective and 

 subjective basis; he went on to discuss the general 

 qualities of a beautiful living creature — it must be a 

 unity, it must be harmonious, it must have individu- 

 ality, and so on. We regret that the illustrious author 

 did not expand his reflections on these matters, 

 instead of giving so much space to comparing 

 the relative merits of crab and lobster, or analys- 

 ing the alleged " Hasslichkeit " of hippopota- 

 mus and giraffe. It seems to us that just as we 

 are pleased by a piece of carving, rude though it may 

 be, which expresses the craftsman's mood, and shows 

 him to be even a little bit of a creator, so, but in- 

 NO. 2014, VOL. 78I 



finitely more, are we pleased by the individuality of 

 organisms — every one its own artist — no one of which 

 uses its materials quite in the same way. An in- 

 teresting short chapter is devoted to the aesthetic value 

 of animals as parts of a landscape ; thus what is not 

 impressive in isolation gets its value in its natural 

 setting. This is well illustrated by reference to the 

 associations seen on a coral beach at low tide. 



The volume attempts an analysis of beauty in 

 animal architecture, but the treatment seems to 

 us too dogmatic and aprioristic. We demand 

 symmetry, it is said, yet what delights us 

 more than a lop-sided shell from the shore? A 

 Campanularian is not so beautiful as a Corallium. 

 because the number of its tentacles is a distracting 

 conundrum. A centipede makes us tired, it is said, 

 with its monotony, " Man sieht nichts Neues, wird 

 ermiidet und gelangweilt," whereas to many people 

 a centipede quickly moving among the bark is in its 

 way just as beautiful as a peacock. Spiders are not 

 so much appreciated as butterflies, because their bodv 

 has only two main parts, and the eeslhetic unity is 

 spoilt by the distractions of the abdomen when we 

 are contemplating the cephalothorax, and vice versii. 

 It is unconventional for an animal to be broader than 

 it is long, and, therefore, to use one of the author's 

 examples, Geryon must take a back seat -when Gam- 

 marus appears. But when it comes to ranking Peri- 

 patus among the animals with " langweilende Wieder- 

 holung," and putting Nymphon among the unsatis- 

 factory because it lacks sufficient central mass to rivet 

 the eye, we cannot but disagree. We ma\' take shelter 

 behind the cirenic maxim, " De gustibus non disputan- 

 dum est," but we are not afraid of the responsibility of 

 stating a counter-thesis, with which we think most 

 artists will agree, that no natural animals are uglv 

 or " hasslich " in the sense of being out of propor- 

 tion or out of harmony, or "bad colour." It seems 

 to us that the only ugly animals are such as prize 

 pigs, on which man has laid violent hands. One of 

 the delights of animal coloration is the daring as 

 well as the subtlety of the experiments, but is any 

 result ever a failure in the sense that a picture or a 

 picture-hat may be? J. A. T. 



FUXDAMEXTALPRIXCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY. 



Stoichiome.try. By Prof. Sydney Young, F.R.S. ; with 

 an Introduction to the Study of Physical Chemistry 

 by Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S. Pp. Ixxi-h 

 381. (London : Longmans, Green and Co., 1908.) 

 Price 75. 6d. net. 



THIS volume, as its unfamiliar title implies, is con- 

 cerned with the fundamental principles of 

 chemistry, and so forms logically the first of the 

 "Text-Books of Physical Chemistry " edited by Sir 

 William Ramsay; the introduction, which has ap- 

 peared before, is appropriately reprinted in this 

 volume. We are pleased to sec that five more volumes 

 of the series are in preparation. 



Recent research on atomic and molecular weights, 

 of which Prof. Young gives a clear and simple ac- 

 count, has proceeded mainly in two directions. D. 



