April ■::. [874] 



NATURE 



479 



In its style the "Study of Sociology" somewhat disagree- 

 ably reminds the reader of one of Mr. Spencer's earliest 

 works, " Social Statics." It has two main faults — it is 

 needlessly polemical in its tone, and it is disfigured 

 by numerous unscientific exaggerations of language. Mr. 

 Spencer is undoubtedly right in defending against Mr. 

 Arnold the superiority of the guidance of psychology and 

 logic, over mere linguistic culture, in producing a style 

 clear, forcible, and free from tautology. But there is 

 neither psychological nor logical defence for the two faults 

 indicated. Amongst minor faults of style may be enume- 

 rated an occasional laxity in the use of analogies ; the 

 degeneration of the psychologically sound practice of pre- 

 facing the enunciation of an important truth by a torcible 

 illustration of it into a disagreeable mannerism, some very 

 marked examples of which occur in the opening paragraphs 

 of several of the chapters ; the frequent occurrence of words 

 ineuphoniously formed, to say the least of them, such as 

 " re-revenge," " irrelation," " wholesaler ; " and the over- 

 abundant formation of compounds, especially noticeable 

 in the compounding of the adjective and its qualifying 

 adverb, as in " logically-conclusive," " profoundly- untrue," 

 " equally-long." 



Some of the defects pointed out are probably traceable 

 to a desire to popularise the work as far as possible, in 

 forgetfulness, to some extent, of the necessity to maintain 

 the character which should appertain to it as one of a 

 scientific series. But, while it is to be regretted that 

 there should be such blemishes to mar the general effect 

 of a book so full of suggestive thought and of appropriate 

 illustrative facts, it must be allowed that the " .Study of 

 Sociology" forms a valuable addition to sociological 

 literature, and leads the student in this department of 

 human thought to anticipate with pleasure the appear- 

 ance of the work to which it and the " Descriptive 

 Sociology " are but forerunners. 



W. H. Brewer 



FRITSCH'S "SOUTH AFRICAN RACES" 

 Die Eingcborcnen i iid-Afr^ka's, etltnographiscli unci aiia- 

 tomiscli bcscliriehcn. Von Gustav Fritsch. (Breslau : 

 Hirt, 1872.) 



IT is to be hoped that this work will have a good effect 

 on the Science of Man, as a much-needed example 

 which, once .seen, will no doubt be followed. So far as 

 the wTiter of the present notice is aware, the attempt at 

 a systematic monograph of a race has never yet been 

 made with so near an approach to success. With all 

 our hundreds of volumes full of information as to the 

 lower races of mankind, it is generally a difficult task for 

 the ethnologist to piece together out of them anything 

 like a complete picture of any tribe, with scientific fulness 

 and accuracy of bodily, mental, social, geographical, and 

 historical detail. Where, for instance, could he go for 

 full information as to the two African races of whom Dr. 

 Fritsch's work tjeats, the Kafirs and Hottentots .' 



The student's best source has been hitherto the conscien- 

 tious dictionary-like summary, brief yet tedious, contained 

 in 60 pages (Vol. II.) of Waltz's "Anthropologic der Natur- 

 volker." The chapters in Mr. J. G. Wood's " Natural 

 History of Man " are fuller and more fife-like, but they are 

 far too popular in topics as well as in style. Nor had 



either of these writers ever lived among the races about 

 whom he compiled information. From a study of the 

 descriptions drawn up by travellers, missionaries, and 

 officials, who have known the Kafirs and Hottentots by 



Fig. I.— Zulu of Natal. 



personal knowledge, it is possible to get much of the 

 information wanted, but how long will it take even to 

 glance over the volumes of Shooter, Gallon, Callaway, 

 Hahn, Casalis, Grout, Maclean, Andersson, and a dozen 

 more ? Each other savage or barbaric race of the world 

 demands in like manner the reading through of a small 



Fig. 2 — Young Kafir. 



library, consisting mostly of miscellaneous literary matter, 

 in which the ethnographic information is imbedded. The 

 state of things is briefly this, that anthropological evi- 

 dence is at present so bulky and so scattered, as to be 



