May 28, 1896 J 



NA TURE 



75 



title, although this naturally constitutes the main theme. 

 The number of other subjects incidentally treated of, 

 furnishes a pleasing variety, and largely helps to maintain 

 the interest of the reader, whether he be scientific or 

 not. In pursuing his subject, Prof. Mosso is led into a 

 criticism of (ireek art, and contrasts as a medium of 

 expression of the emotions the works of Phidias and 

 Praxiteles with those of the schools of Pergamos and 

 Rhodes. He compares the Niobe with the Laocoon ; 

 in the former he finds lacking " the expression of intense 

 emotion, of horror, fear, and pain, which would inevit- 

 ably be present in the terrible moment of so cruel a 

 butchery." 



" Though Praxiteles himself were the creator of the 

 Niobean group, I yet hold that a humble physiologist, 

 looking with dispassionate eye at these statues, may 

 affirm that they fall short of the fame of so great a master, 

 because the faces are not so modelled as to produce the 

 desired effect, because nature is not faithfully copied, and 

 because there lacks the sublime ideality of terror aroused 

 by the chastisement of an offended deity, which was the 

 subject of the work." 



On the other hand, in spite of certain anatomica errors 

 in the furrows of the brow in the Laocoon, 



"an intense and majestic pain is written on the face, . . . 

 one seems to hear the sigh of superhuman agony from 

 his lips, and sees the lines of beauty and of pain wonder- 

 fully blended." 



In touching upon questions of inheritance, the author 

 shows himself rather a disciple of Spencer than of 

 Darwin. Rut it is not clear upon what evidence he 

 founds the statement that if two hounds of the same litter 

 are taken, and one trained for sport and the other as a 

 watch-dog, their offspring, after four or five generations of 

 such training, although brought up under the same con- 

 ditions and far from noise, will be in the one case excited, 

 in the other terrified on first hearing the report of a gun. 

 Nor 1 conceive will the assertion be generally accepted 

 that the disappearance of the eyes in subterranean 

 animals " is certainly not the result of natural selection, 

 for eyes are not injurious even to beings living in the 

 dark." On the other hand all will agree with the author 

 in deprecating the installation of fear in the child, of 

 which the ignorant mother or nurse is so often guilty. 



" The children of ancient Greece and Rome used to be 

 frightened with the lamias who would suck their blood, 

 with the masks of the atellans, the Cyclops, or with a 

 black Mercury who would come to carry them away. 

 And this most pernicious error in education has not yet 

 disappeared, for children are still frightened with the 

 bogey-man, with stories of imaginary monsters, the ogre, 

 the hobgoblin, the wizard and the witrhes." 



" Children should be brought up as though they were 

 rational. . . . The same inethods should be followed in 

 education as in the teaching of science . . . we should 

 never issue any command without showing the reasons 

 why it should be done in this way rather than in another." 

 . . . ''They must not be fatigued with study . . . even for 

 healthy children premature education is a very gfrievous 

 error." 



" Parents who have already some weak spot — a little 

 fault in the character, a slight blemish in the organism — 

 should redouble their care in order to cure their children 

 from their own defects. . . . The paramount object of 

 education should be to increase the strength of man, and 



NO. 1387, VOL. 54] 



to foster in him everything which conduces to life. . . . 

 We sometimes imagine that the most important branch 

 of culture is that which we attain through education and 

 study . . . but in ourselves, our blood, there is a no less 

 important factor. . . . Fear is a disease to be cured ; the 

 brave man may fail sometimes, but the coward fails 

 always." 



The translation is excellent throughout. 



E. A. SCHAFER. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Die Pliysiohgii' des Gcruchs. ( The Physiology of Smell.) 

 By Dr. H. Zwaardemaker. Pp. 324. (Leipzig : Engel- 

 mann, 1895.) 



Von Hartman, in defending himself against a friend 

 who upbraids him for having wasted upon philosophy 

 talents which might have been devoted to the accumula- 

 tion of facts of positive science, points out in memorable 

 words that facts of science are amassed only in order 

 that they may be synthesised. 



The critic is bound to remember this in appraising a 

 book like that of Dr. Zwaardemaker's, for Dr. Zwaarde- 

 maker has added to the burden of physiological facts, 

 and he has not established any generalisations to assist 

 us in the carrying of that load. 



If we overlook this fact, and we ought not to overlook 

 it lightly, the work is a most praiseworthy one, a work 

 that is characterised by the thoroughness which the 

 Teuton strives after, and which, as a matter of fact, is 

 found in the best of Low German science. There are 

 very careful chapters in this book, only to mention a 

 few, on the physical characteristics of odorous sub- 

 stances, on the mechanics of smell, on " olfactory " and 

 "breath-fields," on the relations between taste and smell, 

 on a new method of testing the acuity of smell, on the 

 masking of smells by other smells, on the classification 

 of smells, and on Prof. Haycraft's work on the relations 

 between odour and chemical composition. Many of 

 these subjects are treated with considerable originality. 

 The "breath-field" is mapped out by breathing on a 

 bright metallic surface. It is shown that two patches of 

 dimness are produced, corresponding respectively to the 

 right and the left nostril. It is further shown that each 

 of these fields is subdivided into two smaller fields by a 

 linear interspace, which in all probability corresponds to 

 the inferior turbinated bone. The tv.'O patches of dim- 

 ness on each side, therefore, in all probability correspond 

 to the two streams of air which pass respectively above 

 and below the lower turbinated bone. The patch of 

 dimness which corresponds to the current of air which 

 passes over the lower turbinated bone is conterminous 

 with the olfactory field as determined by an independent 

 method. 



The apparatus for testing the acuity of smell consists 

 of a porous clay cylinder, which is fitted up somewhat 

 after the manner of a syringe. The piston-rod consists 

 of a tube which serves to convey the air into the nostril. 

 The air which is thus fed into the nostril consists in part 

 of inodorous air which has been drawn in from without 

 through the open end of the clay cylinder, and in part of 

 air which has been in contact with the walls of the porous 

 cylinder which has been impregnated with an odorous 

 substance. The proportion of odorous to inodorous air 

 can be varied at pleasure by regulating the position of 

 the piston in the cylinder. 



The chapter on the association between smell and 

 taste emphasises the fact that there is an inlet to the 

 olfactory chamber through the posterior nares, as well as 

 through the nostrils. We therefore smell both when we 

 inspire and when we expire. It is because he is ignorant 

 of this fact that the lavnian is incredulous when he is 



