54 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 706 



number of students pursuing original re- 

 search; but the university is poor and, but for 

 his timely aid, might have waited long for 

 this addition to its teaching facilities. The 

 present phase of scientific investigation is 

 marked by a need for costly apparatus which 

 earlier experimenters do not seem to have felt 

 so acutely and which certainly could not have 

 been supplied. Lord Eayleigh, we may judge 

 from a reference to his earlier studies, does 

 not approve the tendency to disparage simpler 

 m.ethods of research, and it is conceivable 

 that some day a great man will again arrive 

 at an epoch-making discovery by means sur- 

 prisingly simple. Originality is perhaps not 

 always fostered by a wealth of apparatus, stiU 

 there is an immense amount of work at the 

 present day which can be carried on nowhere 

 but in well-equipped laboratories like the 

 Cavendish. When the present extension has 

 again been overtaken by the influx of stu- 

 dents, Cambridge will no doubt again find 

 among her sons some one to emulate the lib- 

 eral and public-spirited action of her present 

 distinguished chancellor. — The London Times. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Social Psyc'hology; An Outline and Source 



Booh. By Edward Alsworth Eoss. New 



York, The Macmillan Company. 1908. 



Pp. xviii -f 3Y2. 



It must have required considerable courage 

 on the part of Dr. Eoss to venture a new book 

 on social psychology. For although he says 

 in the preface that " the ground is new," still, 

 as he well knows, and as his materials show, 

 the subject itself is very old and has been 

 worn threadbare. The only thing that could 

 be done, and the thing that he has virtually 

 done, was to undertake a new compilation of 

 the matter already extant. For, without 

 making a count, it seems safe to say that fully 

 one half of the matter of the book is between 

 quotation marks, and its character as a com- 

 pilation would have been apparent if all the 

 citations had been printed in different type. 

 But this is very far from being a criticism of 

 the book. Lideed, under the circumstances 

 it is its highest commendation. 



And yet he has by no means utilized all 

 the literature. Professor Sumner's " Folk- 

 ways " reached him too late for use, but it 

 would have been an inexhaustible source of 

 facts for such a work. One of the most im- 

 portant omitted works is Miehailovsky's elab- 

 orate treatise on " The Heroes and the Crowd," 

 which first appeared in Russian Wealth in 

 1882 and was republished in a collection of 

 essays in 1896.' In this essay imitation and 

 suggestion are ably handled, and many of 

 Tarde's best thoughts are anticipated. The 

 religious epidemics of the middle ages are 

 described in detail, and contagious manias of 

 suicide and homicide are fully treated. The 

 subject of the influence of the mind on the 

 body, now brought into such prominence by 

 christian science, received special attention, 

 not merely in recording the alleged instances 

 of " stigmata," but in enumerating many 

 other illustrations. In no other work, so far 

 as I know, is the case of Jacob's " ring- 

 streaked, speckled and spotted" sheep and 

 goats referred to this principle, not only as 

 illustrating its effect on animals, but as show- 

 ing that it was understood by Jacob and 

 effectively acted upon. 



Another of the older, much neglected works 

 is Carpenter's "Mental Physiology," 1875, 

 which deals in a scientific way with many of 

 the psychic phenomena now referred to social 

 psychology. Carpenter laid great stress on 

 the principle which he called "expectancy," 

 which is really none other than that now 

 perhaps less happily called " suggestion." 



But of course Tarde's works stand out as 

 the leading contributions to social psychology, 

 and it is refreshing to see them prominently 

 recognized by Dr. Eoss in the preface to this 

 book. It has become so much the custom of 

 American writers, while reiterating the truths 

 they contain, to ignore their source, that this 

 manly acknowledgment will be appreciated 

 by all admirers of the great French sociol- 

 ogist. 



Dr. Eoss well says that social psychology is 

 not the same as psycho-sociology. It is not 



'"Heroi i Tolpa," Russkoe Bogatstvo, 1882; 

 Soehineniya, Vol. II., St. Petersburg, 1896, jp. 

 95-190. 



