November 9, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



589 



have confidence in the ability and integrity 

 of their informants, and here it becomes the 

 duty of our technical colleges to train their 

 students to take the positions in the world 

 of industry which will qualify them in 

 their several stations to fully serve their 

 country as fountains of truth. 



In conclusion, let me quote a passage 

 from an address by that ardent champion 

 of truth, Thomas Huxley, delivered in 

 1880, upon a somewhat similar occasion to 

 the present, namely, the opening of the 

 Technical College in Leeds. 



* * * It is not beside the mark to remind you, 

 that the prosperity of industry depends not merely 

 upon the improvement of manufacturing processes, 

 not merely upon the ennobling of the individual 

 character, but upon the third condition, namely, 

 a clear understanding of the conditions of social 

 life on the part of both the capitalist and the 

 operative, and their agreement upon common prin- 

 ciples of social action. They must learn that 

 social phenomena are as much the expression of 

 natural laws as any others; that no social ar- 

 rangements can be permanent unless they har- 

 monize with the requirements of social statics 

 and dynamics; and that, in the nature of things, 

 there is an arbiter whose decisions execute them- 

 selves. 



But this knowledge is only to be obtained by 

 the application of the methods of investigation 

 adopted in physical researches to the investiga- 

 tion of the phenomena of society. Hence, I con- 

 fess, I shoiild like to see one addition made to the 

 excellent scheme of education propounded for the 

 college, in the shape of provision for teaching 

 sociology. For though we are all agreed that 

 party politics are to have no place in the instruc- 

 tion of the college; yet in this country, prac- 

 tically governed as it is now by universal suffrage, 

 every man who does his duty must exercise polit- 

 ical functions. And, if the evils which are in- 

 separable from the good of political liberty are 

 to be checked, if the perpetual oscillations of 

 nations between anarchy and despotism is to be 

 replaced by the steady march of self-restraining 

 freedom, it will be because men will gradually 

 hring themselves to deal with political, as they 

 now deal with scientific, questions; to be as 

 ashamed of undue haste and partisan prejudice 

 in the one case as in the other; and to believe 

 that the machinery of society is at least as deli- 



cate as that of the spinning- jenny, and as little 

 likely to be improved by the meddling of those 

 who have not taken the trouble to master the 

 principles of its action. 



Alex. C. Humphreys. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 



Entomology, with Special Reference to Us 

 Biological and Economic Aspects. By 

 Justus Watson Folsom, Sc.D., Instructor 

 in Entomology in the University of Illinois. 

 Philadelphia, P. Blakiston's Son and Co. 

 1906. $3.00. 



There is supposed to be a growing demand 

 for a biological treatment of entomology, and 

 two notable efforts have recently been made 

 to meet it. Professor Kellogg met it in his 

 ' American Insects ' by adding to the system- 

 atic treatment of the older standard texts 

 (which he incorporated in toto) a few chap- 

 ters on color, insects and flowers, insects and 

 disease, etc., making a very big book of the 

 encyclopedic sort. Dr. Polsom has followed 

 the plan of cutting down to an almost negli- 

 gible quantity the systematic part, giving a 

 condensed resume of anatomy, physiology and 

 embryology, and devoting the greater part of 

 his book to the discussion of general biological 

 phenomena, making it a reading book of com- 

 fortable size. Thirteen pages of systematic 

 description of the orders serve to eliminate 

 that part of the subject (which, according to 

 the preface, is thus summarily dealt with be- 

 cause of its prominence in other available 

 texts). The condensation is at its maximum 

 in the description of the larvse of the orders, 

 for which purpose two words, thysanuriform 

 and eruciform, suffice. The theoretical sig- 

 nificance of these terms is explained in the 

 chapter on development: but here in the de- 

 scriptive part they are very much over-worked. 

 To say merely that the larvse of the Odonata 

 are thysanuriform is certainly not very il- 

 luminating. Only with the mind's eye could 

 one see, for instance, anything thysanuriform 

 in the larva of Hagenius. 



The chapters on morphology and develop- 

 ment (158 pages) are concise, well digested 

 and altogether excellent, and taken in connec- 

 tion with the well-selected bibliography at the 



