28 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 627 



Every great historical epoch and every variety 

 of social organization must be explained on the 

 basis of factors and forces now at work, and 

 which the student may study at first hand. 



This is now called sociological uniformi- 

 tarianism. It was strongly hinted at by Sir 

 Charles Lyell himself (' Principles of Geol- 

 ogy,' eleventh edition, Vol. I., p. 167). It is 

 called by Gumplowicz ' the eternal uniformity 

 ( Wesensgleichheit) of social processes ' (' Ras- 

 senkampf,' p. 172), and is discussed at length 

 by him. It has been insisted upon by Bernes 

 and Eegnano in Europe and by Eoss and 

 Small in America, and was applied by 

 Schleicher to language. 



Conformably to this philosophical introduc- 

 tion, Dr. Carver has undertaken to classify his 

 materials under certain logical heads. The 

 late Dr. G. Brown Goode described a museum 

 as ' a collection of labels illustrated by speci- 

 mens.' The materials of this work have about 

 the same importance relatively to these heads 

 as do the specimens of a museum to the labels. 

 He divides the matter of the book into three 

 parts, the first relating to the nature, scope 

 and method of sociology, the second to its 

 bearing on social progress, while the third 

 part embraces the various factors of social 

 progress, which he still further subdivides into 

 physical and biological, psychical, social and 

 economic, and political and legal. 



This classification may have value for some 

 minds, but doubtless chiefly for that of the 

 compiler, and the ordinary reader will not 

 generally know, and will care less, where he is 

 in the scheme when he is reading any of the 

 interesting essays that the work contains. It 

 would have been just as well to arrange them 

 in the alphabetical order of the authors, or 

 still better in the chronological order of the 

 works. 



As already said, the authors cited are nearly 

 all either famous or of a high order, and some 

 of the essays whose authors are either con- 

 temporary or somewhat less well known are 

 among the best selections. The essay entitled 

 ' War and Economics in History and Theory,' 

 by Edward Van Dyke Robinson, certainly an- 

 swers this description. There are, however, a 

 few of the articles whose appearance in this 



roll of honor is matter for regret. Only one 

 such need be mentioned, viz., Drummond's 

 Struggle for the Life of Others, from his 

 book ' The Ascent of Man,' 1894, the very 

 title of which was plagiarized from the ad- 

 dress of Dr. Erank Baker, as president of the 

 Anthropological Section of the American As- 

 sociation for the Advancement of Science at 

 the Indianapolis meeting, in August, 1890, 

 published in the Proceedings, Vol. XXXIX., 

 p. 351, and also in the American Anthro- 

 pologist for October, 1890, Vol. III., No. 4, 

 p. 297, and with which Drummond must have 

 been familiar. But this might have been 

 pardoned if the book itself, or most of what 

 is true in it, were not a plagiarism from 

 ITaeckel and other authors. Even this oifense, 

 however, is less grave than the utterly un- 

 scientific and mainly false attitude of the 

 author in the application and interpretation 

 of his facts. 



Erom the standpoint of book-making this 

 volume has its defects. Not to mention its 

 ugly, unesthetic style of binding, it is one of 

 those books in which the user is always lost 

 and constantly compelled to revert to the con- 

 tents to find what he wants. This could easily 

 have been remedied by head-lines showing 

 ' who is talking ' on any page. But such 

 things are ' trifles light as air ' by the side of 

 the sterling merits of the work. 



Lestee F. Ward 



Brown Univeesiti 

 Providence, E. I. 



VARIATIONS OF THE BONES OF THE FACe' 



This work (which should have been re- 

 viewed sooner) is the continuation of Pro- 

 fessor Le Double's great undertaking which is 

 to give us a complete account of the varia- 

 tions of the human skeleton. His last work, 

 which was noticed in these pages, treated of 

 the variations of the cranial bones. This one, 

 therefore completes the head. In the preface 

 the author gives some account of his labors 

 and maintains that none of his propositions 



' ' Traits des Variations des Os de la Face de 

 I'Homme et leur signification an point de vue de 

 I'Anthropologie Zoologique,' par M le Dr. A. F. 

 Le Double, Paris, Vigot Frgres, 1906. 



