May 7, 1897.] 



SCIENCE. 



735 



pure equity or of economic expediency. 

 They are rather to be directed, if at all, by 

 seeking what produces an impression on them 

 and what seduces them. The danger to civili- 

 zation in this psychology of crowds lies in the 

 fact that the dogmas whose birth we are now 

 witnessing will soon have the force of old 

 dogmas, that is to say, the tyrannical and 

 sovereign force of being above discussion. The 

 divine right of the masses is about to replace 

 the divine right of kings. Nevertheless, M. 

 Le Bon affirms that it would be dangerous to 

 meddle with the organization of crowds, not- 

 withstanding their psychological inferiority. 

 The facts of history have demonstrated that 

 social organisms are every whit as complicated 

 as those of all beings, and it is not in our power 

 to force them to undergo any sudden or far- 

 reaching transformation. 



M. Le Bon's account of the general psychol- 

 ogy of crowds is supplemented by a detailed 

 analysis of more special characteristics, in 

 separate chapters on the sentiments and mo- 

 rality of crowds, the ideas, reasoning power 

 and imagination of crowds, the religious shape 

 assumed by the convictions of crowds, and the 

 immediate factors of the opinions of crowds. 

 In the latter part of his volume he describes 

 diflferent kinds of crowds, including criminal 

 crowds, electoral crowds and parliamentary as- 

 semblies. 



The chief criticisms to be passed upon this 

 volume are : First, that the author has not ac- 

 knowledged, as he should have done, his very 

 obvious indebtedness to the greatest living 

 social psychologist, M. Tarde, whose 'Les 

 Lois de I'imitation ' and ' La logique sociale ' 

 contain in their original form many of the sug- 

 gestions which have governed M. Le Bon's 

 thoughts. Second, that he makes rather too 

 much, probably, of what he would call the 

 hypnotic phenomena of crowds, and too little 

 of the absence of personal responsibility which 

 the individual feels when he unites with his 

 fellowmen in collective action. 



Franklin H. Giddings. 



Laboratory Practice for Beginners in Botany. By 

 William A. Setchell, Ph. D., Professor 

 of Botany in the University of California. 



New York, The Macmillan Company. 1897. 



Pp. xiv-f 199. Price, 90 cents. 



There are already a number of laboratory 

 guides in elementary botany and, judging from 

 the announcements of book publishers and their 

 statements in conversation, there are soon to 

 be several others. Their multiplication only 

 argues that no single outline will satisfy other 

 teachers. No good teacher can follow closely 

 the outlines of instruction laid down by an- 

 other; each must throw his own personality 

 into the work and the method, and the condi- 

 tions of time, place and facilities for work will 

 all enter into the problem of how to teach an 

 introductory class in botany. The author of 

 the work in hand recognizes this condition when 

 he says (p. 137): " The ideal way is to teach the 

 student without any book." 



The book illustrates what we regard as a false 

 principle of instruction, though one much in 

 vogue, namely, the telling a pupil in advance 

 to see certain things before he has had a chance 

 to look for something himself; this, followed too 

 closely, can only result in preventing the de- 

 velopment of any originality in the pupil and 

 tends to reduce him to a mere machine. To 

 illustrate the method followed, we quote from 

 one of the chapters: 



' ' I. Take a piece of stem of the Japanese 

 Quince, which has several leaves attached to it. 

 Examine the leaves and notice that: 



"1. They are all borne on the sides of the 

 stem (i. e., that they are lateral structures). 



"2. They are broad and thin (i. e., they are 

 also expanded structures). 



"8. Their color is green. (This is not true 

 for all leaves, e. g., examine the leaves of some 

 common red Colias [sic'] of the garden or green- 

 house, in which another coloring-matter is 

 present and hides the green.) 



' '4. They are all borne at the nodes of the stem. 

 (We may consequently separate that portion of 

 the plant above the root into a number of simi- 

 lar parts, each of which may be called a phyto- 

 mer or plant part. Each phytomer will consist 

 of an internode, and a node with its leaf or 

 leaves. Sketch a phytomer of the Japanese 

 Quince and label it.") 



This criticism is, of course, general, applying 

 to many books of its class that have been 



