NEW BIOLOGICAL BOOKS 



z8 7 



a bit too inclusive. Furthermore it seems 

 prolix. Why not define a socially inade- 

 quate person as one who "is disapproved 

 of by Mr. A, or Mr. B, or Mr. C?" Or, 

 if anyone of these, being a modest man, 

 dislikes the publicity this would involve, 

 substitute for his name that of the Hot 

 Water Haven and World Eugenic Society, 

 or the Ku Klux Klan, or the Anti-Saloon 

 League? They all labor for noble causes 

 and dislike objectionable people. 



THE BUILDERS OF AMERICA. 

 By Ellsworth Huntington and Leon F. 

 Whitney. William Morrow and Co. 



$3.50 5I x 8|; xiv + 368 New York 



A contribution to eugenic evangelism 

 dedicated to Irving Fisher, and ending on 

 the following high note: 



Positive eugenics will increase the rarer, lovelier 

 blossoms in the Queen's garden, and improve the com- 

 moner ones. It will restore to the garden the borders 

 and beds of beautiful pansies like unto the black vel- 

 vet gown of a bishop, the yellow silk of a duchess, 

 the royal purple of a king, the motley of the gayest 

 of clowns, and the white robe of a bride. It will 

 do far more than this, for when the Queen's garden 

 has enough seed of these rare kinds, and when suffi- 

 cient seed is carefully preserved, lo, here and there, 

 and then all over the broad land even the little 

 flower beds of the peasants will be bright with blos- 

 toms like those in the Queen's own garden. 



The book contains a large amount of 

 interesting statistical material, some of 

 which is new, bearing directly or in- 

 directly upon eugenic problems. 



PRIMITIVE MAN. His Essential Quest. 

 By John Murphy. Oxford University Press 

 $5.00 5 1 x 9; xiv -+- 341 New York 



This is a comprehensive and intelligent 

 attempt to discuss the psychological 

 evolution of human kind, and to evaluate 



the significance of mind as a factor in 

 evolution in general. The point of view 

 of the whole study is indicated by the 

 following quotation: 



The process of integration through differentia- 

 tion, which is the method of the creative evolution 

 of the universe, takes conscious form in man. It 

 expresses itself in man's essential quest, which is 

 directed towards the unification of his life. In this 

 quest for unity within himself, he is seeking always 

 a deeper and more sensitive integration, together 

 with the utmost possible variety of differentiation. 

 The imperfection of the instruments with which he 

 works at the earlier stages of his human evolution — 

 in particular, his imperfectly coordinated brain and 

 mind — accounts for the imperfection of his earlier 

 attempted unifications, and the manifold forms of 

 his theories and customs. The integration of man's 

 inner life involves certain integrations of his en- 

 vironment, of his world, including his fellows and his 

 societies, unifications of himself with his world and 

 of his world with himself. 



There is a brief, but well chosen bibliog- 

 raphy. 



A SHORT HISTORY OF WOMEN. 



By John Langdon-Davies . The Viking Press 

 $3.00 5! x 8 J; xiv + 381 New York 



A most interesting book, which has 

 been in the "best seller" class. The 

 central thesis of the book, supported by 

 much entertaining material derived from 

 anthropological literature and the author's 

 own observations, is that the history of 

 women is the 



history of human ideas about the nature and differ- 

 ences of the two sexes; and as we have followed it, 

 these ideas have consistently been based upon the 

 same mistaken notions about biology. The primi- 

 tive savage, the primitive Christian, the feudal 

 knight, the seventeenth-century Puritan, the 

 eighteenth-century essayist, the Victorian drawing- 

 room tea-drinker; all alike thought and acted about 

 women as they did because the same superstitions 

 about biology and the same misinterpretation of 

 feelings were common to all. The dawn came when 

 people began to suggest that women were quite as 



QUAE. KEV. BIOL., VOL. Ill, NO. 2 



