NEW BIOLOGICAL BOOKS 



595 



John Watson is a courageous man. He 

 has proved it again, by taking his be- 

 haviorism out of the safe cabinet of 

 philosophic abstraction and using it as 

 the basis of telling the world the technique 

 for the bringing up of a happy child. 

 The authors believe, probably rightly, 

 that the psychological care of the infant 

 is in some ways more important than the 

 physiological care, in that once a child's 

 character has been spoiled no one can say 

 that the damage can ever be repaired. 



the rat." Whether this conclusion fol- 

 lows from the data seems to us question- 

 able. He found that in learning mazes 

 and in the discrimination box the rats 

 were apparently not aided by odors; but 

 that they were able to locate food buried 

 under sawdust with considerable success. 

 Which of these forms of activity is more 

 important in daily life seems to us to 

 depend on whether one is a psychologist 

 or a white rat. 



THE MINDS OF ANIMALS. An Intro- 

 duction to the Study of Animal Behavior. 

 By J. Arthur Thomson. George Netones, Ltd. 

 2. shillings net London 



5 x 6|; xo6 

 An introductory book for the use of 

 those interested in animal behavior. 

 Examples are given of what might be 

 considered "mind" throughout the animal 

 kingdom beginning with the amoeba. 

 Such entertaining subjects as; "Can ani- 

 mals tell the time?" and "Do animals 

 ever laugh?" are discussed. The author 

 holds that the mental aspect of animal life 

 is not restricted to control of activities 

 and the like but may "manifest itself in 

 feelings, in concrete purposes, in music 

 and artistry." 



AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE 

 OLFACTORY SENSITIVITY OF THE 

 WHITE RAT. Genetic Psychology Mono- 

 graphs, Vol. Ill, No. i. 

 By John R. Liggett. Clark University 



$i.oo Worcester, Mass. 



5f x 9I; 64 (paper) 

 The experiments recorded here are 

 interpreted by the author as indicating 

 that "olfaction apparently does not have a 

 very important r61e in the daily life of 



DE OMNIBUS REBUS 

 ET QUIBUSDEM ALUS 



THE CIPHER OF ROGER BACON. 



By William K. Newbold. Edited with fore- 

 word and notes by Roland G. Kent. 



University of Pennsylvania Press 

 $4.00 Philadelphia 



6| x 9 J; xxxii + 1x4 



Shooting fleas with an elephant gun is 

 difficult. The late Professor Newbold 

 devoted an enormous amount of ingenuity 

 and labor to deciphering what he thought 

 were Roger Bacon's ciphers. The cipher, 

 as he developed it, is enormously complex, 

 extremely difficult to unravel, and, if we 

 are not greatly in error, entirely impossible 

 to use. In fact, we are ready to place a 

 small wager that the cipher has its origin 

 in the mind of Professor Newbold and not 

 in that of Roger Bacon. Our reasons for 

 this opinion are partly technical; that 

 is, the system of cryptography here 

 expounded seems to us entirely fantastic, 

 and one which no one would use in 

 practice. A further reason for scepticism 

 is to be found in the known history of 

 cryptography. Until considerably later 

 than Bacon's time, the systems used were 

 of the simplest. 



But what seems the most persuasive 

 evidence against Professor Newbold, and 



