SPORT

*****

In general, the book presents us with a pretty bright picture of capitalist industry. There is much that needs to be altered, yet progress, we are reminded, has been great: education has spread, the standard of comfort of the working-class has risen enormously, and "both competition and combination in Anglo-Saxon countries generally have been more inclined to construction than to destruction: emulation has often given an incitement to exertion stronger than that which was derived from the desire for gain...." We are not to be led away, therefore, by large socialistic schemes of reform. Collectivism would be unfavourable to the best solution of men for the most responsible work in industry; National Guilds "look only at the surface difficulties of business" and promise to lead us into nothing but chaos.

Until the other day we all thought we were threatened with national bankruptcy, and a great many people think so still, despite the recent rapid conversion to optimism of the Government and the House of Commons. Professor Nicholson, we are sure, is not one of those who are impressed by the change. His interesting and outspoken little book may be summed up in two sentences—"The principal cause of the disorder of the body politic is the abuse of paper money," and "Our present need is to get back to a sound monetary system and to get rid of the mirage of inflation." He does not believe in the theory that an internal debt "makes no difference": that it is merely a transference from one set of pockets to another. And he does not think that the burden of the debt can be removed either by a capital levy or by a continuance of inflation, which, as he gloomily observes, is a popular remedy, both with the industrial and commercial classes. If that continues, its evils will continue—high profits, high wages, higher prices, and a general scarcity. The great practical difficulty is to stop the rise in prices. It may be done partly by greater output and lower profits, partly by reduced public expenditure, but, above all, by a reduction in the volume of paper currency. For that, Professor Nicholson observes, moral courage is needed, and also hard thinking.

"These are the notes of a visit to Ireland during the dark days when a last effort was made to undo the blunders that had wrecked the great promise of Irish recruitment." Mr. Chesterton, in lamenting the fact that a large section of the Irish population remained neutral in the war, blames both sides. The case against England and the British Government is familiar; but, he argues, however badly Ireland may have been treated in the past, and however the Irish situation was mishandled in the early days of the war, the Sinn Feiners are still to be blamed. They were as men who should have abstained from Marathon because of a quarrel with some archon, or refused to fight Attila because of a grievance against Ætius. All civilization was at stake; that being so, even the claims of nationality should have been, if necessary, postponed—though, in fact, they would have been actually assisted had Ireland made the plunge. Mr. Chesterton states with characteristic force the existence of a definite Irish nationality, a thing to be perceived in any Irish home. As a practical politician he believes that the extreme demand for separation can still—though time presses—be effaced if Dominion Home Rule is offered. The bargaining peasant lives in the fighting rebel; and when even the last Home Rule scheme was postponed a genuine disappointment was to be seen throughout Ireland.

This is his central case. He argues it characteristically: that is to say, his method of exposition, by means of rapid generalizations, digressions, witticisms, allusions, will fascinate those who believe there is great sagacity behind his fireworks, and irritate or bore those who habitually dislike him. In making out a case for Ireland he also makes out a case for a rural, a Catholic, and a "distributive" civilisation. Everywhere there are quotable sayings. He speaks of "the brilliant bitterness of Dublin and the stagnant optimism of Belfast." "Modern industrial society," he says, "is fond of problems, and therefore not at all fond of solutions."

Arguing that on the outbreak of war England abjured her pro-Teutonist delusions, he says the Sinn Feiners fatally played with the thing they had always denounced:

That is why the Easter rising was really a black and insane blunder. It was not because it involved the Irish in a military defeat; it was because it lost the Irish a great controversial victory. The rebel deliberately let the tyrant out of a trap; out of the grinning jaws of the gigantic trap of a joke.

"Imperialism," he observes, "is not an insanity of patriotism; it is merely an illusion of cosmopolitanism." Such epigrams—and there is always something in them—are all over the book; but in two places, where he is talking of the war and of Kettle's death and where he celebrates the Christian virtues of charity and humility, he reaches an eloquence almost comparable to that of the magnificent passage at the close of hisShort History of England. That passage deserves to go into all anthologies of English prose henceforth compiled.

There are still two books which ought to be written about the war. One is a real novel of the adventures and sufferings of the Merchant Service, and the other is a historical account of the partnership between the Navy and the Merchant Service, and that marvellous convoy organisation which unobtrusively won the war. Mr. Doorly ought to help with the latter, but we hope he will not attempt the former. These stories, collected under a cumbrous and not too accurate title, are a painstaking but disappointing attempt to deal with both. Mr. Doorly has not the literary gifts necessary to do complete justice to the human side of his subject, though he faithfully pictures the very real camaraderie which the convoy established between the naval officer and the mercantile marine. All his sailors are of the "hearty" type made familiar by "Bartimeus" and the Press. His troopships "plough their way across the leagues of ocean towards the great-little island home." The sinking of a ship is "another foul victory for the wretched Hun." It is a pity, because Mr. Doorly has clearly had a wide experience, and gives the fullest account we have yet seen of the intricacies and anxieties of convoy organisation and escort work, though the convoy of his stories is a primitive affair compared with the perfected form of 1918. He is technically accurate and very thorough, and does not shrink from explaining such complexities as the methods of "zigzagging," and he has an eye for the humorous sides of submarine warfare. But his accounts of exciting moments frankly do not excite, and the merchant captain who says "'Tut-tut,' swallowing a lump in his throat," does not move us as perhaps he should. Yet it is an interesting little book, and until the theme receives the treatment it deserves, we hope it will be read.

This is a useful and interesting book. It is, as Mr. Boswell says in his Preface, a series of essays. In these essays he deals with the Polish people, their national characteristics, their country, history, literature, music, and art, their industry and commerce, and their future. Poland, which has for centuries exercised a fascination over the romantic mind, always makes good reading; and Mr. Boswell communicates his enthusiasm. He is perhaps not altogether untouched by that partisanship which seems almost inevitably to fall upon the foreigner who becomes intimately associated with any nation. The truth is that all the peoples of the earth have so many good qualities that it is impossible for anyone who is brought into contact with any one of them not to feel for it occasionally as a lover or a child. Mr. Boswell certainly feels for Poland as a lover, and his book is none the worse for that. At first, however, we thought that he was to prove one of those whose love of a particular nation engenders hate of other nations. Indeed, we hardly think that he is altogether fair to Russians, Jews, and others. But his prejudices are mild compared to those of most historians, and, despite his frank bias towards the Polish outlook, when he comes to deal with so vexed a question as that of the Ukraine he displays a praiseworthy impartiality.

Every man is more or less an athlete, and training begins in the cradle and ends with the grave—at least it should do. Unfortunately many people of our generation were brought up in the languid atmosphere of Victorianism where ill-health was tolerated, almost worshipped. In due time we went to school—if it was summer we played cricket; if winter, we played football; if spring, we ran races and jumped jumps and threw hammers; but as for any real education in physical culture or athletics we had none. Every young athlete should readSuccess in Athletics, for in it he will find very simple and very excellent advice as to how to train for every branch of field sport. The elements of success upon which stress is laid are as follows: First, to choose a branch of athletics suitable to the build of the individual. Second, to build up the necessary muscles by training at home and in the gymnasium long before practices are carried out on the track. Third, to study the scientific side of the particular sport chosen, so as to acquire a perfect style and to economise energy to the utmost extent.

The book begins very properly with a tribute of respect to athletes who have fallen in the war; then chapters follow on running, jumping, hurdling, and throwing weights of all descriptions; there are also chapters on diet, massage, and clothing, and an appendix on leg exercises. The book is illustrated with admirable photographs, but it is a pity that these are not placed more in accordance with the text. The chapter on "Hurdling" is among the best. The hurdler must be "tall, fairly slim, and well 'split up,'" which being interpreted means that his height must be contained in his legs rather than in his body. He must build up the strength of his legs by special exercises, such as high kicking, the splits, and skipping; and there is yet another admirable exercise—the athlete, in a sitting position, puts himself into the attitude of a hurdler topping a hurdle, the left leg is stretched straight out, the right leg is at right angles to it, the knee is bent and the inside of the leg is resting on the ground. The exercise consists in raising the body so that only the left heel and the inner side of the right calf are resting on the ground. It is a most painful and excellent exercise.

We are glad to see that in the chapter on diet athletes are warned against an excess of meat; one good meat meal a day is all that is recommended. Meat, besides its nourishment, contains many poisonous substances which are with difficulty eliminated from the system. Many a good athlete has been wasted through inattention to this fact. The chapter on massage is to our mind inadequate.

In the last chapter the following passage occurs: "... it is felt that a new epoch of athleticism in Great Britain is about to commence—that an entirely new breed of athletes will arise or be recruited from the ranks of those who through four and a half years of war have learned the true meaning of discipline and the importance of close attention to the least little detail of instruction." Now we all feel that something good must come after all this suffering and slaughter; the Briton has proved that he is possessed of true greatness; how can this greatness be turned to full account? Let us give up once for all this idea of record-breaking and producing freaks who can jump an inch higher than any other man or throw a hammer a foot farther. At best that is a very low ideal, and such over-specialisation produces ugliness and unhealthiness. The only kind of athlete that we want to contemplate is the all-round athlete who can run fast and far, jump high and broad, and have sufficient strength for heavy events. An instance of what we mean occurs in this book—the pictures of A. E. Flaxman show a magnificent athlete of about eleven stone; such a man would have to compete in heavy events with mountains of flesh weighing twenty stone; hence all Flaxman's symmetryand grace and style are wasted, and the mountain wins the points for his side. This is all wrong. We should abandon the practice of selecting one athlete for one event. We should have teams composed of all-round athletes, each of whom competes in all events; these athletes will not break records, but they will be super-athletes such as a great nation should aim at producing. When we have got rid of this odious specialisation it will be time to aim still higher, and produce not only the all-round athlete but the all-round man, made up of mind, character, and muscle, all developed to the utmost extent.

The late Mr. Lilly was a Roman Catholic journalist who combined attachment to his faith with adherence to a benevolent paternalism in politics. This posthumous volume, edited by Dr. William Barry, is partly concerned with political and sociological problems, though there are two essays onMemoryandSleepwhich do little but review current opinion on those two functions. The political essays suffer from their date. Although fond of appeals to history, Mr. Lilly discusses the affairs of the moment from the angle of the moment; there is much talk of universality, but very little application. Indeed at times one doubts if he could have seen the precise significance of his opinions. For instance, he was a determined opponent of democracy, and quotes with approval Mill's statement that "Equal voting is in principle wrong"; and he proceeds to state a doctrine of political justice which does not differ in principle from that stated by Trotsky. Where Mr. Lilly and Trotsky would differ is, of course, on the question into whose hands political power was to be put. Also one finds it difficult to understand how a Roman Catholic can agree—as Mr. Lilly does—with Ibsen's creed, "The minority is always right." Here are Mr. Lilly's words:

If there is one lesson written more legibly than another in the annals of the world it is that majorities are almost always wrong; but that is the prerogative of minorities—nay, it may even be of a minority of one. That is the verdict of history. It holds good of all ages.

Mr. Lilly might contend that he is not bound to square his opinions with St. Augustine'sSecurus judicat orbis terrarum; but how can his statement be reconciled with the practice of his Church? All General Councils, which decide Catholic dogma, have come to their decisions by taking a vote and accepting the verdict of the majority. This has been so from the Council of Jerusalem to the Vatican Council. Are we to believe that only in matters ecclesiastical the minority is wrong?

Mr. Lilly was also rather apt to substitute mere statement for argument. Thus, in discussing the modern position of women, he writes:

Of course reason itself declares that on the physical and psychical inequality of the sexes, and on the willing obedience of the weaker, the happiness of both depends. It is the lesson which Shakespeare has worked out, with consummate art, in theTaming of the Shrew.

It is evident that, whatever may be thought by a modern man or woman about the equality of the sexes, no satisfactory argument can be based on the premise that women's physical and psychical inferiority is an axiom. In his discussion on Socialism and on Trades Unions, Mr. Lilly displays the same incapacity to understand his opponent's starting-point. He has plenty of sense and a desire for fairness which makes him quote Aquinas' declaration on riches—that they are only lawful if they are possessed justly and used in a proper manner for the owner and others—and apply it to modern fortunes. His last essay is on Newman, and is rather inadequate, as it appears to have been written without reference to Mr. Wilfrid Ward's life. It is too early to write about that excessivelyhuman, lovable spirit in the artificial language of the official hagiographer: there are, however, sentences which arouse interest. We do not remember seeing it stated before that, late in life, Newman "perused translations ofThe Critiques of the PureandThe Practical Reason, pen in hand—that was his usual way—and made some notes on them." It would be interesting to see these notes.

This brief essay on Emerson is marked by enthusiasm, and shows evidence of a wide acquaintance with Emerson's works, but is otherwise unremarkable. Mr. Hill gives a brief biography of his hero, and then discusses him in relation to his views on religion, science, with chapters on Emerson's style, poetry, and criticism. His last chapter is a briefrésuméofEnglish TraitsandRepresentative Men, treating those very readable books as if they were essays in some unknown language. Mr. Hill's own opinions hardly inspire one with confidence in his capacity to interpret emotions.

Beautiful language, true poetry, often contains little truth and not much passion; we feel that the poetry is in the beauty of the images evoked, or in the sheer unanalysable charm of the words as sounds, or—more generally—both combined. The more "thought" there is in poetry the less poetical it is.

There is much virtue in inverted commas, and no doubt "thought" is absent from theAntigone, theDivina Commedia,Hamlet,Paradise Lost,Tintern Abbey, andThe Ring and the Book; but we cannot follow Mr. Hill in his contention that these poems lack truth or passion. Nor indeed can we remember any poem of which his remark would be true. Mr. Hill's observations on Emerson's style and his biographical portions of the essay are not quite so off the mark. Few readers will accept his very high estimate of Emerson, and he fails to remove our suspicion that the great American writer, who was never known to laugh, was at times perilously near being an ordinary prig. As to Emerson's influence on his contemporaries and successors, it is generally underestimated. TheEssaysin particular are always a delight to youth, and are read with avidity by boys at the most impressionable age. A great deal of modern individualism, of modern defiance, which is often put down to the discredit of Ibsen, or Nietzsche, or Blake, is really due to Emerson. He was the first eminent man to preach disobedience as an ethical duty; his conscience was always uneasy if he caught himself conforming; and this uneasiness, which a more vigorous man in a more natural society would have recognised as an emotional mood, Emerson distorted into a kind of council of perfection. "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist," he proclaims exaltedly, not seeing that this sentiment has, as a generalisation, already been contradicted by his birth and his marriage, and is to be finally quashed by his death.

It was quite time that we had in English a standard treatise on gyroscopic motion. Space is, of course, devoted to the subject in various well-known text-books on rigid dynamics, and there are one or two good little books of an elementary nature, such as Perry'sSpinning Topsand Crabtree'sSpinning Tops and Gyroscopic Motion, but hitherto the man in search of detailed information on problems concerning tops in the widest sense has had to go to Klein and Sommerfeld'sTheorie des Kreisels, if he could not find what he wanted in Sir George Greenhill'sReport. That Professor Gray should be theman to supply our want is only fitting. At the University of Glasgow, where he succeeded to the chair of Natural Philosophy left vacant by Lord Kelvin's death, an interest in gyroscopic motion is traditional, and Professor Gray inherited a collection of apparatus for experiment in this field which he has extended by many ingenious and convenient forms of gyroscope described in the book before us. His own researches on the general dynamics of gyroscopic systems have added clearness to that branch of applied mathematics, and his son is an expert in the design and application of practical gyrostats. A judicious combination of experimental and theoretical treatment forms the great attraction of Professor Gray's book.

The problems of gyroscopic motion range from the behaviour of the schoolboy's top to that of this great top, the earth, and include a great number of engineering applications. The torpedo is kept in its course by a gyroscope; the gyroscopic compass, which makes no use of magnetic properties, has rendered possible the navigation of a submerged submarine; Schlich invented a gyroscopic apparatus, which has been tried successfully in small ships, for keeping a vessel from rolling in a rough sea; with Brennan's monorail the car is kept upright by means of a gyroscopic device; and many other ingenious uses have been made of the seemingly paradoxical properties of spinning tops. The gyroscopic compass is, unfortunately, not treated in Professor Gray's book, nor is there any account of other naval and military applications of the gyroscope, since the author, finding that the official secrecy, necessarily imposed at the time of writing, would prevent him giving anything but a fragmentary account, has preferred to reserve his discussion of these appliances to a promised second volume. Very little is said of the monorail (in fact, Brennan's name is not mentioned), which is less explicable. Many practical applications of gyroscopic theory to such problems as the drift of projectiles, golf balls, and boomerangs (the last-named treated necessarily in a very general manner) come up for consideration, and the forgotten diabolo, child of a passing craze, is resurrected to provide an example of the effect of equality of the principal moments of inertia on the stability of rotation of a body under no forces. Most attention is, however, given to the first two subjects mentioned above—the top spinning on a flat surface, and the earth spinning through space—which are, of course, the classical problems in rotational dynamics. It need scarcely be said that Sir George Greenhill's work is abundantly cited.

"In the present work my aim has been to refer, as far as possible, each gyrostatic problem directly to first principles, and to derive the solutions by steps which could be interpreted at every stage of the progress," says the author in his preface, and he has followed this aim with considerable success. It is, of course, impossible to treat many of the problems of rotational dynamics without mathematical analysis of some complexity, and a knowledge of elliptic functions and such-like weapons of the applied mathematician lies, perhaps, outside the scope of the average engineer and inventor. Professor Gray, who deplores the present ignorance of inventors in the matter of gyroscopic motion, has kept the needs of this class before him, and has taken care to arrange his matter so that those who cannot always follow the mathematical exposition given can, at least, gain a clear knowledge of the results. The first chapter, which contains no mathematical symbols, forms an excellent introduction to the subject and is quite elementary, and elsewhere in the book, when practical problems, such as the drift of a projectile, are being discussed, the nature of the investigation is stated as simply as may be. Throughout the inquiry is illustrated, as far as possible, by experiment and diagram.

"Les Anglais enseignent la méchanique comme une science expérimentale; sur le continent, on l'expose toujours plus ou moins comme une science déductive eta priori. Ce sont les Anglais qui ont raison, cela va sans dire." In these words, the late Henri Poincaré, the greatest mathematician of his generation, praised the British tradition ofteaching dynamics as an experimental subject, which is so well maintained in this book. Some specialists, no doubt, will find minor omissions in their subject, but, on the whole, with the exceptions already noted, the book is very complete. It is printed with the well-known elegance in all that pertains to mathematical symbols of the firm of Robert Maclehose, and the general production is very good. We do not understand, however, why the illustrations in the first chapter are nearly all reproduced a second time further on in the book, especially as they are mostly photographs of apparatus, which do not necessitate frequent reference. And—the question that has to be asked so often with English books—why is the index so defective?

It is stated in the preface that the material of thisPractical Guide to Efficient Livinghas been used extensively as a correspondence course, so that anyone who is thinking of paying pounds to be taught by post how to be efficient can save most of his money. All the most notable authorities on Efficiency—Ike Marvel, Buddha, Arnold Bennett, Walter Dill Scott, Prentice Mulford, Yoritomo-Tashi, and Baudelaire (to what the last-named said is added what he might have said)—are quoted, and many varieties of type and a liberal use of capital letters add to the strenuousness of the book. There is much about Ideals ("Ultimate and Other Ideals") and much about Money, much about Character Formation and much about Vocational Efficiency. We attribute our own inefficiency largely to the fact that we cannot whistle, for this seemingly trivial accomplishment is of far-reaching use—"Whistle and wear a smile for fifteen minutes, and you will most assuredly begin to feel cheerful"; "Sing and whistle as you dress." But, again, we have not done the essential thing, which is, we are told, to read the lessons of the Course again and again, and to devote close thought to them. Alas, we fell a victim to Waning Will, a fault early handled in the book, and although somewhat comforted to learn that it is a "common form of weakness," we could not bring ourselves to adopt the cure, which is "When a resolution is formed, record it definitely in your file under the head of Ideals, Aspirations, Tasks, Duties, or other appropriate designation." The appropriate designation for the reading of this book is undoubtedly Task. The author, who has also written books entitledEfficiencyandThe Psychology of a Sale, is a man who has evidently obeyed his own great precept, "Don't admit any limit to your attainment and capacity." His intense self-respect will prevent him feeling hurt on learning that a smile is the only aid to efficiency which we have derived from his book.

Medical research bears so directly on the well-being of every one of us that it is astonishing that more people do not take an interest in it. The existing indifference may be attributed partly to the lack of good popular books describing recent advances in an easily comprehensible way, partly to the nomenclature adopted by the medical profession, which is apt to frighten the layman into imagining that the exotic polysyllables in question can be used only for phenomena of unimaginable complexity and obscurity. Complex they always are, of course, with the complexity of all natural manifestations, but very often the main lines of the problems which have arisen, and the methods of attack, can be stated in plain language. The book before us, which deals with the profoundly interesting subject of anaphylaxis, is not avowedly written for the enlightenment of the public, yet it is in most parts accessible to anybody with a slight knowledge of medicine, and, not being a "popular" book, it has the advantage of being free fromthe erroneous generalisations so often introduced in presenting a branch of science to the lay reader. The subject is described as one still in the course of development, and is not given that false air of completion so dear to the populariser.

The phenomena of anaphylaxis are among the most striking in medical science, and have only recently been investigated, for although isolated cases of what we should now call anaphylaxis had been previously noted, Richet was the first to show the significance and extent of the subject in his memoir of 1902, in which he established many of the most important points. The essence of anaphylaxis is that the injection into an animal of a small quantity of one of certain substances—which in some cases are, and in others are not, poisons (with a poison the dose must, of course, be less than the fatal one)—puts the animal in a particular sensitive state, so that a very small second injection produces fatal results of a very violent and well-marked character. Some time must elapse after the first injection for the sensitive state to establish itself, and the second injection must be of exactly the same nature as the first, this latter fact constituting the so-called specificity of the anaphylactic effect. This specificity has been applied for identifying blood of a doubtful source, since an animal which has been sensitised with an injection of blood from a given species is sensitive only to blood of the same species. Further, the blood of an animal in the sensitive state can be used to render another animal sensitive, a result known as passive anaphylaxis.

The important bearing of anaphylaxis on clinical practice is obvious. With therapeutic sera accidents have been fairly common in the past, grave effects following a second injection; this is a pure anaphylactic phenomenon. Much research has been done to find out methods of preventing the anaphylactic shock, and the most important advances in the field of anti-anaphylaxis are due to Dr. Besredka. His book naturally devotes much space to this aspect of the study, and gives details of the successful technique which he has developed. He worked mainly on guinea-pigs, having obtained extreme regularity of reaction with these animals. His most important result, both from the theoretical and the practical standpoint, is that vaccination against anaphylaxis can be produced by a system of gradually increasing doses, starting with the injection of a very small amount of the substance in question. This has led to a routine for serum injection by graduated doses, which has been successful in averting serum sickness. Besredka's interpretation of his results is against Richet's theory that the second injection combines with a substance, the toxogenin, present in the serum as a consequence of the first injection, and so produces a poison, the apotoxin. He considers rather that the reaction of the injected substance, the antigen, with the substance already formed (which he calls sensibilisin) itself produces the fatal result by disturbing the equilibrium of certain nerve cells where the combination takes place. By graduating the doses the reaction is watered down into a series of slight shocks, so that the great shock produced by a single injection is spread over a comparatively large time, and becomes innocuous. He finds an analogy between the effect and the mixing of water and sulphuric acid. If the water is poured in quickly there is an explosive action, but if it is added gradually the combination takes place without violence. "In our opinion the anaphylactic poison does not exist."

There are a great number of interesting experiments cited in the book which we cannot mention here. The translator has done his work well, although we do not like some of his importations from the French. It should not be impossible to find expression more English than "titre of toxicity" and "fulminating cases." He has added an excellent chapter on "Recent Work on Anaphylaxis." We are glad to see at last a short work in English on the subject, which is one of the most fascinating fields in modern medicine. Somebody should translate and bring up to date Richet's excellent little book. It is a pity that the nomenclature of the subject cannot be made uniform.

This new series is rather pompously announced as striving to build "up the New Humanism on the basis of the student's immediate economic interest and environment" (which implies a considerable modification of the accepted meaning of Humanism). We translate this as meaning that it is intended to give the reader some idea of the various sciences and arts as they find application in industry and commerce. This is a worthy object, and, on the whole, the books are simple and interesting expositions of the utilitarian aspect of the sciences in question. There is, perhaps inevitably, a tendency to hurry over fundamental difficulties which will not, we think, leave an intelligent student satisfied. For instance, to say that a force is whatever changes motion, without further explanation, may well puzzle the reader, who knows that he can push against a heavy stone without producing any apparent motion. However, there is a distinct place for books of this general character, which do good work by showing to a wide audience the peaceful achievements of science and its practical aspects; they act as a counterblast to the deadening tradition of rule of thumb. The industrial chemistry is particularly comprehensive, and has an excellent set of original diagrams of industrial plant. The series is well printed and well illustrated, and, for present times, moderately priced. It deserves wide recognition.

It is not often that a book appears describing an essential advance in pure mathematics which is intelligible to the man of moderate attainments in that science—by moderate attainments we mean such knowledge of mathematics as is picked up in one or two years at a university. Dr. Silberstein, who is well known in this country for his original work, especially in connection with the theory of relativity, has, in hisProtective Vector Algebra, developed his latest researches in geometry in a form which is attractive and free from pedantic formalities, and has throughout aimed at simplicity of expression, in contrast to certain modern mathematicians who endeavour to lend importance to minor conventional problems by a bewildering display of definitions and theorems. The essential novelty of the book, from which the whole theme is developed, is the generalised definition of the addition of vectors, which does not need any construction of parallel lines, but depends solely on a straight line construction making use of the points where the vectors cut an arbitrary fixed straight line. Dr. Silberstein's definition is a generalisation of the Euclidean one, to which it reduces if the arbitrary line just mentioned is moved away to infinity, and if the space is Euclidean. The knowledge of geometry which is demanded is little more than the usual postulates of projective geometry and Desargues' theorem. From his definition the author proceeds to prove the associative law, and then, after dealing with the equality of non-coinitial vectors, gives many interesting uses of the generalised vector algebra. The proof of Pascal's theorem gives a striking example of the power and simplicity of the new method, and the whole treatment of conics will delight the student of projective geometry. Altogether the book is a very original and striking contribution to a fascinating branch of mathematics.

By J. H. MASON

THEimportant work done by the private presses of the last twenty-five years will probably be found to be in its results more far-reaching than that done in any other artistic craft. For, in addition to giving the world monumental editions of chosen works, such as theKelmscott Chaucer, theDoves Bible, and theAshendene Dante, they have set up the right standards in type lettering, margins, spacing, paper, illustration, and binding.

Even in binding they have set a standard that can be widely applied; for the linen back and paper sides that were good enough for a Kelmscott Press book set an example of wholesome plainness that has done a great deal to improve the task of publisher and public. The publisher of this generation is in strong reaction, as a rule, against the cloth gilt extra of his father and grandfather.The Artistic Crafts Series, edited by Professor W. R. Lethaby, is a notable example of such a plain, useful cover. One of the earliest, the first I think, of this series was that dealing with Bookbinding, and doubtless this was largely the cause of the series starting right in the matter of covers. One regrets that there wasn't a printer available to have influenced the choice of type and dimensions of the page—the series that is satisfactory in both respects has not yet been published.

Type, paper, proportions of printed page and margins, and finally the cover, are the chief matters to be considered in producing a satisfactory book, and all of these cost no more—with the exception of paper—when right than when they are unsatisfactory. Even in the matter of paper, there is a wide range of choice, in normal times, at every price above the very cheapest.

One generally sees the best attempts at book-production in small volumes of verse. Some of them are very attractive and show that care and thought have been spent in producing them. Yet, as a rule, they show some weakness, some lapse, to which the amateur is liable. The little book of verse,Arcades Ambo, by Lily Dougall and Gilbert Sheldon, published by Blackwell of Oxford, is an instance. A pleasant type, based on that of Jenson, the Venetian printer, pleasing both in design and weight (the thin lines are not in strong contrast to the thicks), predisposes us in favour of the book at first glance. The normal margins are good without being excessive, but they are spoilt on most openings by the dropped beginnings of each poem. Thus, on pages 22, 23, instead of the tail margins being three-quarters of an inch more than the head margins (the normal), they are practically equal. The result is that the type appears uncomfortably low on the page. Yet the good Venetian capital lines would have given an excellent line to the top of the page. The three-line initials are not in keeping with the capitals of the text; for their thin strokes are in too great a contrast with their thick strokes. Moreover, they are of a different shape—note the "T" in the text, and compare with the initial on page 22. The little black ornament in the headlines and the arrangement of the title-page and the label are also unsatisfactory. The press work is good, the inking of the type being full and even, and does the good design of the type full justice.

Another book with pleasant margins—perhaps a little more at the head would have been an improvement—is Max Beerbohm'sSeven Men, published by Wm. Heinemann. (Miss Dane'sLegendis, roughly, uniform with it.) To secure a good foredge margin without unduly shortening the line the book is half an inch wider than the ordinary crown octavo; this gives a squarer format, which is much preferable to the ordinary octavo. Such a format, too, gives the binder, in case the book is thought worth a leather binding, a chance to make a good design for the sides—the ordinary octavo precludes certain good designs. I cannot commend the "modern" type which has been chosen for this book; but I will discuss "modern" type on some other occasion.

New York, November, 1919

AMERICANlife, as it now is, would seem to make original literary production almost impossible. Energy here cannot work distinctively; it is forced at its very birth into one or the other prepared channel. No one who has not lived in this country can have any conception of the unrelenting and unremitting drive that would subdue, and does subdue, all thought, all feeling, to mediocrity. It is a drive of vast circumference: no single activity, whether political or artistic or religious, can escape it. Religion, indeed, it has destroyed; there is no religion in America. The experiences of religion can only be felt by the man who has realised himself as an individual terribly separate and distinct from all others—an individual whose soul has awful significance as a thing-in-itself, a thing eternally unmatched, forever recognisable by God. Such conceptions cannot breathe the American air: neither terror nor awe nor mystery have room within the borders of this sceptical and destructive continent. The implacable rule prevails: that the soul may have no adventures of its own.

"Adventures," indeed, there are, and many. You can go in for anything you like—everybody does—provided that you go in for it in groups. You may present yourself for the smearing of a particular brush, you may band yourself with those who have received a similar treatment. You may become a "society man," a church worker, a Bolshevik revolutionary, a philanderer, a writer ofvers libre, a "realistic" sex-novelist, a Cubist, or a Futurist; but whatever you become, you will always know precisely where you are and precisely what will come of your being there. Every square inch of your region will be defined. And the conventionalities of every cult are essentially identical; the set phrases of the man about town or the church worker have the same ring as the set phrases of the littérateur. The raisers of the standards of artistic or political revolt will expound their theories in just the same way, except for the mere words, as the business man will expound his. The various samples of modern American "free verse" resemble one another quite as closely—they keep quite as deliberately clear of individual distinction—as do the articles in the magazines of culture or the jokes in the comic sections of the Sunday papers. Their own conventions weigh no less heavily on the unconventional than the most hidebound provincial's do on him. Even the wicked know what is expected of them, and they, no less than the virtuous, answer public expectation. Conventional or unconventional, virtuous or wicked, all enact their ordered and calculable rôles according to schedule; there can be nothing unexpected anywhere, nothing that can startle or embarrass or discomfort or strike wonder.

Can we say, then, that literature, like wickedness and virtue, like religion—and, of course, education—does not, and cannot, exist at all in America? Is it really true that nothing at this moment can be expected from the land of Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman? Has America no authentic poet now writing, no novelist? Even granting that American conditions are intolerable to the man of artistic impulse, and that most artists must be paralysed by them or forced to a sterile cleverness, must there not be some, at least, who will react?—react violently and at least interestingly and with a certain distinction against the pressure of their period? How about Mr. Theodore Dreiser and Mr. Edgar Lee Masters? What of the novels of Mr. Joseph Hergesheimer? Is not Mr. Dreiser at least original? Have not critics of well-reputed judgment written, strongly moved, of his "deep original mysticism"—that mysticism which "penetrates the rough chaotic surface of American life" and "lays bare its primitive foundations"?Has not the genius of Mr. Dreiser been credited with the "impetus of a huge cosmic plough"?

Yes: and in America one can understand an enthusiasm for Mr. Dreiser, but only in America. This writer has courage, that is undeniable: the courage to look with the naked eye at as much of American life as he can bring within his heavily-blinkered vision. It is not a slight thing to have achieved so direct a gaze in a country where sentimental make-believe triumphs more amazingly and more comically than in any other country under the sun. On this account we can forgive Mr. Dreiser his unequalled incapacity for artistic selection, his unvarying preference for making fifty or a hundred sentences do the work of one; we can forgive him the dullness of his æsthetic nerve, his mountainously heaped banalities of phrase, his grinding tediousness, his incoherence, his clumsiness that produces the distressing effect of some obtruded physical deformity. At least he has done something: he has given us a sense of the Middle West that is almost as depressing, almost as spiritually devastating as any that actual contact with the Middle West itself can produce. He is a realist: and it is an extraordinary feat of heroism to be a realist in America. But if Mr. Dreiser had written in any European country, he could not have been read. The tremendous strain that he imposes on his readers is only tolerable because they feel that he is doing something, or, with the throaty groans and gastric rumbles of an elderly Hercules badly out of condition, trying to do something that no one else has found the nerve or the stomach to attempt.

It will be asked if Mr. Edgar Lee Masters has not also the distinction of having dared to tell the truth in a land where, whenever truth shows itself, public opinion is instantly on the alert to suppress it. Does not the author of theSpoon River Anthologyexpose, powerfully and memorably, the vices of the respectable provincial bourgeois, the "Pillars of Society"? But again the question may be raised—did theSpoon River Anthologyenjoy its vogue on account of its power and distinction as a work of art, or on account of the unusualness that lay in the subjection of American material to treatment of the kind? Guy de Maupassant had, long since, the same idea as Mr. Edgar Lee Masters, and de Maupassant executed it with genius. If a European, coming after de Maupassant, after Ibsen, had written such an Anthology from, say, the Potteries, with so much less than de Maupassant's or Ibsen's power, would his work have made any noticeable impression? Time will show—indeed it has done much to show already—how much less formidable Mr. Masters's power is. And how unfortunate that, induced by the success ofSpoon River, Mr. Masters should have committed himself to other verse—rhymed verse, schoolboy exercises limping after models, otiose in expression, commonplace in thought. Mr. Masters writes in America: there is nothing to keep him back.

Mr. Dreiser, it is true, has never done anything quite so deplorable as the later verse of Mr. Masters: the tendencies of the author ofThe TitanandThe Geniusgo another way. Intrigued by the fantasies of pseudo-scientific speculation he has of late taken to writing queerly and embarrassingly juvenile plays and stories about "energies" that form the subject-matter of Physics: he makes ponderous Teutonic play with electrons and the like. Or, stung by the crass persecution of American Puritanism, he writes grimly and solemnly and staidly about lust, turning pornographer out of a quaint and harassed sense of moral duty, or, it may be, merely out of obstinate combativeness, under impulse to retaliation. Mr. Dreiser is at least a phenomenon of psychological interest.

There are no poets who are in any way observable, but there is Mr. Joseph Hergesheimer, whose novels have been highly commended on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, his style, self-conscious though it is, has an unquestionable claim to serious regard. His honesty in characterisation, his vigour, his sense of the running sap of human existence, his energy in narrative, all mark him out. We can hardly, after ourlater experience of them, expect any new values, any development, from Mr. Dreiser or from Mr. Masters; we can justifiably expect a good deal more from Mr. Hergesheimer than we have yet had, for he has only begun.The Three Black PennysandJava Headpoint the way perhaps to much more considerable novels. Mr. Hergesheimer, far less unsurely than any other American writer of to-day, gives us hope for the future of American literature. To anyone familiar with the conditions of American life, it is amazing that he should have been able to write so well, to advance so far under so heavy a handicap. But, of course, no conditions of life are all-powerful. The individual will in the end escape from under the blight and the burden of any general mass whatsoever; partial evasions herald complete release. In ten years time, maybe—or in twenty—there will be very different letters to be written from America.

News there is little. Mr. Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, the one American writer of verse who shows signs of genius, is projecting a visit to England, and Mr. Hugh Walpole, Lord Dunsany, and Mr. Drinkwater are touring the country as so many of their British colleagues have done before. Mr. Walpole's addresses are very popular. Mr. Drinkwater has been more than once to Springfield, the shrine of Abraham Lincoln, in whom he now has a sort of property, and Lord Dunsany has been lecturing to a large audience at the Æolian Hall in this city. His reception was marred by excited interruptions from patriotic Irishwomen who wanted to know why he had ignored the grievances of his country. In a despairing way he repeated again and again, "I am a poet, not a politician."

R. E. C.

THEinfluence of the war is plainly seen in the Society's programme for the coming session, and the prospect of exploring the ancient seats of civilisation hitherto under Turkish rule will give general satisfaction. The Latin monastic buildings of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre will be described and illustrated, and a mosaic pavement found at Um Jerar during the advance in Palestine will be discussed. In Mesopotamia official excavations have been carried out at Ur of the Chaldees, Abu Shahrain, and El-Obeid; a Sumerian figure has been found, dating from the pre-Semitic period; and a marble slab of about 1200A.D., carved with a double-headed eagle, has found its way to the British Museum from the neighbourhood of Diarbekr. The heraldry of Cyprus and recent excavations in that island are other items from abroad; but discoveries at home will not be neglected. The megalithic monument known as Wayland's Smithy (caricatured by Scott inKenilworth) was thoroughly examined last summer; a report is promised on excavations at Templeborough, a Roman camp between Sheffield and Rotherham; and a small ivory carving of the later Anglo-Saxon period from St. Cross will take rank as a rarity of peculiar charm. It reached Winchester Museum unprotected among a miscellaneous collection of fossils.

The Society was just preparing to recover from the loss it suffered by the death of Dr. Furnivall when the war broke out. The officials had to do their best to keep the Society going whilst many members were away. A tentative unofficial revival of the annual report was made official and permanent, but several winter meetings were suppressed on grounds of war economy. The question of a proposed official phonetic transcription came before the Council, which also considered that of adhesion—as a section—to the British Association. In 1917 the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Society's foundation was celebrated. Recent publications includeThe Tale of the Armament of Igor,A.D.1185, translated from the Russian by Leonard A. Magnus; an address on Jacob Grimm; and a paper by Sir James Wilson, K.C.S.I., onThe Dialect of the New Forest in Hampshire(as spoken in the village of Burley). The President this year is Sir Israel Gollancz, and the secretary Mr. Leonard C. Wharton, of 31 Greville Road, N.W. 6. Forthcoming meetings (at University College) will be held on December 5th, January 9th, and February 6th, the subjects beingExisting Parts of Speech Distinctions have no Topical Basis(Mr. H. O. Coleman),A Middle English Topic(Sir I. Gollancz), andThe Perception of Sound(Dr. W. Perrett). New members are wanted. The subscription is a guinea.

We are hearing at the present moment a good deal about the Enabling Bill, and considerable interest has been evinced at the large majority which approved its second reading. This is not without its bearing on a matter in which the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings feels very strongly—i.e., that the laity should not only have a voice in church legislation, but that where church buildings (which may legitimatelybe looked on as national possessions of the highest value) are concerned the public has a right to know of improvements or additions which may be in contemplation, and to express its approval or disapproval of any such scheme.

Two cases which have come to the notice of the Society within the last two months have brought this subject again to the fore. In the present condition of things the Dean and Chapter of a Cathedral can exercise an arbitrary ruling over the structure under its charge which none can gainsay.

In certain cases, doubtless, no great harm may result even from the arbitrary decision of a small body of men who may or may not have any architectural or archæological knowledge, but the past bears many glaring instances in which succeeding generations have had good reason to deplore that in a preceding age a Dean and Chapter has held undisputed sway and worked its will.

What is needed is that it should be made illegal to add to or alter a cathedral—in fact, to do anything beyond ordinary works of upkeep (which do not involve removing stones or timbers from the structure)—without the permission of either the advisory board set up under the Ancient Monuments Act (1913), or, if the church would prefer it, some advisory board on which the opinion of such societies as the Society of Antiquaries, the Royal Institute of British Architects, and this Society would be represented equally with the dignatories of the church. This is a case about which the public should express its opinion so strongly that a revision of the existing system would inevitably follow.

The Egypt Exploration Fund is arranging a series of lectures to be given in the rooms of the Royal Society, Burlington House (by the kind permission of the President and Council). The lectures are primarily for the benefit of its own members and subscribers, but others will be admitted by tickets, which can be obtained gratis by application to the Secretary of the Egypt Exploration Fund, 13 Tavistock Square, W.C.1. The first of these lectures was delivered on Friday, November 21st, at 8.30 p.m. The chair was taken by Professor Percy G. Newberry, and the lecture, entitled "The Egyptian Origin of the Alphabet," was given by Mr. T. Eric Peet, who urged the view that both the North Semitic and South Semitic alphabets, from which together the Greek alphabet was derived, were derived in their turn from a common source which was taken, on the acrophonic principle, from Egyptian hieroglyphics. This argument is largely based on the inscriptions discovered in 1905 at Serâbît-el-Khâdim, in the Sinai peninsula, by an expedition of the Egypt Exploration Fund. The fund has recently published a pamphlet dealing with its aims and accomplishments, in which it is pointed out that Egyptology to-day demands more precise and scientific methods than were formerly employed, and that, as Egypt is now a protectorate of the British Empire, the responsibility for safeguarding the records of its history must be accepted by this country in a fuller measure than heretofore.

At a meeting of the Royal Numismatic Society on November 20th, Mr. Harold Mattingly read a paper on "The Republican Origins of the Roman Imperial Coinage." His main contention was that the Imperial coinage was the direct successor not of the Republican mint of Rome, but of the coinage of the "Imperator" in the provinces, as issued from about 83B.C.onwards. He traced the history of military coinages under the Republic and brought evidence to show that it was not till about the time of Sulla that the "Imperator" himself exercised the right of striking coins. He then showed how out of this provincial coinage the coinage of the triumvirs naturally developed, and againfrom that coinage of Augustus. Augustus chose to found his system on this basis in view of the failure of the triumvirs, following in the steps of Julius Cæsar, to establish a personal coinage at the Republican mint of Rome.

This Association celebrated its sixtieth anniversary on December 7th, 1918, when a Lecture was delivered by Major Sir Douglas Mawson, in the Architectural Theatre, University College, Gower Street, W.C.1, on "The Glaciation of Antarctica." During 1919 several important papers have been read, including the Annual Address by the President, Mr. J. F. N. Green, B.A., F.G.S., on "The Vulcanicity of the Lake District" and a paper on "Old Age and Extinction in Fossils," by Dr. W. D. Lang. Three parts of the Proceedings for 1919 have already been published containing a full report of Dr. Lang's paper, another paper by the same authority on "The Evolution of Ammonites," and the Presidential Address by the Past-President, Mr. George Barrow, F.G.S., on "Some Future Work for the Geologists' Association," which is an interesting and exhaustive study of the post-Eocene deposits of clays, sands and gravels, older than the River Terrace deposits. The Proceedings also contain accounts of the excursions made to certain places of geological interest during the year. At Easter an excursion was conducted to the Bristol District by Professor S. H. Reynolds and Mr. J. W. Tutcher, and at Whitsuntide the Association visited the Isle of Wight, under the guidance of Mr. G. W. Colenutt and Mr. R. W. Hooley. Llangollen was selected as the district for the "Long Excursion" in August, and about forty members spent a week in the study of the Ordovician, Silurian and Carboniferous systems of the neighbourhood. Mr. L. J. Wills, M.A., F.G.S., was the Conductor. Excursions were also made to Sevenoaks, Farnham, Berkhamstead, Codicote (Herts), St. George's Hill (Weybridge), Box Hill, Headley Heath and Epsom. The first meeting of the Winter Session was held at University College on November 7th, which was followed by a conversazione. Many exhibits were made of Fossils and Flint Implements. Mr. Llewellyn Treacher showed a fine specimen, one of the largest known, of a flattened, pear-shaped late Chellean implement, 12½ inches long, recently found in the Maidenhead gravels; a slab of shale studded with Graptolites, from the Tarannon of Peebleshire, was exhibited by Mr. R. J. A. Eckford; and Mr. J. Francis showed many fine examples of Jurassic Ammonites and Belemnites, illustrating chambers, septa, siphuncles and sutures.

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