310 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
fellow-beings The worst foe of man is man himself. Under peculiar
circumstances some savage races have lived in such small and fluid groups
that on the whole they have succeeded in avoiding each other Many
savage tribes only unite in the presence of a common danger, and fear is always a potent force in developing functional bonds of union.
I shall hope to learn whether this author concludes that he is wrong and that Professor Giddings is right.
If space permitted, I might comment at length on some of the crudenesses which the book betrays. Examples would be the notion of biology implied on page 15; the harmony (?) of the logical and the chronological (pp. 14, 15); the resurrection of the bugaboo "bio- logical organism" (p. 32 et passim); the solemn rejection of the term "social cohesion" (p. 64), and then the extended exploitation of the parallel term "natural selection" (221-264). A brief conference with any intelligent biologist would inform our author that "natural selec- tion" is today a problem not a solution. Sociology is, therefore, simply pointed to unexplored facts by either of the contrasted phrases.
The chapter which seems to me most successful is that on "The Social Mind." It is more objective and therefore more valuable than the chapter under the same title in Professor Giddings' book.
In spite of the reservations expressed and implied above I welcome the book and heartily recommend it to beginners and teachers of beginners in sociology.
ALBION W. SMALL.
Ban und Leben des socialen Korpers. VON DR. A. SCHAFFLE.
Zweite Auflage. Erster Band ; Allgemeine Sociologie, pp.
xiv-f5/i: M. 12. Zweiter Band; Spezielle Sociologie,
pp. vii+656: M. 12. Tubingen, 1896. Verlag der H?
Laupp'schen Buchhandlung.
THE first edition of this work is known by name to everybody in this country who has pretended to study sociology. It would surprise me to receive proof that twenty people in the United States have a first-hand acquaintance with the substance of the four volumes. Just enough is known about them to permit wholesale misunderstanding and misrepresentation. Since the present edition is compressed, in two volumes, to about half the bulk of its predecessor, and since the impression has been gaining ground that it may, after all, be worth
