132 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
social sciences ; lastly, the relation of theoretical to practical problems. The French authors considered are Lebon, Tarde, Durkheim, Berne's, and Lacombe.
M. Bougl^ attempts to balance peacefully between all these differ- ent methods, but. the position he occupies is probably more noticeable for its eclectic harmony in presentation than it would be for efficiency in practice. A. F. BENTLEY.
Heredity and Christian Problems. By AMORLY H. BRADFORD. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1895. ?? xii-f 281.
THE course of thought traverses biological teaching in respect to heredity and environment, in five chapters ; and then doctrinal and practical problems of religion in the remaining part of the discussion. Of the first part Professor H. H. Donaldson writes: "The author has, in my opinion, chosen good guides and used them wisely, giving a very just balance to opposing views." A general statement of points on which biologists are agreed is made and the controversy between Weismann and his critics is presented.
This leads to a discussion of the psychological and metaphysical doctrines of the will, in which the claim of determinism to be a final- ity is disputed. Of course this controversy is not likely to be settled at once.
Practical applications of the biological doctrines are made in respect to the home. Assuming that his readers accept the Christian sense of duty, he lays upon the conscience the obligation of caution and self- control in respect to unfit marriages, and the perpetuation of a stock in which disease and weakness are inherent. Education must recog- nize heredity and environment. "I emphasize the fact that each child is at first a combination of streams of tendency from past generations, with a mysterious element of personality developing in course of time, to which appeal can be made."
The religious life must deal with pauperism and crime. The sug- gestions made here are sensible and just, though not new nor exhaustive. Their merit lies in showing just where the blind impulses generated by religious fervor come in contact with physical and economic forces, and the direction benevolence must take if it become beneficence. The author deals with the idea that character makes conditions by showing that the regeneration of character is itself effected by shifting the envi-
