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NEW BOOKS. 12$ conduct is determined mainly by its ancestry. After character, ideas, and particularly religious ideas, are the most important factors in the evolution of a civilisation. The possession of a small number of highly developed minds is what differentiates a superior from an inferior race. Human Immortality : Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine. By W.. JAMES. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1898. Pp. ii., 70. 1.00. This, the Ingersoll lecture for 1898, deals with the two questions: How can we believe in a life hereafter if our inner life is a function of our cerebral convolutions ? and : How can we accept the " incredible and intolerable number of things which, with our modern imagination, we must believe to be immortal, if immortality be true " ? As for the former, the brain either produces consciousness or it merely combines or transmits it. The theory of combination (mind dust) is not here touched on : the theory of transmission is defended as against that of production- As for the latter, " the tiresomeness of an over-peopled heaven is a purely subjective and illusory notion, a sign of human incapacity, a remnant of the old narrow-hearted, aristocratic creed ". The lecture is written with Prof. James' accustomed vigour and brilliancy. The book ends with twenty-four pages of notes and references. Thomas Reid. By A. CAMPBELL FRASER (Famous Scots Series). Edinburgh and London : Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1898. Pp. 160. Price Is. 6d. Not long ago it was very much the fashion to speak disparagingly of Reid. Now the tide has turned. There is good reason for this change of opinion. Reid in his life-long battle against the " doctrine of ideas " was by no means beating the air. It is essentially necessary to emphasise that our knowledge is a knowledge of objects and not of the states of con- sciousness which cognise them. By this simple contention, Reid struck the deathblow of a crowd of fallacies. It is not, however, this part of Reid's work on which Prof. Fraser appears inclined to lay most stress. What appeals to him is rather the doctrine of " common sense ". The appeal to common sense is, as Prof. Fraser points out, a "final appeal to- the divine in man, latent in each individual man, in and through whom the universe is gradually interpreted as a revelation of perfect reason or perfect goodness " (p. 158). No doubt this appeal has a substantial justification,, though it cannot be maintained in the shape which Reid gave to it. It seems scarcely necessary to say that the life of Reid is admirably told by Prof. Fraser. We wish that he had quoted the letter to Dr. Gregory on the Origin of Language, a wonderful anticipation of the results of modern research. The Play of Animals. By K. GROOS. Translated by E. L. BALDWIN, with Preface and Appendix by J. M. BALDWIN. New York : D.. Appleton & Co., 1898. Pp. xxvi., 341. ^ e are glad to welcome Prof. Groos' already famous work in an English dress. The text of the present edition is practically that of the German original, though there are few revisions and omissions. Prof. Baldwin supplies a Preface, which is for the most part a reprint of his review in Science, 26th February, 1897, a number of footnote references, and an Appendix on Organic Selection, reprinted from Science and Nature^ April, 1897.