Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/595

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REIEWS 573 1, The Unearned Increment, By ?ILLIAM 1890, HARBUTT DAWSON, 2, Luxury, By ?]MILE DE L?V?LEY?, 1891, 3, The Working Class Movement in America, EL?aSOR M?RX AWL?a, 2rid edition, By EDWARD and 1891, 4, The Evolution of Property from Savagery to PXUL L?.FXROU?., 1890, Civilisation, By 5, The Purse and the 1891, Conscience, By HERBERT THOMPSON, 6, Crime and its Causes, 1891, By WILLIAM DOUt?LAS London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co, MORRISON, 1r any definite proof were required of the g?)wing interest felt by the English public in the discussion of social questions, it might be abundantly supplied by the series of which these volumes form part, Messrs, Swan Sonnenschein and Co, have already issued upwards of thirty volumes of their Social Science Series, and more are announced as being ' in active preparation,' The series might, indeed, have proved of more permanent value, if some endeavour had been made to impart to it a greater unity of character and similarity of treatment, The opinions of the writers, and the ?nethods of arrangement which they adopt, are as varied as the amount of printed matter contained in each volume and the quality of the results achieved, Such a series must necessarily include books of unequal value, but we are inclined to think that in this case the publishers have made too large a concession to the advantages of unifor?nity of outward size, and that they have strained to its utmost lim, its the elastic comprehension of even that vague and catholic term, social science, The t3?e of the different volumes varies so much that some are little longer than an expandeel magazine article, and others reach the dimensions of a small treatise; and the views of the different writers exhibit a like divergence. The particular volumes now before us illustrate these points, Dr, and Mrs, Aveling and M, Lafargue write from the standpoint of disciples of Karl Marx; but Mr, Thompson criticises adversely the creed and proposals of the scientific socialism of which Marx is the chief exponent, and M, de Laveleye may be said to occupy an intermediate position, His contribution to the series, again, extends to little more than the length of an article in a magazine; and in order to satisfy the requirements of the ,noderate size adopted by Messrs, Swan Sonnen- schein and Co,, an essay of a similar character and length on Law and Morals in Political Economy is appended, But Mr, Morrison's book on the other hand is of a d?fferent nature, It is a treatise on the