Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/719

 REVIEWS 703

preferable to that proposed in the French Parliament. This is a practical book, dealing with one of the most important questions of the day. It is worth consulting as a contribution to the problem of the relations between the proletarians and the capitalists.

L' evolution religieuse et les legendes du christianisme. By G. L.

DUPRAT. Paris, 1904. Pp. 76.

The author has only drawn here the outline of a more complete work. He argues that every religion is a natural fact subject to the laws of natural evolution. He contests Spencer's conception that religions are derived forms of the exercise of political power. But his arguments are not conclusive. The first part of M. Duprat's work is not clear. One must read it several times to catch the mean- ing of the author, and even then one is not quite sure to understand exactly his thought. The second part, regarding the legends of Christianity, is much clearer. After having rapidly studied the religious feeling in Christianity, he examines the account of Jesus and Mary, and lastly primitive Christianity. In this last chapter he treats carefully the question of the persecutions under Nero, and concludes that tradition is inaccurate; the citations of Tacitus, for example, are mere interpolations. In short, this little volume is an interesting contribution to religious sociology.

A. AND H. HAMON.

The American Family: A Sociological Problem. By FRANK N. HAGAR. New York: The University Publishing So- ciety, 1905. Pp. 196.

The author brings to his task the special training of a lawyer and considerable reading in the history of institutions. He dis- cusses sex, theories of primitive and historical forms of domestic life, the decadence of the Yankees, occupations of women, mat- rimonial law, divorce, free love, education, industrial influences, democracy. It is a serious work with a conservative purpose. Perhaps the most useful and instructive parts are the discussions of the decadence in the Yankee stock, the danger of foreign inunda- tion, and the law of property affecting husband and wife. Even here we must turn to Howard for adequate information about the law. The dithyrambic passages in praise of romantic love, which the author calls "intervals of literary rests and elucidations that may appeal to the artistic sense," are precisely the hardest passages