Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 15.djvu/857

 REVIEWS 843

with what Sumner would call the formation of American folkways and mores.

In describing the influence on American colonial life, of climate, soil, contour, waterways, and occupations, the author is much more successful in his detailed treatment of New England and the South than he is in the opening chapters on the general effects of natural conditions on society. Here he follows Buckle, Spencer, Bagehot, and Huxley, while in the former studies he is obviously guided by Shaler and Semple. If Mr. Low were more familiar with the work of Ratzel, Ripley, and Demolins he would probably attribute less influence to Buckle's "aspect of nature" and more to the indirect effects of nature mediated through economic activities and interests.

Even if this book is likely to prove disappointing to the social psychologist and to the historian, it deserves a hearty welcome among intelligent lay readers. Mr. Low's style, although rather too metaphorical for close scientific treatment, has a true literary quality and gives vividness and force to his presentation. He is primarily a literary, historical essayist although he speaks slightingly of what he calls the "literary entrepreneur" (p. 5). The book as a whole lacks the coherence of a work unified by comprehensive and illumi- nating principles of interpretation. It is significant of the isolation of diflFerent groups of workers that Mr. Low should describe as "a Study in National Psychology" a book based upon biblio- graphy of more than one hundred and fifty titles which include no single work by any contemporary psychologist or psychological sociologist.

G. E. V.

Equal Suffrage. The Results of an Investigation in Colorado for the Collegiate Equal Suffrage League of New York State. By Helen Sumner, Ph.D. New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1909, Pp. xxxvi+282. To those who are interested in woman's suffrage in this country, and who have been watching with some misgivings the methods which have been used for propagandist purposes, if not by the majority, at least by the conspicuous, it is an encouraging sign, first, that a non-partisan and scientific investigation of suffrage should be undertaken by the suffragists themselves and, second, that so prac- tical and useful an undertaking as an examination of the fruits of