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 400 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

under the term adaptation does not change the reality, nor diminish the probability that something quite as radical as imitation gets in its work when a variation is produced. What that something is need not now be asked. In trying to show that imitation is the one essen- tial social process, Tarde has, in spite of himself, made it more evi- dent that imitation is not the only essential social factor.

It ought to be evident by this time to every intelligent sociologist that " imitation " is but one among the unnumbered terms of the multiple working hypothesis which is marking out promising lines of social research.

In spite of M. Tarde's earnest harking back to the minute reali- ties, his reasoning seems to be based at last on a realism that attrib- utes efficient functioning force to abstract ideas. This appears in the closing sentence of the book : " The mutual harmonies of our three terms, repetition, opposition, adaptation, are easily intelligible when we consider progressive repetition as functioning in the service of the adaptation which it extends and develops, in favor sometimes of the opposition which it also conditions. We may also believe that all three labor together for the extension of universal variation under individual and personal forms of the highest order."

Albion W. Small.

Manuelde bibliographie gMrale (Bibliotheca bibliographica nova). Par Henri Stein. Paris : Alphonse Picard et fils, i8q8. Pp. 20-(- 895, large Svo. (Manuels de bibliographic his- torique, II.)

This book comes of good antecedents. Its author, M. Henri Stein, is editor of Le bibliographie moderne, the French organ for the advancement of the science of bibliography, and of Folybiblion, which is doing more than any other periodical in France, or in the world, probably, to exploit the whole field of current bibliography. M. Stein was coeditor with M. C. V. Langlois of Les archives de rhistoire de France, published in 1891-3, which forms the first volume in the series of " Manuels de bibliographie historique," and which has been highly commended. M. Langlois, the coworker of M. Stein, published in 1896 Manuel de bibliographie historique, which, though a small book, is packed with valuable information well digested, arranged, and indexed as to general bibliographical works and the bibliography