Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/437

 REVIEWS 423

The Morals of Suicide, By J. GUMHILL. Longmans, Green &

Co., 1900. Pp. 227.

THE psychology, metaphysics, ethics, statistics, and therapeutics of suicide are discussed with the purpose of showing the necessity of Christian socialism. There is a great deal of excellent advice and earnest exhortation in the volume, and some important facts. The author knows Morselli, but does not mention Durkheim. He quotes a newspaper as authority for the preposterous statement that suicide has increased in the United States from 978 in 1885 to 5,750 in 1895. Certain other statements are more correct and less sensational. That suicide and insanity have increased somewhat with the stress of recent economic changes seems probable, and the writer does well to urge the necessity of economic and educational amelioration.

C. R. HENDERSON.

Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirthschaftslehre. Von GUSTAV SCHMOLLER. Erster, grosserer Teil. Begriff. Psycholo- gische und sittliche Grundlage. Land, Leute und Technik. Die gesellschaftliche Verfassung der Volkswirthschaft. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1900. Pp. x + 482.

OUR present purpose is merely to register the appearance of this epitome of Professor Schmoller's economic philosophy. It would be obvious to the most unsympathetic critic that these pages represent ripe and generous learning. Sociologists will be gratified at constant evidences that the author neither could nor would avoid coordination of economic abstractions with the whole human process which sociology insists on keeping above the horizon. The references to Schaeffle, not merely as a statesman and economist, but especially as the author of that much-abused work, Bau und Leben, suggest that the time is coming when men will read Schaeffle before they sneer at him, and that those who are able to understand 'him will discover that they have behaved very foolishly in taking hearsay for granted about his teachings.

To Professor Schmoller the pure economic abstraction is a specu- lative abortion. The social process presents itself to him as a whole in which the wealth process, strictly speaking, is essential, to be sure, but still subsidiary. "The good is not static. It is constantly engaged in perfecting itself. The never-resting conquest of the