Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/431

 REVIEWS 417

idea and the practical consequences of his theory were anticipated in this country by some twenty years. Although he includes Professor Lester F. Ward among those who have been vaguely conscious of the reality of social determinism and its opposition to biological determin- ism, citing his Outlines of Sociology and an article or two by the same writer, he does not seem to be aware that the American sociologist has anticipated him upon almost every point he has discussed. The first chapter of Professor Ward's Dynamic Sociology (1883) and more par- ticularly his Psychic Factors of Civilization (1901), to say nothing of his more recent work on Pure Sociology, make the task assumed by M. Draghicesco all but superfluous.

To have been anticipated, however, does not necessarily detract from the merit of a thinker, and discriminating readers will readily acknowledge the scholarship and logical force manifested in the pres- ent work.

Authors as a rule are liable to blunder in spelling the names of foreign writers. It may be worth while to point out that among the names misspelled in this volume are those of Lester F. Ward (p. 16),

Lloyd Morgan (p. 39), and Buchner (p. 89).

IRA W. HOWERTH.

Conquering Success; or, Life in Earnest. By WILLIAM MATHEWS. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. viii + 4O4. $1.50.

WHILE sociology is in the making, and while there are quack pre- scriptions galore for every social ill, it is a relief to greet occasionally a book which does not claim to be scientific, but which is full of safe pointers about the conduct of life. In his best-known work, Getting on in the World, Dr. Mathews has done more than one man's share to start a generation of young men with high conceptions of life. The cases known to me in which the book was the turning-point in a boy's career are proofs that it is a salutary moral force. The present volume was perhaps written in a less ardent tone of feeling, but the readers for whom it is intended will hardly detect the difference. It is the kind of book that ought to be on the list of supplementary reading in every high school. A. W. S.