Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/305

 Reviews and Notes 299 might connect Shebbeare's Marriage Act (1756), omitted, though Lydia (1755) is discussed, and the anonymous Corporal Bates (1756), with the satire of early Utopias and voyages imagin- aires, and with the novels of political and social reform of the last quarter of the century. As a whole the volume savors too much of the subjective criticism popular a generation ago from which the study of modern English literature is just beginning to recover. HELEN SARD HUGHES The University of Montana. THE THEORY OF ENVIRONMENT. By Armin Hajman Koller, Ph.D. The Collegiate Press, Menasha, Wisconsin, 1918. The influence of environment upon man has received most attention on the part of French authors and thinkers, and so Dr. Keller is perhaps justified in presenting by way of introduction a number of definitions, not of the term 'environment' but of the Meanings of the Word Milieu. He makes no comment on the different interpretations given to the term 'milieu' by various authorities, and, being interested only in the historical side of the problem, he does not attempt to define milieu or environment in language of his own. On the whole the various authorities cited show no great divergence in their conceptions. The inquisitive reader, however, is apt to raise a question here and there. The positivist Auguste Comte, for instance, defines milieu as Vensemble total des circumstances exterieurs d'un genre quelconque necessaires a I' 'existence de chaque organisme determine. Necessaires! The use of the term implies the pres- ence, or at least the possibility of the presence, of the unneces- sary. Does the latter not also constitute a part of the milieu? In many instances conditions that exert a detrimental influence upon the organism in question are really the most important part of its milieu. From what point of view may they be regarded as necessary? Or are they not to be regarded as a part of environment? We must either assume that all the actual conditions are necessary, and then the term is entirely super- fluous, or that the unnecessary exists by the side of the neces- sary and forms, of course, also a part of environment. Very likely the exigencies of French syntax and style are mainly responsible for the use of the term necessaires in Comte's definition. Claude Bernard distinguishes between outer and inner milieu. Here we have either a new interpretation of the term or, more likely, an application of it from a twofold point of view. It is true V animal is affected by the various fluctuations and changes in the state of its body, as well as by the external