Science and Life. Aherdeen Addresses. F~~ERIC SODDY, K M.A., F.R.S. Lee Professor of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry, Univ. of Oxford. First edition, 3rd reprint. E. P. Dutton and Co., New York, 1926. xii 4- 229 pp. 14 X 23 cm. $4.00. Pmfwor Soddy is well known for his researches in physical science, and as a teacher for five years at Aberdeen and now a t Oxford. A mere recital of the titles of the addresses in this book should be suilicient to induce those who know Saddy's method of presentation and argument to read it from cover to wver. The reviewer did. The book takes its title from the k s t address, the others being on Physical Force, Man's Master or Servant; Chemistry and National Prosperity; Science and the State; The Future of Science and What Bars the Way; The Evolution of Matter; Conception of the Chemical Element as Enlarged by the Study of Radio-active Change; Matter, Energy. Consciousness, and Spirit; To the New Launch; The Ideals of a Science School. The keynote of the first and second addresses is the statement that the history of man reflects and is dominated by the amount of available energy. Saddy deplores the fact that too often the affairs of our present-day civilization are put or left in the hands of men ignorant of science and its human wnsequences. Some day we shall be able to wntrol the artificial transmutation of the elements which will mean the liberation of almost unthinkable quantities of energy, and we must be ready to appreciate what this involves. .or the world as we know it now may be destroyed. In another address Soddy says that starving, in the time-honored manner, a great pioneer of religion, or reason or art, was cheap. But starve the same type of mind in sciencenow, and the community
starves with him. Although all the benefits of modem civilization are due to the achievements of science or inventions based upon them, honor. glary, or power are not the usual rewards that wme to a scientist. The scientist may be, and usually is satisfied with "the thrill that comes but once in a lifetime." But if he is to be encouraged in continuing t o be of practical benefit to humanity, it is simply good business sense for the State to recognize the workers in this field. The address on The Future of Science and What Bars the Way should be read by every member of every college curriculum committee. It will delight the scientists and enlighten the classicists. "The curricula of ancient universities accumulate rather than evolve. The new cult of science is sandwiched with a culture that came to maturity thousands of years ago. Nothing is ever abolished from a curriculum. If there were real freedomof choice the survival of the fittest would operate. But the whole system of regulations far degrees is to bolster up and perpetuste a museum of ancient learning.. This perpetuates the man who is hopelessly out of tune with his environment however rational he may have been in the middle ages." Antiquated schemes of classical education, Saddy says, do not train us to keep pace with and make proper use of the physical power put into our hands by science. External nature wntrals humanity, and the mistake of neglecting it is serious. Other chapters discuss recent advances in atomic and subatomic researches, and a mechanistic, or physico-chemical view of life is presented, somewhat along lines familiar to those who know Loeb's work. In another address Soddy says that it is not good to be young in a wuntry that is governed by worm-eaten prejudices and a b m d conjuring tricks, with words which are the result of training
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in ancient educational establishments. Youth will pay again as i t did in the great war, unless science gets decent fair play. Finally the author refers to the deluded victims of our cnriously archaic system of classical education who point to the evils of the world which they have misgoverned, and the terrible consequences of science under their misdirection as proof of the superiority of ancient culture and ideals. Saddy suggests that as a memorial we install in our universities not only a pure faculty of Art which carries an the creative work rather than the languages of our ancestors, hut also a pure faculty of Duty to foster the obligations of the twentieth century rather than the codes and creeds of mythology, ancient or feudal man. A. P. SY ~
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cult for the hStIUdor to make clear their relation to each other and to the principles involved. At the beginning of each exercise is given a list of the materials and apparatus for the experiments and following the exercise is a number of questions and problems. The hook is well written and directions are dear and concise. Explanations are included where the student could not he expected to know the results of his experiment. I n the opinion of the reviewer the hook is well suited to the purpose for which i t was intended. GEO. W. SEARS
Colloid and Capillary Chemistry. HERBERT F R E ~ N D L I Translated ~~. from the third German edition by H. Stafford Haffield. E. P. Duttan and Company, 883 pp. New York City. 1926. xv Laboratory Manual Arranged to Accompany "Principles of General Chemi~try.~' 25 X 15.5 cm. $14.00. STUARTR. BRINKLEYAND ERWINB. Professor Freundlich, in this splendid KELSEY. First edition, The Mac- work, has set up a standard to which few millan Co., New York, 1926. xiii writers in the subject may hope to attain. 159 pp. 9 figures. 14 X 21.5. $1.50. Adverse criticism of a hook, to the subject
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As the subject of this manual indicates, the experiments are arranged to accompany Brinkley's "Principles of General Chemistry" and frequent referencxs are made to this text. The suhject-matter is divided into 47 exercises of which the last 15 are inorganicpreparations. Five quantitative experiments are included among the remainder. Each exercise is divided into sections which are arranged with explanatory titles that indicate to the student what he is expected to observe. While most of the experiments are of the type usually found in laboratory manuals, the authors have grouped them in such a way that the student should not fail to see their purpose though the principle underlying them is not always so clearly pointed out. Many of them are chiefly informational, giving the student facts without showing their particular significance. This might have the effect of causing the student to look upon his chemistry as a mass of more or less unrelated facts though i t should not he diffi-
of which a writer has devoted the most of his useful life, is out of place. Even the briefest examination of Colloid and Capillary Chemistry will convince one of the soundness of this conclusion. To begin with, the arrangement is very logical and very orderly. Too many texts and reference hooks on colloid chemistry are painfully haphazard affairs. Even' the advanced student has difficulty in seeing the thread of continuity throughout colloid phenomena. Fre'mdlich's hook clears up this maze as the sunlight dispels the mist. The plan of the book is well stated in the Introduction. "The first part of the book will therefore deal with the physicochemical foundations of colloid chemistry, that is to say, with capillary chemistry. the formation and interconversion of phases, and molecular motion. Upon these three foundations colloid chemistry itself will he built up in the second part of the hook." "These three foundations" have been
