SOME BOOKS. OF THE WEEK.
(Relics in flu column don Sot aseesserau products micemma recime.1 CODMilinity. By R. EL MacIver. (Macmillan and Co. 12s. net.)— Professor MacIver's " attempt to set out the nature and fundamental laws of social life " is a very able and penetrating analysis of com- munal development in the broadest sense. Among many large topics which he handles well we may cite his disproof of the " social organism " theory—" a community is not born and a community
does not necessarily die "—which disposes of the idea of the future New Zealander moralizing over the ruins of St. Paul's. His remark that " as intereommunity extends, war becomes more and more irrational " leads to an instructive discussion. Elsewhere he deals faithfully with some eugenists like Professor Karl Pearson, and insists that we must trust leas to natural, and more to rational, selection as the means of progress.
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