HUMAN PROBLEMS BIOLOGICAL THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF HUMAN NATURE.

By H. S. Jennings, New York: W. W. Norton Co., Inc. 1930.

Close attention to the contents of this work will convince the reader that he has to deal with a writer who is much more than a biologist, however great he may be in that field of human endeavor. Human problems are presented in this book with synthetic fulness. The author avoids over-emphasis and dogmatism, snares which lead lesser minds into "absurdity or falsehood or both." An irrestible marshalling of facts demonstrates that the roots of every human problem are biological; yet their later development are equally shown as conditioned by the social milieu in which they are inevitably worked out. Every section of the book is made challenging and pertinent by dozens of questions flung at the reader with tireless and seemingly inexhaustible pertinacity. Here is no refuge for the doctrinaire mind, be it sociological, biological or psychological. The author deals out telling thrusts, flavored with ironical humor, to many a pet notion in current thought. For example, the axioms assumed to underlie companionate marriage, behaviorism, or social reform are looked into and receive rapier-like thrusts in the course of the handling. Hence, it may be inferred, the book holds out rich rewards to those who read it.

Department of Sociology.