Book Reviews

La Science française. Vols. I, II. Paris, 1915.

The Great War, in connection with the isolation of scientific creativity, has aroused a desire to review the results contributed by individual nations to the great enterprise of international culture. From this point of view, the collection published in 1915 under the title La Science française is of enormous interest. Its first volume contains an account of the successes of French philosophy, sociology, pedagogy, mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, mineralogy, geology, paleobotany, zoological paleontology, biology, medical sciences, and geographical sciences. The sections on mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, and mineralogy were compiled by Appell, Baillaud, Bouty, Job, and Lacroix; and the names of the authors vouch for the high scientific merit of the articles, written with extraordinary liveliness and interest and brilliantly outlining the significance of French science in international creative work. The first volume is adorned with a series of splendidly executed portraits of men of science, among which one should note the portraits of Pasteur, Descartes, A. Comte, H. Poincaré, Laplace, Ampère, Lavoisier, and Haüy. The second volume contains the history of the philological and social sciences in France. The appearance of these books may be sincerely welcomed, and one may wish that other nations, too, would produce an impartial assessment of their merits in the field of science1.

P. Lazarev.

1. Following the example of France, the Academy of Sciences in Russia has undertaken a similar publication in Russian and French under the title “Russian Science.” ↩