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There is little need for us to criticise this book. We need only give it a moment's hearing, and let it condemn itself. Indeed, to take it too
seriously would be no compliment to the readers of this Journal. It is true that the words 'scientific' and 'really scientific' occur so often on its pages that we weary of the sight of them; but whether the author has any notion of scientific method, of the manifold biological and psychological problems opening out before the student of sex differences, or of the actual state of knowledge of these problems, may well be judged by the fact that there is not a single reference to the work of Freud or Havelock Ellis, although there is a chapter entitled 'Some Landmarks in the Subject'; nor even any mention of well-known experimental studies, save a misleading remark (p. 14, not given in the index) about the work of Helen Thompson.
But the scientific information, discipline and acumen of this writer on the nature of woman are most easily revealed by his own words. 'There is a similar disposition in German sex psychologists, which is, unfortunately, shared by some French and English scientists, to treat the psychology of sex from the physical point of view. So far has this gone that many writers for the general public have published larger volumes "for its benefit" than is allotted to such matters in medical text-books for the medical man acting as trained adviser. This fact alone is sufficient condemnation of the movement' (p. 21-2). Since this passage occurs in a chapter on 'The Woman's Movement', we have to infer that 'the movement' here is 'the woman's movement'. Apparently the study of sex psychology 'from the physical point of view' is, for Dr. Tayler, a by-product of feminism.
The number of pages given to 'the lower side of sex' is an interesting obsession with this author. Speaking of the effect of modern education upon woman, he says (p. 80 and footnote) '… she has produced books, and encouraged men to produce th