ber Den Prozess Der Zivilisation 1st Vol.: Wandlungen Des Verhaltens in Den Weltlichen Oberschichten Des Abendlandes: By Norbert Elias. (Academia Verlag Prag Vorabdruck, 1937. Pp. 327.)

We refer to our mode of living, habits, customs, moral standards and so on as civilization. What is considered as 'civilized' behaviour is, however, subject to constant development. Its standards are by no means absolute but change from one country to another and from one period to another in the same country. This standard is always set by the ruling class in each society and shews a similar curve of development in the Western European countries. In some epochs the change is a more rapid one than in others, and its repercussions are therefore more obvious to the consciousness of the contemporaries. It is a process, the nature, causes, direction and means of which we are just now beginning to realize.

Here is a work approaching this subject, not by means of more or less vague and speculative generalizations, but by concrete and sober data. The author, who has seen what seems to be the general direction of this process, puts representative documents of each epoch on the stage and lets them speak for themselves. He produces examples of the actual behaviour in situations which have not hitherto usually been made the object of historical research. We are shewn how, in different countries, people in polite society behaved at table, in speech, what their attitude was towards sexual matters, defæcation, urination and other similar activities, as for instance, spitting, blowing one's nose, etc. This evidence is collected under the headings of such natural functions and, as centuries