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Mr. Durbin and Dr. Bowlby have had the good sense to publish as a separate book what was once merely an important section of a larger volume on War and Democarcy. War and Democracy was quite frankly a tendentious volume. Written by a group of young Socialists and advertised by both authors and publishers as a political contribution, it fell into the same category as Mr. Pryns Hopkins' book (see review in this JOURNAL) and became subject to the same criticisms. Although the essays by other authors were not very violently political, they gave a reformist twist to a subject which is not yet ripe for such manipulations. Not that the present contributions of Mr. Durbin and Dr. Bowlby are entirely free from tendentiousness. For example, although they are aware that the manifestations of violence and of 'animistic' reactions in the Soviet Republics provide apt illustrations of their views, they devote very much more space to a critical examination of the behaviour of Hitler and Nazidom. Again, although their main object is to examine the relation of personal aggressiveness to war and peace and although they make many proper distinctions between the manifestations of peace and those of war, they have not refrained from ending their essay with the blunt statement 'Article XVI of the Covenant of the League of Nations was and is, in our view, the only hope for the peace of the world'. All that Article XVI of the Covenant does is to give research scholars a third problem to examine, viz. what is the significance (to say nothing of practical value) of certain social phantasies in which aggressiveness and peaceableness seem to be equally represented. Until such investigations have been carried out it is desirable for research students qua research students to hold their propagandist fire.
Some years ago the present reviewer drew up a scheme of research on the problem of war and stressed the necessity of collecting evidence through observation (psycho-analytical and otherwi