theory of sovereignty is found in Aristotle's Politics. The Roman concept is expressed in the sentence, "The will of the prince has the force of law, since the people have transferred to him all their right and power." While the ruling theory of the Middle Ages is summed up as government based on the consent of the governed." Bodin was the first to treat the subject systematically. Then came Althusius, Hobbes, Puffendorf, Locke, and Rousseau.

General characteristics of the theories of sovereignty leading up to and including the philosophy of Rousseau are: First the individualistic-contractualistic tendency; second, a movement towards the absolutist conception of sovereignty; and third, a failure to recognize "the unity and personality of state."

The period since Rousseau is viewed by the author as a period of reaction against the Revolutionary doctrine of popular sovereignty. The first attack was made by the so-called historical school. Kant and his school opposed the Revolutionary theory. Hegel represented the opposition from a different standpoint. The theory of Divine Right was fostered. The patrimonial theory was revived. The several lines of assault all seem "to converge at one point, namely, the proposition that the state was the result of a contract deliberately made by individuals." The theory of popular sovereignty was generally denied.

The later chapters of the monograph deal with "Popular and State Sovereignty," ""The Austinian Theory," "Sovereignty and the American Union," and "Federalism and Continental Theory."

The State University of Iowa.

BENJ. F. SHAMBAUGH.

The City for the People. By Professor FRANK PARSONS. Pp. 597. Paper, 50 cents. Published by Dr. C. F. Taylor, 1520 Chestnut street, Philadelphia, 1900.

According to the publisher, Dr. Taylor, this valuable work grew out of the desire to present what legal rights the cities of the various states of this country enjoyed in the ownership and operation of public utilities.

In the third chapter of the book, embracing eighty pages, and in an appendix of nearly twenty pages more, is given the best summary extant on this subject. If any one desires to learn the rights of cities in California, Washington, Minnesota or Missouri to draw up their own charters and determine the powers of the city government, or if one desires to know the use that San Francisco and other cities have made of these powers, or what places in other parts of the country enjoy the right to own and operate street railways or gas works or

telephones, etc., and whether the state law permits them to sell to private consumers or to operate only for direct municipal uses, these chapters furnish the information, supplemented, as is all the book, by an unusually full index.

Another chapter, still longer than the one just considered, gives a similarly exhaustive treatment of the progress of the direct legislation movement. There appears to be a tendency to minimize the value of proportional representation and civil service reform and to overlook to some extent the fact that the initiative and referendum are more valuable as a check upon corruption and as an education of the people than as a direct producer of progressive measures. But these suggestions are not intended in any way to detract from the value of the information and discussions in this volume.

The first half of the book contains the fullest presentation of the reasons for municipal ownership and operation of public utilities or monopolies that has appeared. This part of the treatment is frankly acknowledged to be based, in some measure, so far as the facts, but not the interesting method of treatment, are concerned, upon "Municipal Monopolies," published by Crowell a year ago, to which Professor Parsons contributed chapters.

Although myself a pronounced believer in the gradual extension of the policy here urged, I could wish that there were a fuller discussion of the really strong arguments that are often presented for the opposite policy, and a fuller admission of the dangers to be avoided in municipal activities, such as the spoils system, unprogressiveness and popular opposition to labor-saving machinery. These are dangers which seem to have been very largely overcome in Great Britain, in the smaller cities of this country, and indeed in some of the larger ones, but they are still a serious handicap to many American plants.

Professor Parsons is exceedingly painstaking, accurate and honest in his attempt to secure reliable data. In some of the larger phases of the subject, however, certain points are omitted, which in all fairness should be stated, and which Professor Parsons would be one of the first to acknowledge if his attention were called to them. For example, on page 129 there are given, in parallel columns, the price paid private companies for street arcs in ten American cities before the beginning of public ownership and the cost in the same cities afterward, including in cost, interest, depreciation, insurance, taxes, etc.; but it is not stated that part of the enormous difference, frequently amounting to over $100 an arc light per year, was due to the tact that under private ownership the prices paid were for a very few lights, in a contract made some years before, in the infancy of the electric industry-contracts which were often just expiring—and that in most

cases at least much lower prices than previously charged were offered for a renewal of the contract. In probably every case in that table the people are convinced that the change to public ownership was advantageous, but the amount of financial saving per arc light was hardly as great as the figures, doubtless entirely accurate in themselves, would indicate. Likewise on page 147, it is very truly observed that one advantage of public ownership is the tendency to increase the number of consumers of water, gas, etc. In a table, however, which Professor Parsons presents showing that twenty private water works have an average consumption of about one hundred gallons per day per capita, and the same number of public plants in cities of about the same size, have nearly 80 per cent more than this, the point is missed that all water works engineers agree that sixty to eighty gallons a day per individual is ample, and that the rest is probably waste, because of leaky mains and services, and lack of meters. What is needed is rather a table showing how the total number of consumers bears a greater proportion to the population in cities having public works than in those possessed of private plants.

The work on the whole, however, is a mine of information to those writing or discussing the subjects treated, and will have a great influence in increasing the fast rising tendency to adopt the lines of policy urged by the writer.

Indeed, the few criticisms just given were the only ones that suggested themselves in the course of a somewhat careful examination of the book, while the great number of admirable chapters and discussions can only be referred to in a brief review.

Bureau of Economic Research, New York.

EDWARD W. BEMIS.

The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study. (Lowell Institute Lectures.) By WILLIAM Z. Ripley, Ph. D. Accompanied by a Supplementary Bibliography of the Anthropology and Ethnology of Europe, published by the Public Library of the City of Boston. Pp. xxxii, 624; x, 160. Price, $6.00. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1899.

The Races of Man: An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography. By J. DENIKER, Sc. D. With 176 illustrations and two maps. Pp. xxiii, 611. Price, 6s. London: Walter Scott, Ltd., 1900. Both of these books indicate a new tendency in the use of anthropological and ethnographical data, and possibly also in the methods of work in these departments of knowledge. The new tendency consists in presenting this material chiefly under sociological categories

and with a view to indicating its sociological significance. Neither of the works under review professes to present original material or to have enlarged the scope of the respective subjects treated, but rather to have sifted and collected in convenient form the result of the latest researches in these fields. This claim on the part of both Pofessor Ripley and Dr. Deniker is entirely too modest, since both works teem with suggestions which should prove of the greatest possible value to the original worker.

Professor Ripley's volumes have deservedly received a large measure of praise both at home and abroad. Their attractiveness in typographical aspects alone, combined with the pleasing style in which they are written, enlarges considerably the circle of readers to whom such studies usually appeal. The significance of Dr. Ripley's work for students of the social sciences is well brought out in the first two chapters, containing the introduction and a discussion of language, nationality and race, and in the three concluding chapters on (1) Social Problems: Environment versus Race, (2) Social Problems: Ethnic Stratification and Urban Selection, and (3) Acclimatization: The Geographical Features of the European Race. In these chapters one finds the meat of the whole volume, admirably placed in juxtaposition to the chief results of studies allied to those of race traits.

Dr. Ripley's theories start from the point of view of the new geography which he regards as a branch of economics, having a direct bearing upon history and sociology, and comprising the study of physical environment in its influence upon man. The distinction he draws between the social and physical environment, which amounts to drawing a line between the indirect and direct influence of environment, enables him to avoid some points of controversy and to reconcile others in the dispute between those who interpret any civilization solely in terms of race, and those who consider that race counts for nothing. In so many cases the absence of definite proof or of evidence to which appeal can be made, leaves a choice between these diverging paths to the personal bias of the investigator. It is the chief service of Dr. Ripley's book that it has brought so many of these debatable questions concerning racial and environmental influences within the scope of scientific classification, and subjected them to positive tests. This fact is especially noticeable in his consistent endeavor to adhere to a geographical basis of distribution in the classification of the races of Europe, where so much crossing has taken place that language, customs and all the traditional ear-marks are most misleading signs of race origins. The discussion which points out that community of language should not be confused with identity of race, i. e. that nationality may often follow linguistic boundaries, though race bears no necessary relation whatever to them, is a most illuminating one.

Professor Ripley's discussion of the growth in urban population shows very clearly that this is due almost solely to economic and industrial causes; not peculiar to the United States, but equally characteristic of changes of population in Europe, where the same industrial forces operate. The significance therefore of recent French theories emphasizing that the dolicho-cephalic type is necessarily impelled to city life and of the Hansen classification of the three vitality classes and the consequent predominating influences of country life are given less weight than is usual in the discussion of these topics. From the testimony submitted by Dr. Ripley it is shown that the tendency of urban populations is certainly not toward the pure blond, long-headed and tall Teutonic type. Urban selection is something more complex than a mere migration of a single racial element in the population towards the city. There is a process of physiological and social selection that must be taken into account.

The conclusions to which Professor Ripley's very complete discussion of the material relating to acclimatization leads do not promise immediately satisfactory results, if, indeed, they promise any ultimate success in the attempts of the white man to colonize the tropics. Acclimatization may be a failure and yet the problem be solved through changes bringing about such improved conditions of public hygiene that the white man can live in the tropics.

In the body of the book the present demography of Europe is studied and the inhabitants presenting the most diverse racial aspects classified as to their origin and descent under the heads of the three European races, the Teutonic race, the Alpine race and the Mediterranean race. In the main this classification agrees with that of leading ethnologists, although it differs radically from that adopted by Deniker, who raises a great many sub-groups to the rank of independent races. Ripley, in one of his appendices has given good reasons to show that the difference between his method and that of Deniker is not a vital one. Of the physical traits which Professor Ripley relies upon as evidence of racial type, probably too much stress is laid upon measurements of the cranium, although in his discussions of the value of physical traits and their relative importance, Dr. Ripley is extremely fair.

Not only has Dr. Ripley laid all English readers under a debt of deep gratitude for the clearness with which he has presented the complex facts of one of the difficult departments of scientific inquiry, but he has greatly increased the obligation by the preparation of a bibliography, which will prove a guide to all students for a long time to come. It is worth while noting in this connection that the bibliography can be obtained separately in the list of publications issued by