Les principes sociologiques du droit public. by Raoul de la GrasserieReview by: Isaac A. LoosAmerican Journal of Sociology, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Sep., 1913), pp. 273-274Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2763463 .

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REVIEWS 273

He holds rather that those who inaugurated the revolution did not perceive clearly what they wanted; popular political ideals had been shattered, and the French people consequently passed through a period of demoralization and anarchy seeking new ideals.

Le Bon thinks that there was a logical basis for many acts of the French revolution which heretofore have been passed over as inexplicable. Such bases depend for establishment upon the acceptance of Le Bon's system of reasoning.

In the discussion of the conflict between ancestral influences and revolutionary principles, it is contended that the main issues of the French revolution were early accomplished. The ancestral influences then dictated the return to law and order, which was not accomplished by reason of the fact that the revolutionary principles were still burning issues with the leaders and the mercenary class of the revolutionists. Their preservation depended upon a continuation of the revolutionary regime.

Le Bon concludes that the heritage of the French revolution may be summed up in the words: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. In the present-day movements toward social equality, he sees the fruitage of the seeds that were planted at so great a sacrifice and cost.

IsAAc A. Loos STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

Les principes sociologiques du droit public. Par RAOUL DE LA

GRASSERIE. V. Paris: Giard et E. Briere, I9ii. Prix, broche, io francs; relie, ii francs. Pp. I-430.

This book is an attempt to interpret public law in the light of social conditions and social history. It is divided into three parts.

The first part, the sociology of constitutional law, considers first at length and by means of historical analysis the sociology of the constitu- tional law of the state. This might very well be called a sociological interpretation of the history of the forms or machinery of government. It differs little from what a contemporary historian of constitutional law would write even if he did not call his work sociological. Since Lavigny, public law is interpreted by historical conditions. The first part con- cludes with a very brief section on eccentric and concentric units of the state, namely, colonies, provinces, and communes.

Part II, public administrative law, is similar in treatment to Part I

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274 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

and almost of equal length. Part III is grouped under two divisions: one relating to the international public law between autonomous states, and the other to that between dependent or interdependent states. Part IV discusses the sociology of the limits and the relations between indi- vidual rights and public law.

ISAAC A. Loos STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

La thIorie de l'homme et de la civilisation. Par ERASME DE MAJEWSKI. Paris: Librairie H. Le Soudier, i9ii. Prix, 8 francs. Pp. Vii-Xvi+35I.

This book is similar in spirit and method to the same author's La science de cit4lisation, published three years earlier. The book is at once biological and sociological, or perhaps we should say blends the biological and sociological analysis of life by means of the psychological analysis. The author lays great stress on the phenomena of language in an account of the development of l'homo sapiens.

The psychisme of man is not the result of the psychisme of animal; the former is interphysiological (whatever this may mean), instead of physiological. Language and ideas constitute the form and substance of society. The social form is as real as the cell or the plant, but it is not so obvious! The interphysical content in a material substratum is the form of the social reality.

IsAAC A. Loos STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA

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