FALSE ANALOGIES
OF SOCIETIES AND MEN, by Caryl P. Hy aay Allen and Unwin. English price, ‘[ HE author has also written Of Ants and Men. He should have stopped there, for while he clearly knows a great deal about termites, parasites, pterodactyls, honeybees, jellyfish and Eocene ants, he is not a social philosopher. His idea was to try to trace significant trends in the formation, growth and duration of human societies by considering parallels in the social development of living and extinct organisms. In his foreword he admits that there are "dangers of anthropomorphism and of false analogy,’ but the whole of his method is reasoning by analogy, and his illustrations are selected and limited. Also, without saying so, but by juxtaposing, for example, a very interesting section on parasitism in the insect world
with especially © chosen — ,examples of slavery in the history man, he. suggests. comparisons, and adds that both are responses to environmental condi-+ tions common to societies the world over. Vanuevan Bush, in his introduction, sums it up: "This is not a scientific book-although it rests upon scien-
tihc data."
W.B.
S.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 719, 24 April 1953, Page 13
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185FALSE ANALOGIES New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 719, 24 April 1953, Page 13
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