It is hard to tell how far Vergil considered the contrast between the lot of man and the lot of woman. Perhaps as a problem in itself, he gave it no special thought. But we are almost forced to note some aspects of the question of the double standard, if we may call it such, as it relates to Aeneas and Dido. The lot of the woman may be as the deer of Vergil's simile, stricken by a chance arrow which a shepherd has sped in the forest and has gone on his way unaware of the suffering he has caused, while the deer traverses forest and glade with the fatal shaft still in its side. It is impossible that the poet meant that we should have no sympathy with the stricken beast; but yet is the man to blame? Probably not. It is destiny again. The woman Dido recognizes no claim above her love. She scoffs at the thought that gods may intervene. The man Aeneas hears the call of country and he knows there is no exemption. A man's love for woman may not completely interrupt the course of duty. The woman clothes her lapse under the most sacred terms and calls it marriage indeed. The man esteems the love but holds his obligation to country higher. Dido suffers through the night with the anguish of unrequited love. Aeneas in the meantime enjoys his sleep. The woman is left behind to suffer with the consequences, while the pious hero goes unswervingly on his way. Man and woman are following their respective courses which destiny itself has marked out for them.

Shall we say that Aeneas loved Dido? I am certain the poet would answer yes. Were not these lands sweet to him? For what other reason had he lingered so long? In the ghostly realms of Hades he met Dido for the last time. Weeping, he addressed her in sweet love. Did Vergil speak these words in irony? "Alas, was I the cause of thy death? I swear by the gods that against my will I departed from thy shores. But the commands of the gods which even now compel me to go through these wild places and through profound night drove me of their own will. Stay thy steps, withdraw not from my sight. From whom fleest thou? By fate's decree this word which I now address thee is the last." In all time and eternity it may not be again. Is this the time for sincerity? It is indeed a cruel fate that has thwarted his love, for love it certainly was.

Vergil reflected deeply on the problems of life. He had witnessed under Augustus the establishment of a great imperialistic government. He had seen personal fortunes thrust aside by the onward march of stern events. Fate or destiny somehow or other ruled the world. It is not necessary to suppose that he believed in the personality of the various divinities, that Venus and Juno and Cupid actually performed the parts assigned to them; but none the less he believed there were forces operating over man and against man which were absolute. In his mind he recognized the inexorableness of these unseen forces, but in his heart he rebelled. The unusual prominence given to Dido marks the extent of his rebellious spirit. Intellectually, Vergil accepted the universe; in his soul, he protested. "Is there so great wrath in minds celestial," he cries in wonder. The play of these forces against the will of man had been the essence of Greek tragedy. Vergil has here represented the eternal conflict and like the Greek tragedians he offers no solution. In fact, by representing the great contrast between the person Dido and the heartlessness of the forces which compass her downfall he seems to emphasize the insolubility of the problem.

The central theme of this tragedy is Dido, the representative of Rome's most implacable enemy, the one whose dying curse was responsible for Rome's greatest misfortunes. Is it not strange that the poet has so far forgotten his love of country as to deal thus sympathetically with Dido, his country's archenemy? Here again it was the heart and not the mind. His natural tenderness rises above strict rhetorical propriety and perhaps for a time loses sight of the common conception of patriotism, and certainly plays the rebel against the social order. We may criticize Vergil, the rhetorician, the citizen, and the conventionalist, but we give him unstinted praise as human. Here are tears for man's adversity and here mortal affairs touch the heart. By his treatment of Dido he has proved the depth of his sincerity in these words. Milton in his Paradise Lost sought to justify the ways of God to man but in doing so he made a hero of Satan. The rebel will against universal law, Prometheus against Zeus, Dido against the fortunes of a city set on seven hills! Perversity of human nature. The poet

may vindicate the behests of destiny but his heart and our hearts go to Dido.

Vergil was once thought to have forecast the coming of a Saviour. In his Dido, in her beautiful and lovely character, in her great sacrifice, in her magnificent failure to obtain what she really merited, is revealed a great need of humanity. Surely a source of satisfaction must be found for this need. We can hardly credit Vergil with the vision to look down the centuries and see the coming of the age of chivalry, the growth of the softening influences of Christianity, and the dawn of romanticism; but in the intensity of his description of Dido he seems almost to have forecast such an era and the reception which from the first was accorded to his Dido is an added proof that the times were ripe.

BOOK REVIEWS

THE GRAND STRATEGY OF EVOLUTION. By William Patten. Boston: The Gorham Press. Richard G. Badger, 1920.

It has become almost the proper thing for biologists to write upon social, economic, and religious questions. Moreover many political and sociological writers have gone to the natural sciences for the bases upon which to erect conclusions and theories of widespread importance. Most of these have been attracted by the principle of struggle for existence and the resulting survival of the most capable.

But Dr. William Patten, of Dartmouth College, believes that there is a biologic principle more vital in its application to sociology than that of "the survival of the fittest." This principle is that of union, organization, and subordination of parts of an organism for the good of the whole. He traces the ancestry of back-boned animals to the Eurypterids, predecessors of the scorpions. The farther back he goes the more simple he finds the organization of the body. It was divided into many segments, not a few of which could be replaced if lost, and contained a most rudimentary nervous system. But in the course of ages the many-jointed body gave place to a compact one with only slight traces of segmentation. The nervous system became centered in a brain, located in a head that was a distinct division of the body. The numerous appendages were reduced to four, and those were divided into. pairs adapted to specialized types of work. The whole body became more compact, more coördinated, and much more efficient.

But the trend of evolution did not end with the coördination of cells and organs; it embraced whole individuals, species, and even genera. Some animals built up elaborate colonies, such as those of ants and bees. Others associated in herds, flocks, or packs, for protection, companionship, or offense. There are even many cases in which animals of two species have associated in bodily contact, to the advantage of both. From all this Dr. Patten draws a clear lesson for humanity. Man must

imitate the cells and organs; he must subserve the individual to the good of the entire organization. He must give up strife and rivalry, whether in the name of clan, nation, or race. He should consider the many rather than the one; he should strive for the good of humanity rather than for the desires of the individual. When he does this, and only when he does this, will he be on what Dr. Patten calls "the high-road of evolution."

It is not our purpose to quarrel with the evolutionary (in the biological sense) doctrines of this book, although most zoölogists and paleontologists agree that the vertebrates are descended from the segmented worms rather than from the Arthropods. Nor is it our purpose to object to Dr. Patten's conclusions as to the necessity for coöperation in human activity. We may question the desirability of such complete subservience as he seems to think necessary, but in the main his conclusions are both rational and practical. The principal trouble with Dr. Patten's book is that he seems to have considered extensively only those biologic facts which support his social philosophy; also that he attempts to apply the facts of morphology to questions that would more properly come within the domain of natural history or animal behavior. To compare human society with the cell complexes of any animal, is somewhat like comparing a man with one of the red corpuscles in his blood, and is hardly more successful. Neither have we any guarantee that the social laws applying to bees must apply to men. And opposed to animal communism, if such it may be called, are the decidedly unbeautiful facts of parasitism. It is true, of course, that no successful parasite can annihilate its hosts, but it can materially impair their health and reduce the numbers of their individuals. It is doubtful if the race of Cecropia moths are any better off for their close association with the Ichneumon fly, or that man is benefited by his harboring of Trichina or the malaria parasite. In fact, while morphology teaches coöperation, animal behavior and natural history in general seem to teach exactly the opposite. There are in zoölogy quite as many arguments against communism as there are for it; as many against altruism as for self-sacrifice. Neither can we assume that progressive evolution is any more natural than regressive or