The Social World of the Ants compared with that of Man

Abstract

AUGUSTE FOREL is one of the grand old men of science, a survivor from the heroic heyday of Darwinism, and a welcome reminder, in this epoch of specialisation, that a man can excel in several branches of learning. To the general biologist he is known (not to mention his contributions to comparative physiology, such as his “Senses of Insects”) as one of the greatest authorities on ants, both their systematics and their behaviour; he was one of the notable pioneers of neurology and brain anatomy (I recollect, when I visited him in his home above the Rhone Valley, his showing me some brain sections: “You see those,” he said, “those were the first microscopic sections of the human brain to be made. I made them, in the 'seventies.”); to the medical profession he is a very distinguished psychiatrist; to the sociologist, the author of that arresting book, “La Question sexuelle.” The Social World of the Ants compared with that of Man. By Dr. Auguste Forel. Translated by C. K. Ogden. Vol. 1. Pp. xlv + 551 + 10 plates. Vol. 2. Pp. xx + 445 + 16 plates. (London and New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, Ltd., 1928.) 63s. net.