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higher forms of civilized development have originated among peoples whose family life was of the patriarchal kind, involving a particularly stern discipline of the sexual life of the women." Dr. Casserley is deeply impressed with the virtues of patriarchal monogamy and he sings them again on pages ioo, IoI. Was it really his sociological studies which led him to this remarkable conclusion ? Altogether this is more of a theologian's book than a sociologist's. Much of it consists of simple assertions such as "The truth is ... that religious thought at its narrowest inevitably turns out in the last analysis to be broader than secular thought at its broadest" (page 82). Much would be quite in place in a sermon. But one cannot complain about that since Dr. Casserley's essential thesis rests on faith and is incapable of defence by argument. Unfortunately, however, he does not call spades spades and opinions opinions, but follows the fashion, now popular amongst theologians, of using the adjective "existential" to describe private beliefs which it is desired to pass off as eternal verities. A modern theologian can get away with murder if he declares that it is "existentially justified." In the 115 pages of that section of Dr. Langmead Casserley's book which is devoted to morals, the words "existential," "existentialism," "existentialist," "existentially" occur more than forty times. The climax is reached (page 82) when secularists are taken to task for avoiding or glossing over "the existential character of human existence." BARBARA WOOTTON.