MAN OBSERVED

Montagu has been observing man for some time -- indeed if you look at his total oeuvre, you will find that 16 of his 34 titles contain the word man or human. Alas, inside, little else has changed signally; a number of essays on ""the understanding of human nature"" and man's failure to know and control himself. Particularly since he ""multiplies irresponsibly"" which leads on to the ruin of our natural world, the increase of crime, youth, chastity (chastity ""must have a chance. Sex is too good to squander""), the myth of race, psychiatry and the social sciences, etc., etc. All in his voluble, hortatory manner with the popular referrals from Rachel Carson to Lorenz. Montagu is a self-styled social biologist and his origin of the specious includes such dismaying recommendations as: ""I would suggest these efforts be directed first toward the limitation of the birth of children only to such persons who are able to prove their ability to help children toward fulfillment of their capacities for being human"". . . . Out with the baby, out with the bathwater, out with the book.