In the work of Dr. von Lilienfeld we have the first opportunity to judge whether the biological conception of society can throw any new light on practical social questions. That "the body politic" is subject to "disease" is a very ancient notion. But is anything gained by taking a figure of speech literally and converting analogy into identity? Dr. von Lilienfeld’s pages are rich in learning and in wisdom. He has investigated thoroughly and thought deeply; and no one can dip into his chapters without being impressed with the value of his reflections on the economic inequalities, the political corruption, the moral degeneration, the educational imbecilities, the religious indifference of the present day. A thousand hints are thrown out by the way on which statesmen and reformers might well reflect. But there is nothing in the entire book that could not have been better said in a simpler language than that of an ingeniously elaborated "social pathology." To describe fads and crazes, degeneracy, outbreaks of insanity, crime and lubricity, as "anomalies of the social nervous system," is only calculated to hasten the wear and tear of the nervous systems of individuals; and to argue that wealth is a "social intercellular substance," is simply to set up a doctrine of sociological transubtantiation (Giddings 1896: 348).