  THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. By William James, Professor of In the present status of psychological science every attempt to gather the diversified facts and views and present them in a single, though extensive work, cannot but be scrutinised with great care and interest; and when this work comes from the pen of one who has gained so wide and appreciative a circle of readers, the interest becomes deeper and more personal. It was, perhaps, the professor of mental science, struggling for years with text-books, inadequate, or antiquated, or narrow, or unscientific, or dry, or unpedagogic, who most anxiously awaited the appearance of Professor James's volumes; and his expectation was the more warranted, as the work was announced in a series of text-books deservedly successful and popular. To such a one, the work itself does not come to fill the place of a text-book; not alone the great length (1,400 pages), but the general supposition of knowledge on the part of the reader which it is the object of college courses to supply, together with the selection of topics and the peculiar division of space amongst them, limit the work to students of a much more advanced type than (unfortunately, perhaps) American education as yet supplies. But while our professor must still patiently hope for some work that will present in brief and convenient form the main facts of Psychology, he will find his task made easier and more interesting by these welcome volumes. He will find in them an original and frequently brilliant treatment of many of the deepest problems of modern Psychology: and it is as a contribution to science and as an aid to the professional student that a discussion of their contents and tenets will be pertinent in these pages. To begin with, the attitude of the author to his subject is that of a professional scientist to his specialty. "I have kept close," he says, "to the point of view of natural science throughout the book. Every natural science assumes certain data uncritically, and declines to challenge the elements between which its own 'laws' obtain, and from which its own deductions are carried on…. This book, assuming that thoughts and feelings exist, and are vehicles of knowledge, thereupon contends that Psychology, when she has ascertained the empirical correlation of the various sorts of thought or feeling with definite conditions of the brain, can go no farther—can go no farther that is as a natural science. If she goes farther she becomes metaphysical." This position does not carry with it the condemnation of all matters metaphysical, but simply excludes them from Psychology; nor does this independence place Psychology in a position unrelated to other sciences. Such relation is a cardinal fact in the mental world, and nowhere is it more necessary to bear in mind that the division of the sciences is largely an expression of the lines of men's interests and the inevitable specialisation of knowledge. Those forms of adaptations of means to ends which we study as forms of psychic action, while theoretically distinguishable from other modes of action, in fact, often resemble them; in other words, "the boundary line of the mental faculty is certainly vague. It is better not to be pedantic, but to let the science be as vague as the subject," and include all facts, whether they are usually called physiological, or biological, or not, that shed light on the main problems dealt with. This conception accordingly views mind as distinctly related to and an essential part of its environment; it views mental phenomena as infinitely varied, as most intricately conditioned by and in turn conditioning other natural phenomena. For the complete survey of its domain, it calls upon experiment, observation, introspection, comparison, analysis, hypothesis, deduction, each properly controlled by the others, and limited by community of purpose to a firm foundation of fact. It is true that in the more intricate problems, those with the smallest connection with sensation and the largest with inference and analysis, the author will be regarded as more metaphysical than psychological and plainly admits his fault; it is true that the personal leanings of the author lead him to lengthy discussions of these more intricate points, but none the less the positive, broad, and evolutionary spirit that dominates the general view of the subject leaves a clear impress of vitality, progress, and interest on every page. Passing from point of view and purpose to content we do not look for and do not find any 'closed system,' but "a mass of descriptive details" in the selection of which personal interest has been the controlling factor. The articles which Professor James has written from time to time in the periodicals appear, sometimes a little remodelled, in the larger work; each chapter is thus largely an independent essay upon the topic printed at the head of it. On the physiological side we have an admirable chapter on the functions of the brain, but elsewhere the student is referred to other works for the physiological points involved. Following this is an excellent essay on Habit and Automatism, whereupon without further ceremony the reader is invited to a somewhat speculative series of chapters upon 'Mind Stuff,' 'Knowledge and Reality,' and the like, and may resume the more concrete chapters on Attention, Conception, Discrimination and Comparison, Association, only after struggling with the complex picture of 'the Stream of Thought,' 'the Consciousness of Self,' and 'the Snares of Psychology.' Each of these chapters presents a distinct problem, presents it well and positively, and contributes much that is original to the discussion. In all this there is strongly emphasised the subjective contribution to Psychology,—the value of a discerning and critical introspection and the importance of the subject in all processes of sense, judgment, attention, association, and the like. The mind is not a passive receptacle of experiences, but is continually active, making and shaping, seizing and transforming, absorbing and assimilating the stimuli of its environment. A second series of topics take up the perception of those general concepts, Time, 'Things,' Space, Reality, and Form, the largest and heaviest chapters in the work, amongst which, as if to whet the appetite, are distributed more concrete pages dealing with Memory, Sensation, and Imagination. The former devote much space to criticism, and would, perhaps, border upon the metaphysics that was to have been avoided, were it not that they spring from considerations much more concrete and provable; the latter group of chapters are amongst the most interesting of the volume, and though treating but a small and somewhat arbitrarily selected portion of each of the topics, treat them in a suggestive and inspiring way. Discerning and ingenious sketches of single mental traits and processes, happy illustrations, suggestive side issues make these pages a striking contrast to the usual text-book tone, and will attract students of all shades and grades of agreement or disagreement with the author's views. The remaining chapters deal with Reasoning, Movement, Instinct, Emotions, Will, Hypnotism, Necessary Truths; in addition to the characteristics already indicated, we find here a wise use of the facts of Morbid Psychology, of the inferences from the abnormal to the normal. This naturally stands out prominently in the discussion of Hypnotism—so recent and yet so essential a department of mental science. When we close the cover of the second volume we do so with the feeling that our mental horizon has been enlarged, our interests have been quickened, our attention has been held, our time agreeably spent,—and yet the result of all this reading seems intangible, diffuse, scattered, unsatisfactory. The scholar and the professor always retain the student feeling and the student habit of thought; and what is unpedagogic for the one is uneconomical for the other. A logical order of exposition, a unifying grouping of topics, a just perspective of details, a painstaking selection of facts, constitute much to convert useless knowledge into useful science; such works contain a large element of drudgery, must be impersonal in one sense of the term, and yet are not inconsistent with a high degree of originality, but it is such works that are enormously helpful, that form landmarks by which progress is measured and retained. These useful qualities we miss in Professor James's work. True, it does not pretend to possess them, but psychological text-books are not written every day, and when so influential a one appears, the wish that its utility shall reach a maximum demands expression. Finally, it is a work destined to be much quoted, to arouse considerable discussion, to excite quite different opinions from different critics, and so, every one interested in modern Psychology will find it necessary and profitable to learn at first hand this important American contribution to the science of Psychology. J. J.THE SCIENCE OF THOUGHT. By Charles Carroll Everett, D. D. Boston: De An excellent manual of that which is accepted as logic. The author is a disciple of Hegel, and throughout conforms his treatment of the topic to the lines laid down by his master, although in various connections where these lines permit, the author contributes from his own resources, and from other masters, much needed supplementary matter. The appearance of late of so many essays, manuals, and treatises professing to deal with logic and its affiliated topics is quite noteworthy, and is the manifestation of a need that has become, not merely a crying, but an absolutely groaning one. It is scarcely a metaphor to say that to-day the intellectual world is in great travail over its need of an organon. We are crying unto our logical desire from the depths of our souls and waiting for it as they that wait for the morning. This intensity of our want makes us intolerant of the old incompetences and sets us to fault-finding in the hope of better insight when the current obscurities shall have been dissipated. We scan each effort as it appears, and as it discovers no even single clear organic general principle around which the wealth of knowledge now ascertained can set in order we lay it aside with a feeling of being merely tantalised. We cannot but assimilate our condition to that of the Haunted Man in Bret Harte's clever travesty of Dickens: "'Here again?' said the Haunted Man. 'Here again,' assented the phantom, in a low tone. 'Another novel?' 'Another novel.' 'The old story?' 'The old story.' 'It won't do, Charles! It won't do!' and the Haunted Man buried his head in his hands and groaned." When the singular difficulties of the search are considered, all this is, no doubt, void of that sweet reasonableness that should obtain. Still the interests of progress are too supreme to permit any compromise with error or incompetence. So, although the excellent manual under notice makes no pretensions that are unwarrantable, according to the customs usually observed in such cases, it yet affords salient features, apt as texts for a course of comment that applies, not merely to the doctrine and treatment adopted in it but to the doctrine and methods of the accepted logic-books in general. The book is entitled, "The Science of Thought." This exposes an incompetent comprehension of the topic. The Science of Thought should be a mere branch of psychology. In logic, we of course, have an almost prime need of information concerning the anatomy and physiology of thought. But this is not the peculiar motive of logic. The raison d'Être of logic is not the general economy of thought, but the phenomena of untrue, incompetent, or fallacious thought, or, in other words, erroneous thought. Did but the mind of man always supply him with true and competent thoughts he would find no need of seeking logical criteria, however much he might be interested in the phenomenology of thought in general. Man being, however, what he is, informed by a mind, prone to error, and he, in consequence, frequently subjected to evils and misses that better information would have enabled him to avoid or mitigate, he naturally seeks to solve the causes of his errors, and to discover means of testing the worth of his thoughts and of deriving thoughts that are true and competent. This search is the study of logic; the true information relevant thereto is logic, and no other device of man ought to trespass upon the name. Using for this turn the word truth in a broader sense than usual, so as to include the sense of competence, we may say that Logic is the Science of Truth and Untruth in Thought,—take notice, in thought—for we are supposing that there neither is, nor can be, any other or further means of becoming aware of aught of the nature or features, of aught that is pure alternate to mind, than thought merely, and that, therefore, truth and untruth in thought exhausts all the proper possibilities of truth and untruth. Following Hegel, and concurring with so many others, our author starts with Being as the proper primordial universal notion. Is this not taking note merely of the comprehensive meaning of thought, in ignorance of its denominate meaning? Prior, at least logically, to Being, Form, Mode, Limit, Relation, and the like, must there not be posited or supposed somewhat to be, to be formed, to be modulated, to be limited, to be related, etc? Must not Quality be quality of somewhat, and Quantity, quantity of somewhat? So it seems to us and we therefore posit Ground as primordial in thought. Ground as intended here is not the same as the Absolute Being of Hegel. It is in general independent of the notions either of existence or reality, being in general that of which aught is predicative either in discourse or thought. It is pure logical denomination free of all logical comprehension. The imaginary number and the ideal number of mathematics are each just as truly grounds according to this intent as is a house or a tree. Ground is the seat or basis of Being, Mind, Form, Mode, Limitation, Relation, etc. Behind any momented thought, say Sun shines, Mind thinks, or It is, lies, it may be latent, but all potential, the mere thought stripped of all comprehension: Sun, Mind, or It. It is wholly irrelevant that a ground is manifest only by means of its comprehension if it be true that it must be supposed as the seat of that comprehension. Undistributed and therefore unrelated or absolute ground from its very nature admits of no other predicate than mere being. It is in general at once the All and Existence. Its negative or Naught has no ground, being, or comprehension whatever, and no proper denomination, its name being only quasi-denominative and for convenience of notation merely. Form or Thought breaks this barren universe of mere Ground and Being by the formation of modes of Ground and by the more or less arbitrary fiats and finds of Limitation. By the formation of Mode emerge Form, Time, and Extent, and perhaps It is a most notable peculiarity of thought that it has the ability and that it is its custom to take any form or phase of Being, and regard and deal with it as a ground. Hence every momented thought (which in effect embraces every thought properly speaking) makes two distinct references, its ground reference and its being or predicate reference. This seems to be the bottom truth in respect to the much vexed topic of extension and comprehension. There would seem to be, therefore, in reality only two ultimate categories, Ground and Being. As to how the categories, usually taken as such, and their complements, should be distributed between Ground and Being, would seem to be a matter requiring much pondering to arrange. Owing to the double quality of so many of the mental alternates, as in one regard Being and in another regard Ground, much difficulty might well be anticipated. Neglecting this distribution we may say that very universal terms of thought are Ground, Being, Form, Mode, Limit, Number, Part, Relation. Epoch, Place, Alteration, Event, Cause, Effect, Aim, and the like. The cardinal mental activities which produce thought seem to be, in order, Attention, Conception, Recognition, Induction, and Deduction. In all these operations there is opportunity for not only true, but erroneous thought, and logic in its office as the inspector and judge of thought in respect of its truth or error, should study all these operations and those which are subsidiary to them, and ascertain the causes of error and the means of truth, and perfect methods of deriving truth with certainty and ease. It is very presumptuous and hazardous to essay a definition of truth, yet since such a definition is a great desideratum, and since it will not be effected except by earnest trial, and since also, in such a matter, even failures that are consequent on devoted attempts are instructive to subsequent attempts, we venture our submission: A thought is true which while representing its applicate (that is whatever to which it is directly applied) also, in so far as its purport implies, represents in mind a thorough and respective parity and ratio, through which each thought-analyton and thought-syntheton (whether ground, mode, limit, number, part, relation, etc.) corresponds to its proper applicate-analyton or applicate-syntheton. Truth is this representative and correspondent parity and ratio in general. A thought may be true and yet incompetent, that is unfit to serve some assigned purpose or turn in view, by reason, it may be, of its irrelevancy, or it may be of its restricted application or purport. It is a question that has been much mooted whether or not our sensations are true to their mind-alternate excitants. The argument towards showing that they are would be prolix and must be passed. If however they are not true it would be interesting to hear by what quality or nature they are to be characterised in respect to their verity. Attention is a mental activity of considerable importance in logic in connection with that very fruitful source of error, mal-observation. But by far the most important mental activity to be studied and thoroughly known for the behests of logic is Conception, with its all important adjunct of denomination. The verity or error of all other mental operations that generate thought depends largely on the truth or untruth, the competence or incompetence of Conception. On our conceptions as a basis is erected and must ever be erected every scheme of our notation, and in so far as our conceptions are untrue or incompetent, so probably is, and so will be, in perhaps a multiple measure, all our knowledge. Very much more ought to be said in this connection, but space will not permit. The mental operation which is here called Recognition, but which has been called hypothesis and otherwise, and which the author reviewed calls Identification, has not received the attention from logicians in general which its importance requires. It is a true variety of inference, as Mr. C. S. Peirce has fully shown. Our conceptions which are the central facts of logic would be of little value to us were we not able truly to subsume our perceptions under them. A variety of facts are available to show how very often we do this wrongly, imperfectly, or not at all. Induction, and its rationale, depends also very largely upon conception and its intimate consequences, denomination, attribution, and relationising. Deduction and the Syllogism are trite themes, although the part that attribution plays in the process has been insufficiently noticed, and although the rules of deduction from relation-terms, the most important and fruitful of all, are as yet very partially ascertained. What is needed as an indispensable prerequisite to this last, seems to be a census and classification of the manifold relations that are known, after the model of say Roget's Thesaurus, and then a determination of the consequences of such combinations and constructions as are admissible and fruitful, and a tabulation of the same as our multiplication table is a tabulation of the consequences of the multiplication of numbers. The Logic of Relatives as it is called suffers from its having been formed thus far on so very abstract and formal a plan that its formation lacks the check and correction of frequent comparison with concrete knowledge, while its results are almost if not quite useless owing to their extreme generality, which in defect of the mediate formula leaves them inapplicable to aught that can manifest their utility or power. F. C. R.THE TIME-RELATIONS OF MENTAL PHENOMENA. By Joseph Jastrow. New York: The accomplished Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin gives in this publication, which forms one of the series of "Facts and Theory Papers" issued by Mr. Hodges, the results of numerous observations by Cattell, MÜnsterberg and other observers. His object is to present a general view of what has been done already in this department of research. The study of the time-relations of mental phenomena is of importance in various connections. As Professor Jastrow remarks: "It serves as an index of mental complexity, giving the sanction of objective demonstration to the results of subjective observation; it indicates a mode of analysis of the simpler mental acts, as well as the relation of these laboratory products to the processes of daily life; it demonstrates the close interrelation of psychological with physiological facts, an analysis of the former being indispensable to the right comprehension of the latter; it suggests means of lightening and shortening mental operations, and thus offers a mode of improving educational methods; and it promises in various directions to deepen and widen our knowledge of those processes by the complication and elaboration of which our mental life is so wonderfully built up." The results of the observations referred to by Professor Jastrow are given in Tables of Simple Reaction Times and of Complex Reaction Times. One of the most important points considered is "the overlapping of mental processes," as to which Cattell made a special study. From the fact that the time needed for the performance of complete operations, as multiplying numbers and reciting a verse or two at the same time, is shorter than the sum of the times required to do each separately, it is inferred that the mind should be likened not "to a point at which but a single object can impinge at one time, but rather to a surface of variable extension." Moreover, "the performance of a complex and extended mental task is not the same thing as the separate performance of the several elements into which that task may be analysed." The addition of a classified Bibliography adds much to the value of Professor Jastrow's interesting little work. O.ON SAMENESS AND IDENTITY. By George Stuart Fullerton. Philadelphia: Mr. Fullerton's psychological study is the first of a series of contributions to Philosophy to be issued by the University of Pennsylvania. It is truly entitled a "contribution to the foundations of a Theory of Knowledge," and is an attempt to arrive at an accurate conclusion as to the several senses in which the word same is used; with an historical and critical statement of the use of the word in a wrong sense. Mr. Fullerton finds that same has seven different meanings according to the mode in which it is applied. In the first case it has the sense of identity, and in the second that of similarity. Thirdly, the "external" bundle of qualities may be regarded as being the same at two different times, while in a fourth sense, two "external" things, or "external" qualities, existing at one time, may be called the same to mark similarity. Again, an "external" thing or an "external" quality may be called the same with its external representative, as the identification of a thing with its reflection in a mirror. This is the fifth sense; the sixth is where the same "external" object is said to be perceived by different persons. Finally, an "external" thing may be said to be the same "with its representative in consciousness or with the substance or noumenon assumed to underlie it." On searching for the reason why such various experiences are expressed by the use of one word, Mr. Fullerton discovers that the common notion which unites them is the idea of similarity. But how can we speak of similarity when strictly only one thing is in question? The answer given is that we have "a series of experiences, beginning with one in which two objects are recognised as similar and yet are very clearly distinguished as two objects, continued in others in which the sense of duality falls more and more into the background, and ending in one in which there is no consciousness of duality at all." The last of these experiences is not wholly different from the others. It differs from them "not in the element which has led us to declare two objects similar—the element which they have in common—but in that which has led us to declare them two and different. It is by adding to this last experience, so to speak, that we get the others. They contain it and more." The experience in which two things are not distinguished, is at the bottom of all our experiences of similarity. The use of the expression "X is X," then, emphasises the fact that one is not to pass from X to any Y or Z, and it, moreover, puts a period to one's thinking, and fixes the thought upon X alone. When the words "identity" and "sameness" are intended to be used with some degree of precision, the former word indicates "sameness in which there is no consciousness of duality, or in which the consciousness of duality has fallen into the background and may easily be overlooked." More than half of Mr. Fullerton's work is occupied by an historical and critical consideration of the use of the word same in a wrong sense, beginning with Heraclitus and coming down to Prof. W. K. Clifford. The examples he has given of that confusion of thought justifies the assertion of "the need of much greater care and exactitude than one commonly finds in metaphysical reasonings," and at the same time the hair-splitting for which Mr. Fullerton needlessly considers himself called on to plead guilty. O.INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. WITH OTHER ESSAYS. By Constance C. W. Naden. The chief of the essays comprised in this volume is an "historical and critical sketch of successive philosophical conceptions respecting the relations between inductive and deductive thought." It was awarded the Heslop Gold Medal as the best dissertation by a student of Mason College, Birmingham (England), in 1887, and Miss Naden was also rewarded for it by being made an Associate of the College, an honor she well deserved. The dissertation displays a wide knowledge of scientific facts with a rare capacity for dealing with them in a philosophical spirit, and a power of acute reasoning such as few other women have ever possessed. Whether her opinions are always correct is another question. It is a profound remark that we are obliged to regard nature as a system, "because we can consider its multiplicity only in relation to one thinking subject." But we must challenge her statement that we have no certainty for assuming that the laws of nature will always remain unchanged. A change in the laws of nature would be the replacing of it by a different nature of which man could not take cognisance, and which therefore we cannot reasonably conceive to be possible. There might be a change of conditions which would introduce other laws, but these must be in conformity with, and not in opposition to, the present laws of nature, as otherwise they could not exist for us, seeing that "experience is possible in virtue of the original constitution of the mind," and therefore, according to the views of which Miss Naden is an exponent, they could not exist at all. The most interesting of her essays are those which explain the system to which her editor Dr. Robert Lewins gives the name of Hylo-Idealism. This is described as the "brain theory of mind and matter," and it is so described because it asserts that every man is the maker of his own cosmos, all his perceptions having merely a subjective existence and being generated by the brain, "which focuses converging rays of sense from all parts of the body, and unites them into the white light of consciousness." It would be a mistake, however, to think that, according to this theory there is nothing outside of the percipient subject, that is, beyond man himself. The real existence of matter is not denied and, indeed, "so far from being a nonentity, matter is the fons et origo of all entities." Hylo-Idealism deals only with the relative, "ignoring the absolute as utterly beyond human gnosis." While asserting that "the only cosmos known to man, or in any way concerning him, is manufactured in his own brain-cells," it affirms the existence of another cosmos, the external universe of other systems. The mind does not however passively apprehend external objects, but actively constructs them. "We make the mountains, and the sea, and the sun himself; for sunshine is nothing if not visible, and if there were no eye and no brain, there could be no sunshine." The defect of this reasoning is that it makes man the only measure of all things. Because our senses are necessary to us to distinguish certain phenomena, it does not follow that the same phenomena cannot be distinguished under other conditions. The protozoa which have no organs of special sense are affected by the vibrations of light, sound, and probably smell, which would not be possible if those phenomena are "constructed" by the human mind. The utmost that can be said with any show of reason is that the imaging in our consciousness of external objects does not give an actual representation of them. This is required by the theory of Hylo-Idealism, which goes still further, however, and declares that the universe does not exist as we know it. It seems to us that this view is not consistent with even the principles of Hylo-Idealism. Dr. Lewins specially points out that this system "in no sense denies the objective, but only contends for identity of object and subject, proved as it is by natural Realism itself, from the doctrine of molecular metamorphosis, which shows the Ego continually undergoing transubstantiation with the 'Non-Ego,' and vice versÂ, so far as to form one indivisible organism." He compares the Ego and the Non-Ego, that is, subject and object, or our bodies and the "external universe," to a porous vessel of ice, filled with water, immersed in an infinite ocean. "What is within and without, and the septum that seems to divide the two, are all three consubstantial or identical." If they are identical, however, they must perfectly respond to each other, which would not be the case if the object in the mind did not give a true representation of the objects in external nature. Otherwise the identity of subject and object can be predicated, on the condition only of abolishing the "external universe," and affirming of it, as Dr. Lewins affirms of the stars, "What you see is a vision, or organic function, of your own sensifacient organism." We have not space to critically consider Miss Naden's essay on "Evolutionary Ethics," which is a valuable study in Sociology. She gives logical form to Mr. Herbert Spencer's quasi-utilitarian system in the words, "the inclination is always in the direction most pleasurable or least painful; the results of the action, if it be a moral one, are such as in the long run and on a large scale, must increase happiness; but the object of the action need not be connected in the mind of the actor with any thought of happiness, personal or general." The practical objection to this view of moral conduct is the reference to personal happiness. This should be excluded altogether as an actual motive of such conduct where self is the chief object concerned. Here duty or virtue should be the guiding principle, as it should be ultimately in all moral conduct. This indeed is really admitted when it is said that rational utilitarianism "aims, not straight at happiness, but at the essential conditions of happiness." The weak point in Mr. Spencer's system of ethics is the origin it assigns for the altruistic sentiment. This is based in sympathy, the germ of which, says our author, is to be found in the fact that the ideal or "representative" world possesses an emotional aspect and therefore "the thought of a fellow creature carries with it the thought of his feelings." This thought is not necessarily, however, accompanied with an active feeling of sympathy. It requires some other influence to give it external expression, and this must be sought in the activity of the sexual instinct. Traced to this source we can understand how the altruistic sentiment may become instinctive, giving rise through parental and fraternal affection, to the higher love of country and of race, which in time will also become instinctive. In taking leave of Miss Naden's work, we must say that, much as we disagree with its Hylo-Idealistic views, it deserves to be read by all who are interested in the search for the key to the great problem of nature. Its examination of the logical system of Kant is slight, and it is not surprising, therefore, that the name of the great German philosopher is omitted from among the precursors of Darwin. Miss Naden is in error, too, in describing Haeckel as a pronounced Materialist. He is no more so than was Darwin himself. Such mistakes were probably due to the bent of the mind of our authoress, whose too early death is a loss to the cause of truth and to humanity itself. O.EMBLEMATIC MOUNDS AND ANIMAL EFFIGIES. By Stephen D. Peet. Chicago: The author of this work is well known, not only as the editor of the American Antiquarian, but as a careful explorer of aboriginal monuments in the Northwest. His attention has not been limited, however, to the results of personal observation; he has utilised the researches of other explorers, and is thus able to present to his readers an amazing amount of information, which is rendered doubly valuable by the profuse use of maps and illustrations. The points which Mr. Peet has sought to bring out in his book are, that (1) the works described as effigies were imitations of the wild animals which were once common in the region where they are found, which is chiefly in Wisconsin and Ohio, and were also totemic in their character; (2) the effigies were used for practical purposes, such as screens for hunters, guards for villages, foundations for houses, heaps on which sentinels were stationed; (3) they embodied "certain superstitions and customs which are rarely found, but which are suggestive of the religious system prevalent in prehistoric times." The consideration of the first and second of these points does not come within our province, but it will be interesting to see what light the curious monuments described throw on the religious ideas of the aborigines. Mr. Peet states that the location of the effigies gives the idea of the prevalence among their builders of a kind of nature-worship. They are closely associated with the natural features of the earth, "the streams and lakes, hills and valleys, woods and prairies," being overshadowed by them. The animals represented were divinities to the people, and the effigies were intended to be symbols of such divinities, associated for particular reasons with special localities. In support of this view, Mr. Peet refers to the fact that the "myths which fix upon scenes in nature are those which remind one of the animal divinities which were worshipped. The figure of the moose and the turtle and other animals have been recognised in certain strange and contorted figures in the rocks and mountains, and myths have been connected with them, the myth having evidently been made to account for the resemblances." The most remarkable example of this kind is the great serpent mound of Adams County, Ohio. Serpent mounds are found in various other localities, and usually they correspond with the natural features of the ground on which they are placed. But if the effigies are to be regarded as symbols of a totemic animal-worship, it may be thought that they cannot be taken as evidence of the existence of nature-worship. Mr. Peet remarks, however, that the symbolism of Ohio was that of sun-worship, and the existence of this phase of nature-worship among the American aborigines is an important fact. It connects their religious ideas with those which were at one time almost universally prevalent in the Old World. The Sun as the source of life and energy was from an early date the object round which centered the religious ideas of the ancient world, and the serpent occupied a chief place as symbolical of the most important of those ideas. The veneration for deceased ancestors represented similar ideas with those embodied in sun-worship, and the animal totemism of which the effigy mounds are symbolic was connected with the latter superstition through ancestral worship, the mythical ancestor being identified with the totem. If this is so, the study of the mythology of the aboriginal inhabitants of this country may be expected to throw light on the origin of Old World superstitions, and Mr. Peet may be congratulated on having done so much to make known the symbolical and other works which will soon be the only relics of an ancient and wide-spread race. O.LIFE. By M. J. Savage. Boston: Geo. H. Ellis. In this volume of sermons we have a most interesting series of studies on a subject which is probably attracting at the present time more intelligent interest than at any past epoch. The views entertained by Mr. Savage are so well known that it is not necessary to give any elaborate review of the present work. Among other themes he treats of the Nature and Origin of Life, Goodness and Moral Evil, Life's Meaning, Nationalism and other social dreams, Morality and Religion. Everywhere we find much material for thought, and, although from the very nature of the case many of Mr. Savage's conclusions will not be generally accepted, his words will be read with more than a passing interest. His statement that right and wrong "are to be understood by studying the progress, the development, of the race, just as we find out any other truth," cannot well be contested by the advocate of any ethical theory. When he affirms this life "to be only manifestations as the years go by, out-blossomings everywhere of that life which is God,—the mystery and yet the explanation of all things," he expresses an opinion that most men who have given the subject serious thought will accept—subject only to the reservation that they are allowed to understand "God" in their own way. The answer given by Mr. Savage, in his concluding discourse, to the question "What is it all for?" will meet with less acceptance. He remarks that all the theories which can be found as to the outcome of things are only variations of three chief theories: (1) that of a future life of rewards and punishments, the theory of Milton's "Paradise Lost"; (2) that of M. Comte, which is well named the religion of humanity; (3) that which regards spirit as having the pre-eminence over matter. As to the first theory, Mr. Savage declares it to be condemned by the intellect, the heart, and the conscience of men. He affirms that the second theory ends in nothing, and he endorses the statement of Mr. John Fiske, that "considered intellectually, such a theory puts the world to permanent intellectual confusion." Mr. Savage, therefore, accepts the third theory which "makes immortality a wholly rational thought." He sees the proof of it in the existence of the brain, the conscience, the heart of man, which "are prophecies, since they are the expression of the nature of things, and since they demand the perfect thought, and love, and right." O.PROTOPLASM AND LIFE. By Charles F. Cox, M. A. New York: N. D. C. The first part of Mr. Cox's contribution to the study of what may be termed the literature of the interesting subject he discusses, treats of the Cell doctrine. He traces clearly the changes that have taken place in the protoplasm theory, to which that doctrine belongs, with particular reference to Doctor Beale's germinal matter and Prof. Huxley's physical basis of life. In his summary of conclusions, Mr. Cox shows that the original idea of the cell, as propounded by Schleiden and Schwann, has gradually faded away. As he states, the attention of the defenders of the cell doctrine has been forced from one position to another until it is fixed on a germinal point. The same fate has befallen Dr. Beale's ideal living matter, which if an actually visible thing is reduced to "a mere skeleton of his original bioplasm," an attenuated reticulum; while Huxley's physical basis of life, like his Bathybius, is relegated to the realm of the imagination. Thus there is "no one visible and tangible substance to which the name protoplasm is rigidly and exclusively applied." Mr. Cox's conclusion as to the nature of the basal life-stuff is that "the only admissible alternative is matter plus vitality or matter minus vitality." This brings us to "the impassable gulf between the not-living and the living"; which we would observe, however, might cease to be impassable if we could properly define the terms "matter" and "vitality." The second part of Mr. Cox's brochure is devoted to a consideration of the spontaneous generation theory, and its relation to the general theory of evolution. Mr. Cox's personal conclusion is, that, to the better part of the scientific authorities, "the spontaneous generation theory is a necessary part of the general theory of evolution, but that no experimental evidence has as yet been produced in support of the belief in the occurrence of abiogenesis, and that therefore the evolution theory hangs upon a link of pure faith." Mr. Cox finds in the gap between lifeless substances and living forms the veritable "Missing Link." O.NOUVEAUX APERÇUS SUR LA PHYLOGENIE DE L'HOMME. By Madame ClÉmence Madame Royer, in this admirable memoir, taking for a text the fact that an Australian lizard was seen by M. de Vis walking on its hind feet, criticises severely Haeckel's genealogy of man, whose line of descent she declares to be distinct from that of the apes. The first terrestrial ancestors of man and of other anthropomorphous animals issued from pelagic forms of distinct origins, whose evolution had been parallel, but the human ancestors acquired the upright position in a phase of amphibious ichthyophagy, while the ape ancestors adapted themselves directly to an oblique position. This original difference of attitude adapted men from the first to an entirely pedestrian motion, and the apes to a life more or less arboreal, but neither men nor apes have had any terrestrial ancestor adapted to the horizontal position. O.LE MONDE COMME VOLONTÉ ET COMME REPRESENTATION. Par Arthur M. Burdeau's translation of the chief work of the renowned philosopher of pessimism is the only perfect translation into the French language. It is made with a scrupulous exactness, and its style is said to be as clear as that of Schopenhauer himself, "by which he is distinguished from all other German philosophers and is recognised as a disciple of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Chamfort." The present volume contains important appendices in which Schopenhauer recapitulated and developed various points treated of in the first edition of his work. We may refer particularly to the chapters on Instinct, Genius, Insanity, the Metaphysic of Music, and the Metaphysic of Love. DIE HYPNOSE UND DIE DAMIT VERWANDTEN NORMALEN ZUSTAENDE. Vorlesungen This little book will in one respect be of special interest to psychologists. The author confesses in the preface that when he commenced his hypnotic investigations, he attempted to explain the facts under consideration by the Cartesian theory which hitherto, he says, had proved perfectly sufficient to explain the data of normal soul-life. What the author understands by the Cartesian theory appears from the following passage: "The popular conception of the relation between soul and body is, that the soul is a being distinct from the body and endowed with certain faculties. This conception is still defended by a certain, not very numerous school of philosophers whom we may briefly call Cartesians from the fact that their theory can be traced back to Descartes, although in the lapse of time it has been considerably modified." In a word the Cartesian theory is the theory that still accepts the existence of a mythical or metaphysical soul-unity called the ego. Dr. Lehmann says: "It was argued since 'I' in spite of a constant change of my consciousness, am in possession of the certainty that it is the same identical 'I' that has all these states, sensations, feelings, this 'I' or the soul must be a unity. And this unity must stand in a causal connection with the outside world, with the domain of nature in the widest sense of the word," etc. It is perhaps exceptional that a teacher at a University of Protestant Northern Europe has been under the influence of Cartesianism, but it is highly commendable that he openly confesses his change of opinion because the facts under observation demonstrate its erroneousness. Dr. Lehmann no doubt will find that the normal phenomena of psychic life are by no means in accord with the Cartesian doctrine. Indeed by showing how the abnormal and normal states agree, he implicitly confesses that the theory that proves untenable for the former ought to be regarded as untenable for the latter. We have instances of men who believe in the Cartesian doctrine, or at least by a natural predisposition have a tendency to believe in it, wavering in their belief, because the data of the normal states of psychic life so little favor the dualism of the great French philosopher. Now it almost seems as if the discoveries and the strangeness of hypnotic phenomena had contributed a great deal towards turning the tendency toward a monistic solution of the psychological problems back to the almost abandoned dualistic solution. We are fully confident that this reaction will not last, because in spite of all the strange mysteries that surround modern hypnotism, it will after all only find a satisfactory interpretation in some monistic conception. Dr. Lehmann in abandoning the Cartesian theory, says: "The bodily and psychical states are as a matter of experience given as two series intimately connected the one with the other. Their connection can be explained in two different ways: Either the phenomena of the one are effects of the other, or both series are effects of one and the same unknown cause." Dr. Lehmann considers either solution as a priori equally acceptable, yet he favors the latter, which might briefly be called (although the author does not use the expression) "the agnostic solution." Dr. Lehmann characterises it as "die Spinozistische Annahme" and calls it Psycho-physical Materialism. One of his colleagues, Professor Kroman has proposed in his "Logik and Psychologie" a theory that is called by the same name. Yet Kroman's psycho-physical materialism, Dr. Lehmann declares, is widely different from his own; the former being "a mutual causal relation between the Physical and Psychical within the limits of the Atom," which, says Dr. Lehmann, "would make the explanation of complex psychical phenomena impossible." The psycho-physical materialism of Dr. Lehmann, our author maintains, agrees in all essential points with the views of Professor MÜnsterberg (Freiburg in Baden).[65] [65] The observations of Professor MÜnsterberg were reviewed in The Open Court No. 134. The laboratory work done by Professor MÜnsterberg was published after Dr. Lehmann had finished his lectures. A certain similarity between Dr. Lehmann's views and those of the Freiburg Professor cannot be denied, yet it is more than doubtful whether Professor MÜnsterberg would recognise this similarity in the same measure as Dr. Lehmann does. The fact is that Dr. Lehmann has progressed in the direction which the German school of Wundt has taken; yet he has not as yet reached the same clearness; he is still entangled in Cartesian ideas, as is shown by his way of proposing problems: for instance in his treatment of the problem of will, which he justly calls "der eigentliche Probirstein der Hypothese," and of Attention, "the most enigmatic of all states of the soul" (der rÄthselhafteste aller SeelenzustÄnde). In these and in other considerations Dr. Lehmann shows that he is still far from the positive standpoint by which MÜnsterberg's investigations are distinguished. It is very strange that in speaking of Attention M. Ribot's name has not even been alluded to. If the author had shown a familiarity with some of the monographs of this great French psychologist, he might have saved himself much work. ???. DER HELIOTROPISMUS DER THIERE UND SEINE UEBEREINSTIMMUNG MIT DEM The object of this work is to fill a gap in the treatment of the subject of animal movement depending on light, and to explain it by a consideration of the actual facts. After stating that the effect of light upon animal movement is purely mechanical, and that it is governed partly by the action of the light as the exciting cause, and partly by the structure of the sensitive organisation, Dr. Loeb proceeds, "I will now prove that the direction of the light rays determines quite generally the movements induced in animals by the light, no less than the direction of plant movement, and that the orientation not only of plants but of animals, depends upon the bodily form of the latter, in so far as the dorsiventral animals themselves move with the median plane in the direction of the light rays," etc. The more refrangible are the rays of light the more efficacious is its mechanical action upon animal and plant movement, which is affected also by the constant intensity of the light and its temperature. Thus it appears that the moth's flight into a flame must be considered as the same mechanical process as, for instance, the motions of sunflowers, the growth of the sprouting axis in buds, etc. Dr. Loeb's conclusion that the circumstances which govern the movements of animals towards the light are conformable to those which have been already recognised in relation to plant-movement, is supported by numerous facts, which appear to fully establish the accuracy of his observations and deductions. The diligent author who is at present engaged in scientific investigations at the stazione zoologica in Naples, has in the mean time published a series of further observations on the same question, all of which, as was to be expected, corroborate the propositions set forth in the above mentioned little book. We have before us two reprints, one from the Biologische Centralblatt, Vol. X, Nos. 5 and 6, 1890, the other the Archiv f. d. ges. Phys., Vol. XLVII, with one plate and two wood-cuts, the former treating of the heliotropism of the nauplii of Balanus perforatus, whose periodical migrations are shown to depend upon the action of the light, the latter discussing the common features of heliotropism in animals and plants. UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZUR PHYSIOLOGISCHEN MORPHOLOGIE DER THIERE. 1. UEBER Julius von Sachs, VÖchting, Noll, and other botanists have successfully opened the way to a knowledge of the growth of plants in their causal conditions. This method has been applied to the physiology of animals by PflÜger. The present pamphlet is a contribution to this endeavor by Dr. Loeb, whose special object has been to determine the laws of the restoration of lost organs in animal organisms. Botanists have found that if a plant that has undergone the loss of an organ has to build it up again, the new organ will be different from the original organ, and this difference can be determined by law. Dr. Loeb inquires whether the same can be said of the reconstruction of the lost organs of animals. There are, as a rule, in animal organisms two poles, viz. the oral pole, forming the head, and the aboral forming the tail. It has been generally supposed that living animal substance possesses the tendency to develop in one special direction oral organs, and in the other aboral organs. This was called Polarity and is based upon the experiments of Allman, Trembley, Dalyell, and others. The experiments of Dr. Loeb, made with the view of testing the polarity theory, show that it is possible to develop in animals possessing physiologically distinct heads and tails, heads instead of tails in the aboral pole, and to do so without any serious interference with the vitality of the creature. The experiments have been made chiefly on Tubularia mesembryanthemum, Aglaophenia pluma, Plumularia pinnata, and other species. Dr. Loeb proves by his experiments that external conditions control the reproduction of organs, so that artificially oral organs can be made to grow where aboral organs have been, and vice versa. It is this faculty of animal organisms which Dr. Loeb calls heteromorphosis. ???. DIE ETHISCHE BEWEGUNG IN DER RELIGION. By Stanton Coit, Ph. D. This series of Sunday lectures by Dr. Stanton Coit, the speaker of the South Place Ethical Society of London, England, has been translated into German, in the shape it is now before us, by Dr. Coit's friend and teacher Prof. George von Gizycki; they have not yet appeared in English. The South Place Ethical Society is not directly affiliated to the Ethical Societies of North America, but it stands with them in friendly relations. Dr. Coit, a native American, is strongly biased in his views by his American co-workers; he is the youngest among them, and is, I believe, to be considered as a disciple of Professor Adler. He has inherited from Professor Adler the idea that we can have ethics without a world-conception or a religion; yet this idea has been considerably modified, and an approach to more positive and practical views is perceptible in many passages of his sermons. In the lecture "Which Ethics?" Dr. Coit says: "We need (bedÜrfen) a theory concerning the universe and our position in it instead of the old faith." Yet in contradiction to this, he declares that theories are of little use. He adds: "If two men come down from their abstract theories into real life and to the forces which create action, it is as if they descend from two opposite mountain peaks into a warm and rich valley where rivulets run down from both sides to unite their waters inseparably into one continuous stream." |
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