The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891 :: PERIODICALS. (2)

PERIODICALS. (2)

THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. September, 1890. Vol. III. No. 3.

The full title of Dr. Donaldson's elaborate article is Anatomical Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the blind Deaf-Mute, Laura Dewey Bridgman. The object had in view in the examination of the brain was "to determine, if possible, whether the peculiar mental existence of Laura Bridgman, which was the result of her defective sense-organs, has left any trace on her brain, or whether such anomalies as may be observed are sufficiently explained when considered as the direct consequences of the initial defect alone." The article is therefore "a special study in the general field of the inter-relation of brain-structure and intelligence." The final results are reserved for a second article, but it appears from the present one that the total area of Laura's brain is somewhat small for its weight, and that it is slightly inferior to two other female brains with which comparison was made, the inferiority depending mainly on the smaller average depth of the sulci, that of the left side being the most manifest. The difference can be explained in part at best, by the failure of certain portions of the brain to develop completely. Dr. Donaldson's article is illustrated by very carefully prepared plates.

In the present part of his sketch of the history of reflex action, Dr. Hodge treats of the law demonstrated by Bell, that the posterior roots of the spinal nerves are sensory, the anterior motor, which forms the beginning of the modern history of the nervous system, and of "the physical versus the psychic theory of reflex action." The mechanical theory of reflex action was first elaborated by Marshall Hall. It was opposed by Volkmann and others, among them PflÜgel and Auerbach. On the other hand, Lotze supported the former view, but he advanced "a step beyond the comparatively crude, simple mechanism of Marshall Hall to a mechanism of the utmost delicacy, a mechanism susceptible of the nicest adjustments, capable of education, and of prolonged, independent, and complex activity." Habit is only another name for mechanism.

Under the head of Psychiatry, Dr. William Noyes gives an elaborate sketch of the life of Jean Jacques Rousseau bearing on the question of his insanity, which is exciting considerable interest at the present time. (E. C. Sanford, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.)

MIND. October, 1890. No. LX.

The Origin of Music. This article is intended as a postscript to Mr. Spencer's essay on "The Origin and Function of Music," included in his Essays, Scientific, Political, and Speculative, of which he is preparing a final edition. It is a reply to Mr. Darwin, who supposes music to have originated from a particular class of vocal noises, the amatory class, instead of, as Mr. Spencer asserts, its being derived from the sounds which the voice emits under excitement, eventually gaining this or that character according to the kind of excitement. After considering various objections by Mr. Edmund Gurney and others, Mr. Spencer concludes: "The origin of music as the developed language of motion seems to be no longer an inference but simply a description of the fact."

Mr. James Sully deals with Differentiation, Assimilation, and Association as the intellectual constituents in the process of Mental Elaboration. Differentiation is considered first as a process of marking off, by means of special adjustments of attention, particular sensations; followed by Discrimination, which involves change of psychical state, the dependence of mental life on which has been formulated as the Law of Relativity. Assimilation, described as a mode of unification or integration, is treated of under the headings, Psychological Nature of Likeness; Automatic Assimilation; Recognition; and Transition to Comparative Assimilation. Association is the "process of psychical combination or integration which binds together presentative elements occurring together or in immediate succession." This supposes Retention or the tendency of a sensation to persist, and Reproduction, or the reappearance "in consciousness" of the impression under a new representative form. The three processes of Differentiation, Assimilation, and Association do not follow each other, but are closely interconnected.

Part II. of Volkmann's Psychology deals with the problem of Time and Space, and with the subjects of Space of Time (Zeitraum), Motion, Number, and Intuition. "Out of sensations intuitions are evolved in consequence of the properties immanent in the sensations." While their localisation progresses in the region of the more strongly toned sensations, projection, or the "assignment of sensations to the external world," goes on simultaneously in the region of toneless sensations. By the addition of "consciousness of dependence in having the sensation," there is the completion of the presentation of the External Thing as thing. Illusions are divided into two classes; namely, 'illusions of internal perception' and 'illusions of sense.' The Ego is purely a psychical result of the soul "becoming conscious of an interaction between one of its presentations and the most ramified of its presentation-masses." Self-consciousness is defined as "internal perception within the Ego." The mind is then dealt with as thinking, feeling, desiring, and willing. Ethical feeling is a kind of Æsthetic feeling, distinguished from others by the peculiarity of its objective basis, which is the actual will of the subject. Moral freedom is to have the will determined by reason. Psychological freedom permanently extended over the whole of volition is Character; its opposite is Passion.

Mr. Orange furnishes a different explanation of Berkeley's ethical system from that given by Professor Fraser, in a note to the third dialogue of Alciphron (ii. 107), and points out its agreement with Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge. "Moral laws are laws of nature; but there is no value or force in them as laws, save in so far as they are the orderly expression of God's ideas." Man's ideas are true or good, when the human spirit is at one with the divine. Both in natural and moral philosophy the laws of nature are to be attained by the use of reason.

Prof. Robertson draws attention to the concessions involved in MÜnsterberg's idea of 'Muscular Sense.' To the term 'muscle-sensation' no exception can be taken, "provided it is meant for no more than mere external designation, as when we speak of 'eye-sensation,' 'skin-sensation,' or the like," and is not called 'sensation of movement.' MÜnsterberg finds that a whole class of factors have been overlooked, or hardly regarded, by previous inquirers into 'Time-Sense.' These are sensations (or representations) of muscular tension, by synthesis of which with sense-elements (sounds by preference) time-apprehension is explicable. He is struck particularly with the part played in his experiments by the breath-rhythm, and "it seems impossible to doubt that breathing has a prerogative position among the sense-factors concerned in the estimation of short time-intervals." The name 'Time-Sense' has through MÜnsterberg's investigations "more justification than it ever got from its inventors, for whom it has marked only the apparent immediacy of time-apprehension."

In his criticism of Mr. Spencer's theory of the derivation of space Prof. John Watson lays down as the fundamental position of Transcendentalism, or Idealism, as he prefers to call it, "that the universe is intelligible, and that man in virtue of his intelligence is capable of grasping it in its essential nature. It therefore rejects as unmeaning the doctrine of Mr. Spencer, that we know reality to be unknowable." While recognising that Mr. Spencer and others have done good service in drawing attention to certain outward aspects of the evolution of mind, Professor Watson "concludes that no psychology can be adequate which does not recognise that perception is not the mere occurrence of transient feelings, but the first step in that recognition of the true nature of reality which culminates in the comprehension of the world as a single organic unity of which the source and explanation is intelligence."

Mr. Stout points out, in reply to Dr. Pikler (Mind, No. 59), that the sole aim of his article on "The Genesis of the Cognition of Physical Reality" (Mind, No. 57) was to trace "the genesis of the presentation of physical reality as it appears to the ordinary consciousness: not as it may be modified, and perhaps rectified, by the reflective criticism of this or that philosopher," and that what he urged against Mill was simply that "he has confounded his own philosophical view of physical reality with the view which men ordinarily take when they are not in a philosophical mood."

It is shown by Mr. Sutherland that in the utilitarian ultimate conception there is, in addition to "the greatest happiness, plus an arithmetical truth," the element of absolute justice, the existence of which requires that "all subsidiary rights as means to greatest general happiness should at utmost be classed under relative justice." (London: Williams & Norgate.)

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. October, 1890. Vol. I. No. I.

This is the first number of the International Journal of Ethics, which is intended to take the place of the Ethical Record. In the opening article, Professor Sidgwick affirms that the idea of a universal and complete harmony of the earthly interests of all human beings is "an optimistic illusion as to human relations, which in the present age of the world has nearly faded away." Nevertheless, "a very substantial gain would result if we could remove from men's minds all errors of judgment as to right and wrong, good and evil, even if we left other causes of bad conduct unchanged." What is practically wanted is improvement in moral insight, and the aim of the paper is to aid in the solution of certain intellectual difficulties which arise when we try to get a clear idea of duty. Warfare among modern nations "is normally not a mere conflict of interests, but also a conflict of opposing views of right and justice." Disputants may therefore be brought into harmony if they can be really and completely enlightened as to their true rights, as distinguished from their interests. The international law administered by arbitrators may be most useful "in removing minor occasions of controversy and in minimising the mischief resulting from graver conflicts," but it will not provide a settlement of all occasions of strife. Where the sphere of arbitration ends that of the moral method of attaining international peace begins; "if we must be judges in our own cause, we must endeavor to be just judges." The impartiality required is difficult, but "the judicial function—which, in a modern state under popular government, has become, in some degree, the business of every man"—might be performed with success, "if national consciences could be roused to feel the nobility and grapple practically and persistently with the difficulties of the task."

Professor Adler's article is devoted to an account of the Ethical Societies, which are described as being "consecrated to the knowledge of the Good, but not to any special theory of the Good." To adopt a philosophical formula as the basis of union would be to become a philosophical sect, which he declares is "the most contemptible of all sects, because the sectarian bias is most repugnant to the spirit of genuine philosophy." The accepted norms of moral behavior form the starting points of Ethical Societies and their basis of union. They build on the common stock of moral judgment, which may be called the common conscience. Ethics is both a science and an art. As a science it has to explain the facts of the moral life, and it is necessary to begin with the facts and to test theories by their fitness to account for them. It is "the prime duty of every one in his individual capacity to rise to the ever clearer apprehension of first principles," but for this very reason Ethical Societies in their collective capacity abstain from laying down any set of first principles as binding.

It is not quite clear how Professor Adler can declare that the Ethical Societies are consecrated to the knowledge of the good, and yet make so strong an opposition to their stating such knowledge in the exact terms of a philosophical formula. Philosophy is nothing but knowledge of the world systematised into a world-conception. It will hardly be sufficient to make the "common conscience" the corner stone of any society devoted to the elevation of morality. Not only would it be difficult to ascertain what that "common conscience" at present is, but, in addition, we can be assured that the "common conscience" is constantly changing.

Ethics as a science means philosophical ethics; and Professor Adler's ethics is, in fact, the expression of a philosophy. Yet in spite of the advanced position of the Ethical Societies, which have discarded all religious views and ceremonial practices, we find that their leader still stands upon the ground of a dualistic extra-naturalism. Professor Adler says:

"There is a reality other than that of the senses, and the ultimate reality in things is, in a sense, transcending our comprehension, akin to the moral nature of men. But how shall we acquaint ourselves with this Supersensible. The ladder of science does not reach so far."

It is true that there are realities other than that of the senses; take as a most simple instance mathematical points and lines. But there is no reality which theoretically considered can not become an object of science. The statement that there are facts to which the ladder of science does not reach, is tantamount to a declaration of supernaturalism and dualism. Professor Adler has discarded the terminology of the old dogmatism, but he has not discarded its basic error. Instead of developing the old faith into a monistic religion, he throws away religion as a basis of ethics, but preserves carefully that element in it which is hostile to science and philosophy.

The Law of Relativity is a very important contribution by Professor HÖffding to the Science of Ethics. After stating that the moral law, if it is to be truly universal, must "only judge the general direction of the tendency of the will," he affirms that the individual relativity of ethics, or its personal equation, is a factor which enters into the ethical question, "when different individuals with like ethical principles and in like circumstances, but with different dispositions and capacities have to be considered." The individual is always a part of society, and the life of society is no other than that contained in its members, the ideal being "reached only when the individual's efforts in the cause of society also serve the free and harmonious development of his own faculties and impulses." In an ideal State only that would be demanded of each individual which lay within his range and power. Self-control, as a negative virtue, is a psychological impossibility. It is necessary to take note whether there is room for other inclinations that could absorb the store of energy. The struggle of self-control lasts until the new application of energy gains complete ascendancy. The happiest man is where morality has become organic and "there is an agreement between the task arising from the general principles and the particular circumstances, and the capacities and desires of the individual." Professor HÖffding objects to the views of the Italian criminal-psychological school that atavism is a sign of social imperfection, that it "does not justify placing society and the criminal over against each other as absolute right and absolute wrong." He concludes that it is at least an open question whether there are any human beings "in whom no sympathy for the moral law can be awakened, however much the law may be individualised."

The arguments of Professor Clark on The Ethics of Land Tenure are summed up in the following passage: "If a state originally owned its land, in the fullest sense of the term, it had the right of voluntary alienation which is inherent in such ownership. Increments of value, present and future, are its property; in alienating them it gives away its own. If the attainment of its ends requires that they be transferred to others, the title of the grantees is valid. To deny to the state the privilege of alienation is to essentially abridge its natural rights; it is to make its ownership of the land incomplete." In relation to what is incorrectly termed "unearned increments," it is remarked, "if the essence of property is regarded, and not its form, the increments of value attaching to land are not unearned by their proprietors. In an active market land has its fair price, and this is based partly on the future increments themselves." The loss arising from a confiscation of land-value would fall "not merely on millions who have titles in fee simple, but on all who have made loans on land as security…. To every one it would come in the shape of a seizure by the state of property invested in accordance with its own positive invitation."

The communication of moral ideas, and not ideas about morality, which are the abstract or scientific renderings of moral ideas, is considered by Mr. Bosanquet as the proper function of an Ethical Society. The fault of the present time is distraction, and "one great cause of this distraction is the notion of a general duty to do good, or something other than and apart from doing one's work well and intelligently." The only certain way of communicating moral ideas is contagion, and the most useful teacher of morality is "not so much a man of abstract theory as a man of reasonable experience."

Ethics may be of service to philosophy, says Mr. Salter, in opening up the realm of "what ought to be," beyond the realm of "what is and happens." Moral ideas belong to the realm of unverifiable ideas, which are believed in because of "their own intrinsic attractiveness and authority." Ethics tells us of the law according to which men should act, the law of justice and brotherhood; we may conclude "that whatever may be the actual forces in the world at any time, justice and love are rightfully supreme over them all, and that these are so interwoven with the order of things that nothing out of harmony with them can long stand." It is "the imperishable glory of transcendentalism in our country that in the decay and disintegration of the ancient creed," it sounded the high-note "that the soul can in some sense know the object of its worship; that it need not feed on hearsay, and tradition, and arguments, but can have vision." (Philadelphia: International Journal of Ethics, 1602 Chestnut St.)

REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. September, 1890. No. 177.

NOTICES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES.

REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.

The principle of causality belongs only to the world of sense, that of children and of the commonality of mankind who neither reflect nor analyse their knowledge. It represents confusedly the continuity and inertia which are proper to the scientific stage, as colors represent imperfectly the undulations of the ether, and sound the vibrations of ponderable matter. To make of causality a scientific property of things, a law of the phenomenal and mechanical world, is to affirm that bodies preserve their color in the absence of an eye to perceive it, or their sonorousness when no one hears them. Moreover, from a scientific standpoint, the words sound and color lose all proper meaning; while the principle of causality retains a sense, but then expresses a false proposition, and one which leads us incessantly into error. Several consequences flow from M. Lalande's conception of causality. The first is that this law is not a rational principle, but is an empirical formula, in the mathematical sense of that word. The second is that we are thereby led to see in the idea of efficiency an artificial concept, and, as would be said by philologists, a disease of language, instead of a mysterious "power" that emanates from one phenomenon in order to create its effect. A third consequence is the great simplification it leads to in the problem of induction, which requires us merely to believe in the stability of the laws of nature, which are only mathematical laws proved by experience. The true foundation of induction is the universal value of mathematics, which rests finally on the principle of identity. The degree of perfection of a science can be measured by the quantity of mathematics it employs; and it is this preconceived idea which has given birth to all the psycho-physical measures that have been recently introduced into psychology.

M. Guardia's paper gives a sketch of the philosophical system laid down in the work of the Spanish writer J. Huarte, The Trial of the Spirits, with an introductory account of the author and his book, which first appeared in 1575. Huarte is described as unique among Spanish thinkers, and as a leading figure among natural philosophers on account of the daring novelty of his original views and the excellence of his method, which is that of the inductive philosophy. His doctrine is founded on that of Galen, and he proclaims the principle that the physical determines the moral. All his metaphysics reduce themselves to the recognition of the action of exterior causes, which are of inorganic nature, and of the organism which reacts to them. He thus explains all the manifestations of life, heredity intervening as a factor in its evolution. Huarte was less concerned, however, with physiology and psychology, than with the amelioration of the social state. He worked for the future by creating of psychology an organic science of observation and experience, founded on the knowledge of human nature, and by basing on it the art of education.

In concluding his valuable study of the Origin of Technology, M. Espinas, after giving numerous examples drawn from ancient Greek life, says: "All the technical arts of this epoch have the same characters. They are religious, traditional, local. The myths referred to are at first the faithful as well as the symbolic expression of them." This mythological symbolism is "the product of a psychological and sociological projection, that is to say, the things of art are conceived as benevolent or angered feelings, as intelligent inventions or combinations that are attributed to fictitious idealised men, as exchanges that are made with them, as gifts or precepts that are received from them, or as orders imposed by their will. They are thus psychical operations or social products drawn from human consciousness unknown to it which, personified, find themselves invoked by it in order to explain to itself its own creations."

The unpublished matter referring to the manuscripts of Descartes is contained in a copy of the 1659 edition of the Principes of the French philosopher, and consists of numerous notes in the handwriting of its former owner Joseph de Beaumont. (Paris: FÉlix Alcan.)

REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. No. 178. October, 1890.

ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.

REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.

M. Tarde finds M. Lombroso too severe and at the same time too kind towards the spirit of conservatism. Too severe in terming it misoneism and too kind in regarding it as the only normal condition of societies. The hospitable reception given to novelties is an equally normal function, although intermittent. If instead of making all his sociological ideas circle round the idea of the new, and creating an unfruitful antithesis between the love and the hatred of novelty, he had taken as his central notion the idea of imitation, and proved the universal distinction between the imitation of the new and the imitation of the old, M. Lombroso would have escaped many errors. In all of us, caprice exists by the side of habit, due to physiological misoneism; and the conflict between them goes on in each individual throughout our life. Caprice triumphs at the commencement, but the contest is terminated in old age by the definite victory of habit. It is the same in the social life. The inclination to adopt new ideas is due to the law of imitation, which is a more important factor in great social movements than misoneism.

M. Belot remarks that he would not dare to write the title Une thÉorie nouvelle de la libertÉ if it referred to a theory of his own. Under it he criticises the theory advanced by M. Bergson in his Essai sur les donnÉes immÉdiates de la conscience; according to which freedom belongs, not to the empirical personality of the superficial ego, but to the deeper ego, the subjectivity itself, the alteration of which through the laws of thought and exigencies of science gives rise to the former. According to M. Belot, on the contrary, the will and freedom are shown in the forcing back of the lower ego, which comes to the surface, and its impulses by enlightened ideas. To act in harmony with these is freedom, which is not inconsistent with determinism in the proper sense. Determinism becomes freedom in becoming intelligent. Until then we obey concealed impulses, which may belong to our parents, our ancestors, or our social surroundings, and therefore we are not free.

By an excellent series of experiments, M. FÉrÉ has demonstrated that in attention all the qualities of movement are modified; its rapidity, its energy, and its precision, the physiological condition of the process being a general tension of the muscles. It is an error to suppose the intervention of arrestive action, of inhibition, in the physiology of attention. Voluntary immobility results from very intense muscular activities, and has for its physiological condition the general tension of the muscular system, which places the subject in such a condition that he can react in the quickest and most energetic manner possible to an excitation from whatever point it may come. This is the physiological condition of attention. The exercise of immobility is the most favorable to the development of intelligence, while the relaxation of the muscles which results from the removal of the tension tends to the suppression of attention, and of the psychical activity. Excitations of the skin determine exaggerated reflex activities, more rapid and more energetic movements. As intelligence is developed, the reflex movements become less imperious, the multiplicity of motives of action gives the illusion of freedom of choice. When the excitable centres are incompletely developed, as with women and children, and especially with degenerates, the impulsions and the reflex activities generally, of which the centres are better developed, are more violent and more uncontrollable. (Paris: FÉlix Alcan).

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. I.
Nos. 4 and 5.

LITERATURBERICHT.

Professor J. von Kries examines the hypotheses propounded of late concerning the recognition of the direction in which sound-waves reach the ear. Professor Preyer maintains that different irritations, according to the source of sound, take place in the semi-circular canals, and MÜnsterberg, on the basis of his own experiments, has with some essential modifications accepted Preyer's views. The author devotes his chief attention to the localisation of sounds originating either to the right or to the left of the median plane. The experiments were made with two movable whistles, the intensity of which could easily be regulated. The result was that concerning right and left direction, and also with regard to simultaneous sounds from both directions at a different pitch, each note could be correctly localised. He adds that, so far as he can judge, even he who adopts MÜnsterberg's view has to fall back upon a comparison of the intensity in both ears. A localisation of whistle-sounds in the median line, be it in front or at the back, was not so certain. A single tone was, upon the whole, correctly localised; yet it was difficult to discriminate two sounds in the median plane.

In another article on the same subject, entitled On Interaureal Localisation of Diotic Sensations Karl L. Schaefer of Jena recapitulates in brief the monotic and diotic experiments made by Silvanus B. Thompson, PurkynÉs, Urbantschitsch, and Preyer; completing the inquiries of Fechner on the subject he states the following result: "Let two tuning forks be placed at an equal distance from the median plane in front of the ears, so that their sound is medianly localised: 1) Synchronal vibrations of any pitch, at the same distance, and in exactly opposite directions, produce median oscillations; 2) If the forks are moved a tempo to the right or to the left, i. e. in the same direction, the sound rolls from ear to ear, so long as the motions are not too rapid; 3) If they are executed as quickly as possible the vibrations have their seats in both ears."

The Psychology of Causality is the subject of a longer article (47 pages) by Prof. Th. Lipps. Lipps declares that his "investigation intends to reduce causality to association, and the law of causality to the law of association." The author does not identify his undertaking with the psychology of association, and protests against considering mind-activity as passive processes. He devotes almost too much space to stating what is, or can easily become, an anthropomorphic conception of causation. Where he propounds his positive views, we miss discriminative exactness. Ursache and Grund are not sufficiently distinguished, and the definitions of formal and material cognitions, are not lucidly stated. Dr. Lipps says: "All cognition is objectively conditioned representation; respectively associations of representations. In purely formal cognition the objective raison d'Être (Grund) consists in the presence of a contents of consciousness. In material cognition, or cognition by experience in the narrower sense, it consists in the consciousness of the objective reality of a contents of consciousness."[66] The author's conclusion is summarised as follows:

[66] The passage being so difficult to translate, we quote the original in full: "Alle Erkenntniss ist objectiv begrÜndetes Vorstellen, bezw. Verbinden von Vorstellungen. Bei der lediglich formalen Erkenntniss besteht der objective Grund im Dasein eines Bewusstseinsinhaltes, bei der materialen oder Erfahrungserkenntniss im engeren Sinne besteht er im Bewusstsein der objectiven Wirklichkeit eines Bewusstseinsinhaltes."

"Hume's work and his mistake can thus plainly be recognised. That causal connection is a connection among our ideas, not a connection among the objects represented, that the necessity which distinguishes this connection consists in the psychological compulsion to combine one fact with another, that this compulsion has its reason in association, is the discovery of Hume; and this discovery of Hume is one of the most important in the history of philosophy. That the world becomes a world regulated by law, by being subjected to the law of our mind, this anthropocentric standpoint was therewith determined. Hume's mistake consisted only in this: He did not recognise the full importance of the law of association. Therefore he did not see what associative relations are directly identical with the causal relation. An attempt was made to cover the defect rising therefrom by the principle of habit. Not the principle of association, but the principle of habit depriving the principle of association of its strength, hindered Hume from proposing the correct answer to the question, 'How in experience are general and necessary judgments possible?'" Professor Lipps does not answer this question satisfactorily either; he gives no explanation of the fact that in experience general and necessary judgments are possible. He simply states the fact. Every natural scientist, he says, expects that a certain result that has been observed once, will always take place again if the experiment be repeated under exactly the same conditions.

Professor Lipps states, in concluding, that he is fully conscious of having discussed only a small part of that which might be said on this subject, and adds: "Perhaps objections or criticisms will give me an occasion for additional remarks." We here call his attention to the treatment of the subject in Dr. Paul Carus's pamphlet Ursache, Grund und Zweck (Dresden: Grumbkow, 1881) and also to his articles on Form and Formal Thought and on Causality in Fundamental Problems.

Dr. Richard Wahle, Privat-docent in Vienna, defines in a short sketch on The Psychology of the Question the meaning of Question in the following way: a question is "the preparation during a state of indecision for a perception of the decision." In explaining the meaning of this decision Richard Wahle makes an occasional fling at that kind of psychology which divorced from physiology confines itself to the method of introspection.

The last article, by Prof. H. Ebbinghaus, is the first part of a criticism of Fechner's posthumous letters on Negative Empfindungs verthe, published in the first numbers of this periodical. These letters, Ebbinghaus declares, afford an interesting insight into the scientific personality of Fechner; yet the doctrine contained therein, he adds, has its drawbacks. Ebbinghaus does not accept Fechner's presentation of the case, but refers us to Delboeuf from whose experiments alone, he says, the correct interpretation of negative values of sensations can be derived. Delboeuf's views are not so clearly presented in his first statement as in a later article written in answer to the objections of Tannery, published in the Revue Philosophique V. 1878, and republished under the title Examen critique de la loi psychophysique (Paris, 1883). Ebbinghaus adopts Langer's definition of negative values of sensations. They are "such as under all circumstances if additively connected with equally great positive ones produce as a result zero."

The reports of the proceedings of the International Congress of Physicians, Berlin, 1890, will be of special value to physicians. The present number contains those of the sections of oculists and aurists.

The number contains a valuable bibliographical catalogue of the chief works on physiological psychology for the year 1889. (Hamburg and Leipsic: L. Voss.)

PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 1 and 2.

RECENSIONEN.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

Professor Paul Natorp, the editor, discusses Quantity and Quality in Concept, Judgment, and Objective Cognition. His object is the attempt not to proceed subjectively, or psychologically, or genetically, or causally, or teleologically, but purely objectively in the same sense as mathematics proceeds objectively. The result which he reaches is summarily expressed in the statement "that there is no formal logic … and that it cannot exist at all—except it be based upon the logic of objective cognition (transcendental logic), or represents a part thereof, the severance of which from the whole to which it belongs can have merely technical not scientific reasons." (Heidelberg: Georg Weiss.)

RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. September and October, 1890.

LE IDEE PEDAGOGICHE DI PIETRO CERETTI.

DELL' ATTENZIONE. By V. Benini.

LA SCUOLA E LA FILOSOFIA PITAGORICHE. By S. Ferrari.

BIBLIOGRAFIA.

BOLLETTINO PEDAGOGICO E FILOSOFICO.

NOTIZIE.

RECENTI PUBBLICAZIONI.

RIVISTA ITALIANA DI FILOSOFIA. November and December, 1890.

There are two problems which at present command a general and a keen interest in all countries; viz. the psychological problem and the ethical problem, the latter comprising all the questions of education and instruction, religious as well as secular. If this is true of Germany, France, England, and the United States, it is no less true of Italy. The Rivista Italiana di Filosofia, so ably edited by Luigi Ferri, Professor at the University of Rome, shows this tendency in its latest numbers in a marked degree. They contain among other valuable materials an article by Luigi Pietrobono on the perception of the human body, a psycho-physiological investigation of sentient substance with special reference to sensation and perception. The author arrives at a result, which, if it could be sustained, would lead to an outspoken dualism. Pietrobono believes in two principles, a psychical and an organical, forming an original synthesis and antithesis, interdependent upon and inseparable from each other. Vittorio Benini discusses in the same number the captivating subject of Attention, starting from a discussion of Ribot's monograph on the subject, and devoting his main interest to what he calls "l' attenzione perceptiva È accompagnata dall' intelligenza." The latter kind of attention is of especial importance in education, a subject which is discussed in the conclusion of the article. This leads us to another essay which treats of an exclusively educational subject, proposing the pedagogical ideas of Pietro Ceretti. This article does not contain new truths, but emphasises truths which have perhaps been too little recognised in Italy. Starting from the maxim that all education must develop the faculties of body, soul, and mind (le facoltÀ del corpo, dell' anima e della mente), and that all education must be conducted so as to let the social body derive the benefits therefrom, he urges besides demanding the moral and intellectual culture of man a technical instruction, and among the sciences, literature, and history, he would give mathematics a prominent place.

It may be added that the department of Bibliography contains among other reviews discussions of the following works: 1) Reich's book on Gian Vincenzo Gravina as an author of Æsthetics; 2) Antonio Rosmini's Fragments of a Philosophy of Law and Politics; 3) Robert Benzoni's The Philosophy of Our Day; 4) Pietro Ellero's The Social Question; 5), in the December number, Ferdinando Puglia's Evolution in the History of Italian Philosophical Systems; 6) The national edition of Galileo Galilei's works; and 7) La Somiglianza nella Scuola Positivista e l'IdentitÀ nella Metafisica Nuova, by Donato Jaia.

VOPROSY FILOSOFI I PSICHOLOGUII.[67] Vol. I. No. 4.

[67] Questions of Philosophy and Psychology. In the Russian language.

(PART I.)

REMARKS. By the Editor, Prof N. Grote.

THE POLITICAL IDEALS OF PLATO AND OF ARISTOTLE IN THEIR UNIVERSAL
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE. By Prince E. N. Trubetzkoi.

THE RELATIONS OF VOLTAIRE TO ROUSSEAU. (Conclusion.) By E.
Radlow.

THE ETHICAL DOCTRINE OF KANT. By L. Lopatine.

HYPNOTISM IN PEDAGOGY. By A. Tokarsky.

CONCERNING THE QUESTION OF FREEWILL FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF
HISTORICAL PROCESS. By N. Karyew.

THE VITAL PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY. By N. Grote.

NECROLOGY. M. I. Vladislavlew, Rector of the University of St.
Petersburg. By K.

(PART II.)

EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY: The Elements of Will. By N. Lange.

CRITIQUE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.

COMMON CHARACTERISTICS. Concerning the conflict with the Occident
in connection with the literary activity of a Slavophil. By V.
Rotzanow. The ethical doctrine of Count Tolstoi and its most
recent criticism. By P. E. Astafiew.

BOOK REVIEWS. Reviews of Russian philosophical works on Metaphysics, Logic, Psychology, Ethics, and Æsthetics. Reviews of foreign philosophical periodicals. Philosophical articles in Russian ecclesiastical periodicals.

MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY IN RUSSIA. (1855-1888).

TRANSACTIONS OF THE MOSCOW PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

The distinguished Editor, Prof. N. Grote, in his introductory remarks calls attention to the fact that the present issue of this philosophical and literary review in the Russian language, completes the series that had been promised during the first year of its existence. The review does not claim, during this brief lapse of time, to have been able to solve all the many problems incident to the task that it had assumed at the outset of its career; but it may at least modestly claim to have won the hearty sympathy of an intelligent fraction of the Russian people, expressed by the acquisition of a comparatively large number of subscribers. This material success, moreover, attests the fact that the editor did not deceive himself when at the original publication of the review he seemed to notice an awakening in his country of more serious intellectual interests, and the rise of a desire for a philosophical analysis of the principles of knowledge and of life.

On the other hand, with regard to whether the problems treated of in the pages of the review are identical with those that occupy by preference the minds of intelligent Russian readers; or whether the exposition and the methods of investigation have been properly adjusted to the degree of development and to the mental calibre of the mass of its readers, it will suffice to remark, says the editor, that the full development of all the potential forces of nature and of mind can be attained only through slow and persistent action. We have to bear in mind that the attempt is by no means easy to organise for the first time in a project of this kind the many active workers of a country in which people had never before been associated in a similar undertaking. Yet in confidently entering upon the publication of this review, the editor well knew that there existed in Russia abundant intellectual powers, perfectly adequate to the demands of a high-class philosophical magazine—scientists, learned specialists, talented thinkers, and men of letters; and the review without doubt will not fail to enlist the valuable assistance of all these men in the arduous task, which it will continue steadily to pursue. The main task above all, is to advance the development of self-consciousness in modern Russian society, but the success of this aspiration depends of necessity on the continued sympathy and good will of the public.

As regards the external form of the review, for the greater convenience of the public, instead of four volumes of 20 sheets, as hitherto, there will be issued during the present year five volumes in all—one volume of 15-16 sheets bimonthly, except during the midsummer months.

The editor in conclusion expresses his acknowledgment to several of his western colleagues, to the editors of Mind, the Revue Philosophique, the Archiv fÜr Geschichte der Philosophie, and The Open Court—all of whom have promised to note with genuine interest the contents of the Russian review "Questions of Philosophy and of Psychology." (Moscow, 1890.)

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CONTENTS:

CONTENTS:

CONTENTS:

CONTENTS:

NOTICES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES.

REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.

CONTENTS:

ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.

REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.

CONTENTS:

LITERATURBERICHT.

CONTENTS:

RECENSIONEN.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

CONTENTS:

LE IDEE PEDAGOGICHE DI PIETRO CERETTI.

BIBLIOGRAFIA.

BOLLETTINO PEDAGOGICO E FILOSOFICO.

NOTIZIE.

RECENTI PUBBLICAZIONI.

CONTENTS:

CONTENTS:

(PART I.)

(PART II.)

CRITIQUE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.

BOOK REVIEWS. Reviews of Russian philosophical works on Metaphysics, Logic, Psychology, Ethics, and Æsthetics. Reviews of foreign philosophical periodicals. Philosophical articles in Russian ecclesiastical periodicals.

MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY IN RUSSIA. (1855-1888).

TRANSACTIONS OF THE MOSCOW PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY.