Chapter XIV: Part 14

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
HETEROMORPHOSE. By _Dr. Jacques Loeb_. With 1 plate and 3 figures.
Würzburg: George Hertz.

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_.

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DIE ETHISCHE BEWEGUNG IN DER RELIGION. By _Stanton Coit_, Ph. D.
Uebersetzung von Georg von Gizycki. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.

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."

Is not this beautiful allegory, true as it certainly is in one sense, after all misleading? Is not theory and theory different? If theory means mere speculation, we heartily agree with the proposition to keep clear of and far away from theorising. It is at best a harmless play, and certainly a loss of valuable time. Yet if theory means methodical systematisation of facts, it is not mere waste of time; in that case it is the indispensable condition of all truly practical work. And it is this latter kind of theory which also in the practical work of ethical culture must be sought to be established. We must at least be clear as to basic principles so that the efforts of ethical teachers may not be at random, but directed by the progressive spirit of the age in harmony with our best scientific and philosophic thought.

Concerning religion Dr. Coit says (p. 19) in his article "Why Ethics Instead of Religion": "My own opinion is that there is one feature which distinguishes Religion from all other doctrines, ceremonies, and rules. This feature characterised Matthew Arnold's view. For he insisted not only upon morals and their importance, and thought of means for their propagation, but he proclaimed also that there was a power above the will of man to which he must bow. In the very moment he proposed that power which we have to obey, his ethics became religious.... But the recognition of this higher power, if I am allowed to propose my own views, appears to me of very little importance."

If there is such a power, and we have sufficient reasons not to doubt its existence, I should say that for ethical purposes it is of paramount importance to recognise it and to obey it. In another and a more recent lecture, Dr. Coit pronounces a very different view, he says:

"Anybody who has ever reflected a moment, must have discovered how dependent he is upon a power outside of his own will. He has no strength either for good or for evil, which he has made himself. The more he thinks about it, the deeper must become the feeling of his dependence. And being aware that God, or whatever we call that power in all things, does not mind his whims, he will find it easier not to mind, himself, his own whims. The constant thought that we are not the powers of life and death, will take away conceit and vanity and foolishness. And in this way, it brings us in times of tribulation to a quick resignation. It makes us loving brothers and sons."

Dr. Coit indeed aspires to make of ethical culture a religion for the people. He speaks on this subject in his last lecture. He opposes the Churches for mixing their ethics with theology, and he speaks with great enthusiasm about the poetry of ethics, which is much more powerful than the prose of ethics. He does not seem to see that the influence of the churches is mainly due to their poetry of ethics. Would it not be advisable to point out the prosaic truth in this poetry for the purpose of freeing the human mind of the obnoxious elements of a misunderstood poetry? Would it not be advisable to investigate the poetry of the basic idea in ethics, viz., of the God-idea, so as to let the ethical movement develop itself historically from the past. Dr. Coit's method of dealing with the God-idea is far from satisfactory. He is neither a theist nor an atheist. Sometimes he appears to appreciate the moral importance of the God-idea in its purified shape, and then again he seems to consider it as an ethically indifferent idea. Should not this problem be settled by every one who undertakes to preach ethics. It appears almost as if all the leaders of the ethical culture societies underrated the ethical importance and indispensableness of thought in general and of science and philosophy in particular.

The contradictions which appear in Dr. Coit's lectures show that he is still developing. The book is full of promise and we have every reason to hope that its author will overcome the unclearness that is still lurking in his mind, and that he will grow with the work he is doing.

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FREMDES UND EIGENES AUS DEM GEISTIGEN LEBEN DER GEGENWART. By Prof. Dr.
_Ludwig Büchner_. Leipsic: Max Spohr.

Opinions admittedly are still divided with respect to the laudable efforts of a large class of scientists and writers whose main object is that of presenting the results of scientific research in an intelligible, popular form. Every department of the natural sciences, geology, astronomy, even psychology and comparative philology, each and all, are now represented by able and ardent popular interpreters, who at the same time by their aggressive style and by their polemical methods not unfrequently seem to impart a kind of militant and apostolic attitude to the cause of science. It must further be admitted, that many of these writers, by the unanimous verdict of the present age, are among the most instructive, readable, and actually the most widely read authors of contemporaneous German, French, and Anglo-American literature. At first glance, it accordingly may seem rather strange, that these same popular authors should also be subjected, not unfrequently, to their commensurate share of unfair, and even offensive, popular criticism; and yet it could hardly be otherwise.

The well-known writer of these scientific and critical essays, Prof. Ludwig Büchner, affords an exceptionally striking instance of the unenviable lot of some of our most popular writers of science. In one of these essays inscribed "Meine Philosophie," Professor Büchner has been compelled to defend the arduous work of his laborious life against a decidedly unfriendly and unappreciative criticism of his philosophy and whole scientific activity, that some time ago appeared in the American _Freidenker_ of Milwaukee. Prof. Büchner, with a touch of legitimate bitterness, repudiates the imputation of having been, or still being, as he himself calls it, only the "popularisator," expounder and commentator, of the theories and systems of other thinkers; that, on the contrary, in Germany and elsewhere, among the highest representatives of science, for more than thirty years Professor Büchner himself has been recognised and honored as an original worker and thinker. His book on "Force and Matter" (_Kraft und Stoff_) was published five years before Darwin's great work on the "Origin of Species." Subsequently his well-known popular Lectures in connection with Darwin's work claim the distinguished merit, of having more widely generalised and extended the Darwinian theory by embracing the origin and evolution of man, which had until then been overlooked by Darwin himself. By the contemporary press of Germany Professor Büchner was then charged with premature rashness, and with being only a shallow, imitative scientific dilettante; but all this vituperative criticism was for ever silenced, when in the year 1871 Darwin's own work appeared on the "Descent of Man," in which Darwin himself accepted all the consequences of the theory of evolution, as set forth in Professor Büchner's Lectures, and, somewhat later, in Professor Haeckel's "Natural History of Creation" (_Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte_). Professor Büchner, moreover, is the author of the widely popular work "The Future Life and Modern Science" (_Das künftige Leben und die moderne Wissenschaft_). To deny him, accordingly, the rank and merit of a solid and original scientist and thinker, as he himself says, is to do him a signal injustice, a positive injury.

Let all this be willingly granted; but this concession, at all events, does not settle his final, mediating attitude to the entire satisfaction of philosophy, regarded as an independent science. Professor Büchner openly declares himself in favor of popular science. He maintains, that "Philosophy ought to step down from her lofty state of independent science, and henceforth content herself with the humble rôle of simply mediating the results of individual scientific research; that science, in such case, would no longer run the risk of being exposed to the scorn and contempt of the masses(!) ... In popular scientific writings, at all times, there can and must occur contradictions, superficial estimates, even trivialities, but all this is perfectly understood by any fair-minded reader." ... These remarks might almost tempt the reader to believe, that Professor Büchner, in his eagerness to popularise science, really ignores the value of philosophy as an independent science, and of philosophical research, irrespective of all popular results, and that the Professor wishes to inculcate a narrow and purely utilitarian estimate of philosophy. But, the impulsive Professor, of course, knows better; his mental vision embraces the entire field of the sciences, and he has written admirably and entertainingly upon almost every scientific topic, and moreover he admits, that possibly he sometimes contradicts himself.

One might further be inclined to ask, whether, in view of his self-imposed, familiar contact with the popular mind, Professor Büchner upon the whole displays the expected equanimity and broad-minded consistency when resenting the harsh criticism of antagonists, which he does with a singularly thin-skinned sensitiveness scarcely worthy of a true philosopher. In all his other works and throughout these critical essays, Professor Büchner himself shows no tender regard for the feelings of his philosophical antagonists. In the critical essay "Against Materialism," (_Wider den Materialismus_), for example,—mainly directed against Prof. Harald Höffding,—he bluntly affirms that Professor Höffding's works have produced upon him the impression that the author is a man without the philosophical and scientific knowledge requisite for the solution of the problems he has ventured to approach.

From what has been said, the reader may expect to find much important, instructive, and readable matter even in Professor Büchner's critical essays, bearing upon the intellectual life of the period; but he also must be prepared to find them leavened in no small degree with the characteristic mental idiosyncrasies of their ever polemical author.

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DEACON HERBERT'S BIBLE CLASS. By _James Freeman Clarke_. Boston: Geo.
H. Ellis.

This booklet is an unassuming little publication, but it is important as a symptom of the times. It was written by the late Mr. James Freeman Clarke many years ago as a series of papers for the _Christian Inquirer_. Yet it is well that they should not be forgotten and the lessons contained therein should be heeded by the clergy as well as the laity of this country. It is an attempt to make religion practical and to point out the true direction in which church-life has to develop.

There is a great truth in the general complaint made throughout the world that the religion of civilised mankind, especially Christianity in the shape it exists at present, has lost its life, its influence, and its usefulness. Our religious views must be transformed, they must be reconciled with the principles of science and must be adapted to the real needs of the people. The problem is, how to do it.

If a solution of the problem shall be found, it is certain that it will be first put into practice in the United States of America; for here the church is free. The many different churches of our country, with few exceptions (the Roman Catholic Church is perhaps the only one) are in principle churches of the people. A change of opinion, of belief, of religious conviction among the people will result in the appointment of such pastors and leaders as are in agreement with their congregations. Clergy and laity form here one organic body. The clergy are not imposed upon their congregations by the state; they are the exponents of their congregations, the representatives of the religious ideas (perhaps upon the whole of the conservative religious ideas) of their churches.

How different things are in Europe, where the state-churches of England and Germany, for instance, prevent all progress in religion, theology, and church-life.

Mr. Clarke's book, if read with these considerations in mind, shows the agencies that are at work in this country and that will (as we confidently hope) result in a new phase of religious life. Among the chapters of the book we note the following titles: "The way we helped our minister to write good sermons"; "Aim of Life"; "Temptation of Jesus"; "The Miracles"; "The Sermon on the Mount"; and others. The spirit in which the book is written is not exactly rationalistic, yet it shows in every line a strong monistic bias. For instance, the usual definition of miracles as a suspension of the laws of nature is discarded; and yet it would be erroneous to suppose that the style of the book is marked by a radical tendency. Not at all. Every faithful Christian can read it line for line without feeling the least offence. But it is plain that herein lies the author's force. The book is popular, but behind its popularity, unusual depth of thought is noticeable. In a similar way St. Paul gave milk to his followers because they were babes in Christ, and could not bear heavier food. Mr. Clarke's book is written especially for babes in Christ, yet every one who has given any serious thought to the religious problem will appreciate at once the difficulty and the importance of such an undertaking.

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PERIODICALS.

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

CONTENTS:

ON THE BRAIN OF LAURA BRIDGMAN. By _H. H. Donaldson_.

A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF REFLEX ACTION (II). By _C. F. Hodge_.

ON A CURIOUS VISUAL PHENOMENON. By _Joseph Le Conte_.

A COUNTING ATTACHMENT FOR THE PENDULUM CHRONOSCOPE. By _William
Noyes_.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. The Nervous System—by _H. H.
Donaldson_; Experimental Psychology; Criminology—by _Arthur
MacDonald_; Psychiatry—by _William Noyes_; Miscellaneous.

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.

CONTENTS:

THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. By _Herbert Spencer_.

MENTAL ELABORATION. By _James Sully_.

VOLKMANN'S PSYCHOLOGY (II). By _Thomas Whittaker_.

BERKELEY AS A MORAL PHILOSOPHER. By _Hugh W. Orange_.

MUENSTERBERG ON 'MUSCULAR SENSE' AND 'TIME-SENSE.' By the
_Editor_.

DISCUSSION: 1) Mr. Spencer's Derivation of Space. By _Prof. John
Watson_.
2) Dr. Pikler on the Cognition of Physical Reality. By _G. F.
Stout_.

CRITICAL NOTICES: Lewis's "A Text-Book of Mental Diseases."
Mercier's "Sanity and Insanity"; Jones's "Elements of Logic as
a Science of Propositions"; Coupland's "The Gain of Life and
other Essays."

ON THE UTILITARIAN FORMULA. By _James Sutherland_.

_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.

CONTENTS:

THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. By _Professor Henry Sidgwick_.

THE FREEDOM OF ETHICAL FELLOWSHIP. By _Felix Adler_, Ph. D.

THE LAW OF RELATIVITY IN ETHICS. By _Professor Harald Höffding_.

THE ETHICS OF LAND TENURE. By _Professor J. B. Clark_.

THE COMMUNICATION OF MORAL IDEAS AS A FUNCTION OF AN ETHICAL
SOCIETY By _Bernard Bosanquet_, M. A.

DR. ABBOT'S "WAY OUT OF AGNOSTICISM." By _Professor Josiah Royce_.

A SERVICE OF ETHICS TO PHILOSOPHY. By _Wm. H. Salter_.

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.

CONTENTS:

REMARQUES SUR LE PRINCIPE DE CAUSALITE. By _A. Lalande_.

PHILOSOPHES ESPAGNOLS.—J. HUARTE. By _J. M. Guardia_.

LES ORIGINES DE LA TECHNOLOGIE (_fin_). By _A. Espinas_.

UN DOCUMENT INEDIT SUR LES MANUSCRITS DE DESCARTES. By _V. Egger_.

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.

CONTENTS:

LE DELIT POLITIQUE. By _G. Tarde_.

UNE NOUVELLE THÉORIE DE LA LIBERTÉ. By _A. Belot_.

NOTE SUR LA PHYSIOLOGIE DE L'ATTENTION. By _Ch. Féré_.

LES BASES EXPÉRIMENTALES DE LA GEOMETRIE. By _Jules Andrade_.

NOTE SUR LE PRINCIPE DE LA CAUSALITE. By _J.-J. Gourd_.

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.

CONTENTS:

UEBER DAS ERKENNEN DER SCHALLRICHTUNG. By _J. v. Kries_.

ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER KAUSALITAET. By _Th. Lipps_.

ZUR INTERAUREALEN LOKALISATION DIOTISCHER WAHRNEHMUNGEN. By _Karl
L. Schaefer_.

ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER FRAGE. By _Rich. Wahle_.

UEBER NEGATIVE EMPFINDUNGSWERTE (I). By _H. Ebbinghaus_.

VERSAMMLUNGEN: Internationaler medizinischer Kongress zu Berlin
1890. I. Sektion für Augenheilkunde. Referiert von _Claude du
Bois-Reymond_.—II. Sektion für Ohrenheilkunde. Referiert von
_Krakauer_.

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.