Chapter XXIX: Part 29

In his Notes on Volition, Professor Bain considers whether pain is to be regarded as the sole motive in voluntary action, or whether the motive is a growing pleasure or a diminishing pleasure, in concurrence with some form of active exertion. Considerations arising from the great differences among pleasures themselves leads him to reject the view that the stimulus of the will is uneasiness pure and simple, and that pleasure, as such, leads to quiescence and contentment. A taste of pleasure constitutes an impetus to seek for more and may be accepted as the normal situation of the human will. The graded scale of voluntary action ranges from the lowest depths of pain, at which the motive power is at its maximum, to the highest assignable or attainable modes of pleasure, approaching which the motive power gradually dies away.

Mr. Mackenzie points out, in considering Mr. Alexander's criticisms of his _Introduction to Social Philosophy_, the importance of distinguishing, when dealing with the subject of organic development, between the psychological and the metaphysical points of view, and that he wrote entirely from the metaphysical point of view. (London: Williams & Norgate.)

Ω.

THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY.

CONTENTS: February, 1891. Vol. III. No. 4.

AUTOMATIC MUSCULAR MOVEMENTS AMONG THE INSANE; THEIR
PHYSIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE. By _C. P. Bancroft_.

ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME. By _Herbert Nichols_.

ON THE RECOVERY OF STIMULATED GANGLION CELLS. By _C. F. Hodge_.

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

CONTENTS: April, 1891. Vol. IV. No. 1.

ARITHMETICAL PRODIGIES. By _E. W. Scripture_.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME. By _Herbert Nichols_.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE: Cerebral Localisation. By _Henry H.
Donaldson_; Notes on Models of the Brain. By _H. H. Donaldson_;
A Laboratory Course in Physiological Psychology. By _E. C.
Sanford_; Contemporary Psychologists—Prof. Edward Zeller. By
_The Editor_.

It is pointed out by Dr. Bancroft that the close relationship between automatic muscular movement and the inhibitory power renders a study of the latter essential to a complete understanding of the subject of automaticity in health and disease. The inhibitory power is intimately associated with all the higher faculties, and as it must, in common with them, seek expression through functional activity of the cerebral cortex, functional or organic disturbance of this region should be attended by disordered inhibition. In many cases of insanity that portion of the brain that "originates the will impulse" is cut off by reason of organic or functional disturbance, and consequently the areas that lie nearer the centrifugal nerves are left to act independently of will and inhibition. The development of mechanical attitudes among the chronic insane is illustrated by a plate exhibiting two cases of melancholia with stupor and two cases of chronic dementia.

The literature of the Psychology of Time is dealt with by Mr. Nichols from the historical and the experimental standpoints. The most striking feature of the whole time investigation is, that of all the philosophers and psychologists who have touched upon the problem, only two of the whole number, Condillac obscurely, and James Mill definitely, have solved the mystery by _letting the sequences themselves be the ultimate mystery_—by letting their process, as process and of itself, show forth its own explanation. The results of experimental investigations in time psychology are scarcely more satisfactory. Most experimenters have confined themselves to the determination of the Constant Error, Sensibility, and Weber's Law, yet with difficulty, if at all, can the results of any two of such determinations be harmonised. The majority of evidence is strongly against the validity of Weber's Law; also against any fixed or constant Periodicity. Later investigators look to physiological processes for explanation of time-judgments, and particularly to rhythmic habits of nerve centres.

Dr. Hodge's paper is a continuation of chapters which appeared in the _American Journal of Psychology_ in May 1888 and May 1889. His experiments on cats show that spinal ganglion cells do recover from the effects of injuries by electrically stimulating the nerve going to them, but that the recovery is a slow process.

An account is given by Dr. Scripture of the known Arithmetical Prodigies. The opinion of Bidder was that "mental calculation depends on two faculties of the mind in simultaneous operation—computing and registering the result"! The power to do long calculations in the mind without making a mistake is the most remarkable fact in regard to ready reckoners; next the wonderful rapidity which some of them have shown. All of them possessed a remarkable impressibility, and practised modes by which arithmetical associations may be enormously shortened. Dr. Scripture offers for consideration the points that the power of mental calculation could be greatly developed under cultivation; that numbers and their values may be learned before figures, just as a child learns words and their meanings long before he can read; that it is best to teach "calculation" by the _abacus_ before "ciphering."

Mr. Nichols records in his second article the result of a series of experiments made by him at Clark University to investigate the apparently contradictory results obtained by various experimenters regarding the Constant Error of Time-judgments. The experiments teach nothing of the cause of the Constant Error, but it is shown that those individuals who make the largest constant error, make the error most constantly in one direction, and are apt to make a constantly increasing error throughout the series of experiments. Mr. Nichols's final conclusion is that "the processes of our environment, of our bodily organism, and of the sensations and images which correspond thereto, are, in themselves a sufficient explanation of time-psychology, and that time perception cannot be explained by any single state or disparate sense, but alone be accounted for as a _process_." (E. C. Sanford, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.)

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. April, 1891. Vol. I. No. 2.

CONTENTS:

SOCIAL EQUALITY. By _Leslie Stephen_.

THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN ETHICAL CODES. By _Prof. C. H. Toy_.

THE RIGHT FINAL AIM OF LIFE. By _Prof. G. von Gizycki_.

THE MORAL PHILOSOPHER AND THE MORAL LIFE. By _Prof. William
James_.

ANOTHER VIEW OF THE ETHICS OF LAND-TENURE. By _Prof. Simon N.
Patten_.

MORAL TALES. By _Clara E. Collet_.

Mr. Leslie Stephen affirms that it is our duty to try to make men equal by raising the grade of culture in all classes. The distribution of classes would continue, but it would correspond purely to the telling off of each man to the duties which he is best fitted to discharge. The essential condition of all social improvement is that the individual should be manly, self-respecting, doing his duty as well as getting his pay. Nothing will do any permanent good which does not imply the elevation of the individual in his standard of honesty, independence, and good conduct.

One of the earliest studies of life, says Professor Toy, is that which is known as the clan-constitution of society, during which two important facts are exhibited, (1) ethical ideas are determined by those of the community, and (2) the deity of the community is regarded as a member of the clan. Both these characteristics have become modified in the progress of civilisation. Moral rules and principles have become clearer, broader, and higher, and society has come to be an efficient moral guide and support. Religion has moved away from the conception of the tribal god, and the conception has been formed of the absolute dominion of natural law in the moral world. The end to which human moral history points is a conscience absolutely independent and yet absolutely dependent,—independent in that it refuses to recognise any other authority than its own ideals, dependent in that it receives its ideals from the life of man, which is the highest revelation of God.

According to Professor von Gizycki, the ultimate basis of all ethical demonstration is the supreme standard of good and evil, the greatest possible happiness of all mankind. Various objections urged against this, as the final aim of life, are examined by Professor von Gizycki and declared not to constitute a decisive case against it. As to the desire to obtain peace of conscience he affirms that this can only follow upon such action as is in conformity with the greatest possible happiness of mankind. The Professor has modified his former position. The injunction, "Seek peace of conscience in devoting thyself to the welfare of mankind," which he had proposed in his "Moral Philosophy," implies an impracticable combination of two distinct final aims. Either the one or the other must abdicate the supremacy to its rival. We must invoke the aid of _ethical_ self-love in order to insure the victory to the forces which make for good. But our ruling aim ought to be the advancement of the universal happiness of mankind.

The main purpose of Professor James's paper is to show that there is no such thing possible as an ethical philosophy dogmatically made up in advance. Three questions in ethics must be kept apart—the _psychological_, the _metaphysical_, and the _casuistic_. The psychological question asks after the historical _origin_ of our moral ideas and judgments; the metaphysical question asks the very _meaning_ of the words good, ill, and obligation; the casuistic question asks what is the _measure_ of the various goods and ills which men recognise, so that the philosopher may settle the true order of human obligation. As to the _psychological_ question,—relations exist in our thought which do not merely repeat the couplings of experience. Our ideals have certainly many sources. They are not all explicable as signifying corporeal pleasures to be gained, and pains to be escaped. As to the _metaphysical_ question,—goodness, badness, and obligation must be _realised_ somewhere in order really to exist. Without a claim actually made by some concrete person there can be no obligation, but there is some obligation wherever there is a claim. Claim and obligation are co-extensive terms. The words good, bad, obligation, are objects of feeling and desire, which have no foothold or anchorage in Being apart from the existence of actually living minds. "The religion of humanity" affords a basis for ethics as well as theism does. As to the _casuistic_ question—The best of the marks and measures of goodness is the capacity to bring happiness, but in seeking for an universal principle we find that the essence of good is simply to _satisfy demand_. But the actual possible in this world is vastly narrower than all that is demanded, and the guiding principle for ethical philosophy must be simply to satisfy at all times _as many demands as we can_. So far as the casuistic question goes, ethical science is just like physical science, and must be ready to revise its conclusions from day to day. Concrete ethics cannot be final because they have to wait on metaphysics. The final conclusion is that the stable and systematic moral universe for which the ethical philosopher asks is fully possible only in a world where there is a divine thinker with all-enveloping demands. If he now exist, then actualised in his thought already must be that ethical philosophy which we seek after as the pattern which our own must ever more approach.

Professor Patten treats of the economical data bearing on the facts of land-tenure, and concludes that if no surplus land value goes to the monopolies or to privileged classes, there is no ethical problem involved. If some of the surplus goes in this way, then the ethical problem is the same as if all of the produce of industry above a minimum of wages went to increase the surplus. The growth of society in wealth and numbers often makes the man without wealth and land less productive, because he must use poorer land or less productive instruments. The loss being due to social changes the workman is entitled to compensation for which he should look to society, which may choose the concrete form in which it shall be made. The expense of doing this should be borne by those who have profited from the prosperity of society.

In her interesting paper on Moral Tales, Mrs. Collet passes in review certain books which, read in childhood, have left an indelible impression on her mind. Chief among them are the "Sandford and Merton" of Thomas Day, who was deeply impressed by the writings of Rousseau; the stories of Maria Edgeworth, the most truly democratic of our moral writers; and those of Dr. Aiken and his sister, Mrs. Barbauld, whose writings although pervaded by a strong religious spirit, are very striking for their unaggressive and yet open declaration of the right to think independently in religion. Mrs. Collet gives her verdict, with regard to the moral education of children, in favor of the voluntary "consumption of moral tales." (Philadelphia: _International Journal of Ethics_, 1602 Chestnut St.)

REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.

CONTENTS: March, 1891. No. 183.

POURQUOI MOURONS-NOUS? By _J. Delbœuf_.

SUR UN CAS D'ABOULIE ET D'IDEES FIXES. By _Pierre Janet_.

L'ART ET LA LOGIQUE. (Fin.) By _G. Tarde_.

ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.

REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.

CONTENTS: April, 1891. No. 184.

QU'EST-CE QUE LA PHYSIOLOGIE GENERALE? By _Ch. Richet_.

LA PHILOSOPHIE DE BACON. By _Victor Brochard_.

SUR UN CAS D'ABOULIE ET D'IDEES FIXES (Fin.) By _Pierre Janet_.

POURQUOI MOURONS-NOUS? (Fin.) By _J. Delbœuf_.

NOTES ET DISCUSSIONS.

ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.

SUR UN OLFACTOMETRE. By _Ch. Henry_.

M. Delbœuf's article is the complement to his studies on the origin of death, and was inspired by the work of M. Maupas, _Recherches expérimentales sur la multiplication des infusoires ciliés_, some of the conclusions of which he thinks are not supported by observation and emanate from the sophism, "that which has not been seen does not exist." Nevertheless he accepts the opinion of M. Maupas, as against M. Weismann, that the protozoa as well as the metazoa, are mortal as individuals, although immortal in and by the species. M. Delbœuf accounts for the change from fissiparity to sexuality by reference to mathematical law applicable to the transformation of species, according to which from the moment that a _constant_ cause begins to make a type vary, in however small a degree, the variations will end by victoriously disputing the position with it. The death of the ciliated infusoria is then not due, as supposed by M. Maupas, to the effect of a _senile_ alteration of their elements proceeding from an internal cause,—which would render inexplicable the unaltered maintenance of the species,—but the effect of a _disequilibration_ of their organism due to a sort of mathematically fatal external physical constraint. The two corpuscles in the union of which the conjugation of those infusoria consists are regarded by M. Delbœuf as truly male and female, and he affirms that before uniting they make a _choice_ of individuals apt to rejuvenate. Intelligence is thus the indispensable factor of the perpetuity of races. The answer to the double question, Why is individual matter mortal and specific matter immortal, is reserved for another number.

M. Janet's interesting study is of a subject, a young girl of 22, who, as the title denotes, exhibits an almost total loss of the faculty of will, partly through hereditary causes and partly consequent on a serious attack Of typhoid fever. Marcelle has a singular difficulty of movement, which extends to all the voluntary movements of the arms, the legs, and even the tongue and the lips, and is due to a kind of paralysis. She is, however, extremely suggestible, and very easily hypnotised. By experiment M. Janet found that the difficulty of a movement is in proportion to its novelty. The difficulty consisted in forming the synthesis of ideas and images which constitutes the commencement of the act, but its repetition is easy when the act has been once done. Marcelle sometimes went into a demi-cataleptic state during which she had a crisis of ideas, which she described as a cloud passing. She complained that during the cloud her head spoke constantly. This M. Janet explains by reference to the theory of M. Séglas that there are several kinds of verbal hallucinations as of language, that is hallucinations of hearing, of visual images, and of tactile and muscular sensations attendant on speaking or writing, the last named being the psychic hallucinations or the epigastric voices of the insane. During the lucid intervals Marcelle performed the commands given to her by her hallucinations while under the cloud, like a person who while in a state of somnambulism receives a posthypnotic suggestion.

In this concluding article on "Art and Logic," M. Tarde, after considering the characteristic differences between industry and art, from the point of view of the desires of consumption and production proper to them, deals with the distinctive characters of the work of art considered in itself and the reason of its being. The attribute of the work of art is to be interesting. Art is a game, but a serious and profound game, like love, and it is born of leisure and pleasure. The unity of the work of art consists simply in the coupling of a question and an answer, a problem and a solution, a combat and a victory. Every phrase, musical or spoken, is a wave which rises and descends, and in every art whatever all is phrases and waves, and their combination is itself a complex wave, a period. In the undulating mirror of art we see again social life in action; since esthetics reflect the dynamic, and not the static, social logic. M. Tarde criticises the theory of Spencer that all the arts are derived from architecture, and shows that the first art was speech and that from speech, spoken or written, all art is derived. Narrative poetry, the epic poem, is the complex germ of all artistic development; and as art began in narration, it ends in the drama, because man is above all social. Art, or reflection of man, borrows by turns its dominant inspiration from the passions of life or the inspirations of society.

M. Richet sums up his description of General Physiology in the formula: Life is a chemical function. His most important conclusions are that the general laws of life are chemical laws, and respond to the chemical conditions of hydratation, temperature, electricity and pressure; force is condensed in living beings under the form of chemical energy, and manifests itself outwardly, by movement, by electricity, by light, by heat, or by thought. (We consider this juxtaposition of "electricity, light, heat and thought" as extremely misleading, and so is the definition of life as "a chemical function." It appears, then, that M. Richet considers thought also a chemical process. That physiological actions are processes which have their own conditions and are different from chemical and physical processes, has been explained in _The Monist_, No. 3. p. 413-414.) M. Richet continues: Living beings are cellular aggregates, but in animals the nervous system forms a centre of unity, from whence proceed motor excitations and where sensible excitations terminate; cellules and beings are organised to live: they are adapted to the ambient medium, and to all the causes of destruction which can reach them. Thus their acts, although often automatic and deprived of all intelligence, appear to us admirably intelligent; the sensations and consciousness of intelligent beings are in agreement with the needs of the organism, and tend to strengthen the automatic mechanisms by means of which beings resist death, whether it be the death of the individual or that of the species.

M. Brochard takes exception to M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire's opinion of Bacon as a philosopher, and endorses the views expressed by M. Charles Adam in his Memoir crowned by the Academy. Bacon not only saw what scientific induction should be, but indicated with perfect precision the conditions that it ought to fulfil. Added to the theory of method is the theory of forms, which is the culminating point of Bacon's philosophy. M. Adam shows that the word _form_ is used by Bacon to express the true difference, or that by which a thing is defined; the essence or the thing in its intimate constitution; and a law of pure act, (_lex actus puri_). M. Brochard adopts M. Adam's explanation, that by this law is to be understood a disposition in space, an arrangement of material parts, in other terms, a mechanical or mathematical relation—and he justifies M. Adam's assertion, and shows that Bacon resembled Galileo and Descartes in divining that physics rested on mathematics, and that the pure act was produced whenever certain arrangements of material molecules are formed according to mechanical conditions. Bacon superposes, in some sort, a philosophy of quality on a philosophy of quantity, and achieves the passage from movement to quality so embarrassing for every doctrine which gives a place to mechanism.

M. Janet concludes his study of the curious case of aboulism presented by Marcelle, giving details of her experiences under the influence of hypnotism and suggestion, which greatly ameliorated her condition, temporarily at least. The nature of her disease approaches much the mental feebleness described elsewhere by M. Janet under the name of "psychological disaggregation with contracting of the field of consciousness," but differs from it in several particulars. It consists essentially in a weakening of the faculty of synthesis which ought, at every moment of life, to co-ordinate afresh our sensations and our images. The study of this enfeeblement shows the importance of the novelty of acts in connection with the will, the rôle of the will in apparently the most simple perceptions, the necessity of voluntary synthesis for originating habits and recollections, the connection between doubt and defective perception, and the development of various hallucinations.

Before answering the question why we die, M. Delbœuf considers the origin of life. He makes a distinction between dead matter and living matter. On this subject he has published a book entitled "_La matière brute et la matière vivante_." He affirms that life in the universe began with living, sensible atoms, endowed with will and liberty, and having a knowledge of their own movement. This life gradually concentrated itself in germs having the faculty of perpetuating themselves. They remained naked and some of those germs still continue composed almost entirely of reproductive, that is essentially living, substance. The others have gradually become clothed with a body, a kind of protective envelope. The life of this envelope is not inherent; it has been communicated by the germs that it protects, and at the end of a period of a greater or less duration it becomes useless, fades and dies. Life is sustained by nutrition but the assimilating faculty diminishes by degrees, until it ceases, and at last, the reparation of our organs not being equal to their wear, they are not able to fulfil their mission. The decay of living matter is due to the operation of physical and chemical laws. Assimilation is at the base of life, and it is exhibited in inorganic nature as well as in living beings. Living bodies must have some permanent centres of assimilation around which the nutritive elements group. The earliest of these centres was the germ, in which is the supreme or immortal life, and which immortalises that part of the nutriment which becomes incorporated with it. Although the organs of nutrition deteriorate and die, the reproductive organs remain eternally young, in power at least. Nutrition itself is manifested either as alimentation, or as conjugation or fecundation, and is a phenomenon analogous to copulation. M. Delbœuf then proceeds to show the uniformity in the modes of propagation, and gives reasons for believing, contrary to the views of Van Beneden, that the cellule-egg, and not the spermatozoid, is hermaphrodite. The ovary is the true depository of the immortal propagative substance. Woman is the inexhaustible source of life. (Paris: Felix Alcan.)

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II. No. 3.

CONTENTS:

ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER SPRACHE. By _Robert Sommer_.

ZUR THEORIE DES RAEUMLICHEN VORSTELLENS MIT RUECKSICHT AUF EINE
NACHBILDLOKALISATION. By _C. S. Cornelius_.

DIE SEELENFRAGE. By _J. Rehmke_.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

Professor Grashey, now of Munich, formerly of Würzburg, has published in the _Archiv für Psychiatrie_ (Vol. XVI, p. 654 ff.) an interesting case of a peculiar kind of aphasia. A man whose name is Voit, 32 years old, engaged for menial service in the brewing business, received an injury on the head. He was treated at the psychiatric clinic of Würzburg by Professor Grashey and dismissed as cured, yet five years after the accident he was again submitted to the professor's investigations and it was found that he was suffering from "amnestic aphasia." He could not remember the name of anything for a few seconds. Professor Grashey drew the following conclusion from Voit's case: "There is an aphasia which is based neither upon the functionary inability of certain centres nor upon the interruption of commissural connections, but exclusively upon a diminution of the sense-impressions, which causes a disturbance of apprehension and association." Voit was unable to name any object shown him unless he could spell it with the assistance of his hands, legs, or even his tongue. By writing only could he find the names of objects. Dr. Sommer objects to Professor Grashey's interpretation of the case and shows convincingly from the symptoms, as represented in the _Archiv für Psychiatrie_ by Grashey himself, that whenever Voit was prevented from making writing gestures (which was done by holding his hands and legs immovable and by ordering him to show his tongue so that he could not employ it for writing on the roof of his mouth) he could never find the name of any object. Accordingly it is no case of amnesia; Voit actually has only one way left for finding words, that is by spelling them. Now it is generally supposed, that we first see an object, and recognise it at the centre of vision. The nervous irritation is thence transmitted to the centre of language; the sight of a knife evokes in the centre of speech the word knife and we suppose that the spoken or heard word will in the centre of writing awaken the motor stimuli of spelling the word. The present case proves that if this be the rule there are exceptions to it and Dr. Sommer proposes the question, How can we explain the case? It is strange that the man is not deprived of concepts; so long as he is prevented from writing he is only deprived of naming things or concepts. He never failed to recognise similar things as belonging to the same class, but so long as he was tied at tongue and limb, he could never find their common name. For instance a guitar and a trumpet were shown him while he was bound, as it was called. When asked, Do they belong together? he nodded emphatically. (He had to answer by nods because he had to show his tongue.) When asked, Do you know their names? he shook his head and could never find their names until he was allowed to make writing gestures with either one of his limbs or his tongue. In this way he recognised and classified things correctly, but he never named them except by spelling the names. Such things or pictures of things shown him were the following:

Guitar—trumpet—: musical instruments.
Gun—canon—: arms.
Sickle—watering-pot—: utensils.
Lantern—lamp—: lights.
Palace—barn—: buildings, etc.

Dr. Sommer says: "Suppose that those parts of the brain the loss of which according to modern experiments and pathological observations cause a loss of memory-pictures, are thought of as motor apparatuses, the destruction of which has a similar effect as in the present case, the binding which prevented Voit from spelling: in this case amnesia might find an explanation without the crude materialistic assumption that they are localised in the injured cells." Dr. Sommer only throws out the hint without finding space to explain himself. Yet it appears to us that whether amnesia is produced by the destruction of the centres or of their supposed motor apparatuses that the one is not less and not more crude materialism than the other. The problem it appears has nothing to do with materialism, but with the mechanism of the brain. The fibres of association seem to work in Voit's brain in the opposite direction to what we should expect. The normal path is apparently interrupted. The sight of an object does not evoke its name. Yet are there not innumerable fibres of association which may reach the desired end—in this case the pronunciation of the name—in a roundabout way? There must be, for the facts prove it. One thing in the case of Voit is patent. When Voit finds the names by writing them, he apparently knows the written word, he cannot pronounce it, because he does not know the spoken word, the centre of spoken words being the seat of the injury. He has a concept of the thing, he could write it, but he cannot pronounce it. The roundabout way leads through a province not directly accessible to consciousness. The written word is not in the same immediate contact with consciousness as the spoken word. That this is so we know from actual and daily experience. Who has not tried to assure himself of the correct spelling of a word by writing it down and thus leaving the test to the unconscious memory of the motions of our hand?

C. S. Cornelius discusses the theory of spatial conception with special reference to a localisation of after-images. He takes the position that we are in relation to the outer world through sensation only, rejecting all assumptions of innate ideas, of a special space sense, etc. "Sensation," he says, "is an intensive state. The conception of space-relations can originate only by a multiplicity of sensations which through the qualitative contrasts affect each other and arrange themselves in a certain order beside each other. The vertical and horizontal conception height and breadth, are easily explained, but depth, the third dimension of space affords some difficulty." Th. Lipps denies the existence of an apprehension of depth, yet Cornelius maintains that it actually exists. He explains it in the same way as the vertical and horizontal space-conceptions as originating from muscle sensation.

It cannot be denied that upon the whole space-sense is the product and the interpretation of motion experiences mainly due to the activity of the muscles of the eye. But it appears that the conception of the third dimension of sight is not due alone, as says Cornelius, to muscle activity. The investigations of Wundt and of Mach, which are not taken into consideration by Cornelius, prove that the perspective and the distribution of light and shade are essential elements in our perception of the third dimension in space. Our eyes have become accustomed by the information received through other channels, especially the sense of touch, to interpret perspective in combination with certain shadings as depth so that _even the one-eyed_ man sees things not as two dimensional pictures but as three dimensional corporeal forms.

A subject of extraordinary interest is discussed by J. Rehmke, who criticises O. Flügel's position and contrasts it with his own. O. Flügel has published a book, entitled _Die Seelenfrage_, treating the subject from the narrow standpoint of Herbart's school. It is unnecessary to state that Herbart has great merits in the evolution of our psychological views. He attempted to introduce mathematical methods in order to define exactly the dynamics and statics of the soul. Herbart failed, although he gave new impulses to psychological investigations which have proved valuable in many ways. Many of his disciples are now busy perpetuating his mistakes. Flügel is one among them. Flügel emphasises the immateriality of the soul, but being like his master an advocate of atomism he postulates soul atoms which are mathematical points. "Atomism," Flügel declares, "must reject actio in distans" because it is (1) inconceivable, (2) nonsensical and contradictory, and (3) because force is an accidens of matter, matter being the substance. The accidens can have no effects, it cannot exist, where the substance is not. Flügel also lays much stress on the disparity of feeling and motion, and of thought and motion. Soul and body are to him two distinct things and their interaction is explained through the contact of the point-like, immaterial soul atom and the brain atoms. Rehmke points out that this view in spite of its professed hostility toward materialism is extremely materialistic, but the view which he proposes himself suffers from similar errors. Flügel has preserved the unity and the immortality of the soul which is an indestructible immaterial mathematical point, moving about in our brain. Rehmke also preserves the unity and immortality of the soul: he believes in a "subjectum," in an ego which is the essence having the states of consciousness as attributes. The soul according to Rehmke is not space-given, it is an immaterial something which has sensations. We should accordingly make a distinction between the ego as the subject and the ego as our bodily existence; moreover we should distinguish between the state of consciousness and the object of consciousness. Rehmke takes the word contents of consciousness in the sense of signifying that which the "ego" possesses. The state of consciousness is always the same, it has no evolution, no growth, no development. The object of consciousness however constantly changes. The subject of consciousness is the soul. The interconnection between soul and body is not denied, but there can be no thought of a contact between the immaterial and the material. The soul is, but it is not in space, it is nowhere, and its co-operation with the body is described as "an exemplary together"—an expression to which, we are sorry to say, we cannot attach any meaning.

J. Rehmke objects also to the theory that feeling and motion, soul and body, the spiritual and the material are two sides of one and the same thing. If this two sides theory were correct, he says, the soul would be an abstract and so would be the body. But, he adds, all abstracts are immutable, unchangeable and the object of psychology is something that is observed to possess evolution. Now it is true that some abstracts represent immutable concepts; matter is such an abstract. Matter is that which all matters have in common and the abstract matter is everywhere the same; we cannot speak of the evolution of matter as such. But other abstracts are not so rigid. Take for instance life. Life is an abstract, but it would be a strange proposition to say that there can be no evolution of life because life is an abstract, all abstracts being unchangeable, immutable, invariable.

We cannot agree with Flügel, but J. Rehmke's psychological views are still less acceptable. (Hamburg and Leipsic: L. Voss.)

κρς.

VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XV. Nos. 1 and 2.

CONTENTS:

DER SOGENANNTE NAIVE REALISMUS. By _R. Seydel_.

DAS PROBLEM DER AUSSENWELT. By _S. Hansen_.

EXPERIMENTELLE PATHO-PSYCHOLOGIE. (Erster Artikel.) By _M.
Dessoir_.

UEBER ANSCHAUUNG UND IHRE PSYCHISCHE VERARBEITUNG. By _B. Kerry_.

DER FOLGERUNGSCALCUL UND DIE INHALTSLOGIK. By _E. G. Husserl_.

EXPERIMENTELLE PATHO-PSYCHOLOGIE. (Zweiter Artikel.) By _M.
Dessoir_.

R. Seydel regards sight alone as space-sense and the other senses as time-senses. This, he says, is the reason why there is no "naïve realism" for any other sense but sight.

S. Hansen, taking our concepts and sensations as the data from which we have to start, discusses the problem of the reality of the outer world. He arrives at the conclusion, that "if there is a thing in itself, the phenomenon is only one side of it, viz, that side which it reveals. The thing in itself is the real world in which we live and of which we speak in daily life, although we know it only through phenomena, i. e. our concepts."

Max Dessoir presents a review of Experimental Patho-psychology as it has developed in the last decades through the extraordinary attention bestowed upon the phenomena of hypnotism and kindred subjects. He discusses experimental patho-psychology with special reference to the great problems of (1) consciousness, (2) the relation between feeling and motion, (3) memory, and (4) personality. The two former points are discussed in the first article, the two latter in the conclusion. Max Dessoir emphasises in this essay again his theory of the double ego which he proposed in his pamphlet, _Das Doppel-Ich_.

B. Kerry's article is the conclusion of a series of essays on intuition (i. e. apprehension or sensation) and its psychical transformation. The author distinguishes between subjective concepts and objective concepts. If I think for instance of all the grapes that will grow this year in Italy, I do not know in my subjective conception their definite number. It is a definite number nevertheless. This concept is the objective concept. He devotes much space to a discussion of the rigidity of Kant's aprioristic judgment 7+5=12. The most important point is ultimately _how_ this judgment possesses necessity. The author observes that the theorems of arithmetic possess necessity while we cannot attribute necessity to the results of calculation. Our faculty of calculation, B. Kerry says, should be considered as aprioristic, or more correctly, it is a complex of primitive faculties, and these are: "our faculty to apprehend in some contents of our apprehension something else which is designated afterwards as a concept derived from that contents; that is our faculty of forming abstracts. Further our faculty of comparison and at last our faculty of combining and separating. These faculties are aprioristic in the psychological sense of the word, which to-day is not recognised, in the sense of being innate." The whole article is written in a heavy style and in extra-Teutonic constructions with innumerable dashes containing parenthetical sentences and other bewildering explanations. We have after all not been able to discover how the judgment 7+5=12 possesses necessity.

E. G. Husserl criticises the position of several modern logicians, Boole, Venn, Peirce, and especially E. Schroeder, who published in the _Göttinger Gelehrten Anzeigen_ an article on the Logical Calculus. Husserl says that "the logic of the logical calculus is in a wretched condition still. Its advocates have attained to clearness neither concerning the limits of this discipline nor its relation to deductive logic and to arithmetic. The logical considerations upon which the technique is built, are as a rule of such a kind that they cannot bear the most superficial criticism. And this calculus pretends to be a thoroughly reformed and the truly exact logic. It is natural that among the logicians the more scientific upon the whole keep aloof here. However the logical foundation of arithmetic is just as weak, yet this does not suffice to discard it. I believe that logical algebra in spite of its limited practical applicability should not be underrated, and that it should be of high interest to the logician for the sake of its actual merits." In the struggle between the logic of circumference and the logic of contents, Husserl maintains that a calculus of pure deductions can be constructed upon the basis of operations which are strictly without any contents. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)

Κ.

PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 5 and 6.

CONTENTS:

WILHELM WUNDT'S "SYSTEM DER PHILOSOPHIE." By _Johannes Volkelt_.

DIE DAENISCHE PHILOSOPHIE DES LETZTEN JAHRZEHNTS. By _Knud Ipsen_.

RECENSIONEN.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE. By Prof. Dr. _F. Ascherson_.

Johannes Volkelt criticises in a long article Wundt's _System der Philosophie_. We do not have the work under discussion at hand, but judging simply from the quotations made in the present article, we can confidently say that Volkelt has misunderstood Wundt's position. We shall here confine ourselves to one point only which is of paramount importance, and Johannes Volkelt fully appreciates its importance. This point is the problem, "Can we have any objective knowledge at all?" This is the way we should formulate the question. Volkelt, however, asks whether the trans-subjective can successfully be made object of our cognition. It is maintained that there is a trace of naïve Realism left in Wundt, because his trans-subjectivism remains unproven, and subject and object are treated as inseparably connected. Wundt says: "As soon as we make the erroneous proposition that the object of our perception is only a perception, we shall in vain try to get somehow out from our subjective perception and to regain in some way the lost object." This idea is objected to. Also the following passages are quoted from Wundt: "Reality once destroyed cannot be restored merely through pure thought," and "the theory of cognition has not to create reality from elements that do not as yet contain it." We agree perfectly with Wundt and have expressed similar ideas in the article "The Origin of Mind," No. 1 of _The Monist_. Perception is a relation between object and subject. It is an error of idealism to consider the subject alone as given. The data of experience are states of subject-object-ness. The idea of mere subjectivity is as much an abstraction as the idea of things in themselves. Accordingly the term "trans-subjective" is a misnomer. All perceptions being impressions of objects and serving as symbols for their correspondent objects contain an objective element. As soon as we disregard this truth, we shut ourselves up in the hollow globe of pure ideality; objectivity becomes an unwarrantable assumption and there is no way out of our own subjectivism.

Knud Ipsen sketches the history of the Danish philosophy during the last ten years. He mentions five philosophers, Höffding, Kroman, Wilkens, Lehmann, and Starcke, among whom Höffding is by far the most prominent. All the Danish philosophers have one feature in common. Kroman made a distinction between philosophy and world-conception; philosophy should make such propositions only as can be logically proven, not otherwise than theories have to be proven in the sciences. Yet a world-conception is the work mainly of our emotion and imagination. Accordingly philosophy and world-conception are two distinct things which have nothing in common. This position seems to be generally accepted by the Danish philosophers, and as a natural consequence Ipsen says, we can speak no more of "philosophy," but only of philosophical disciplines. The unity of philosophy, its ideal of system is lost. Metaphysics is dead in Denmark and the search for the universal laws of existence is also given up. Philosophy has ceased to be the science of the sciences and has become an aggregate of scientific disciplines. On this point there is a tacit agreement so that there is no "useless struggle about great and insolvable problems," and since Höffding wrote on the relation between faith and science, our Danish philosophers also shun all theological interference. A division of labor has taken place so that psychology has been treated by Höffding, Kroman, and Lehmann, Ethics by Höffding and Starcke, Logic by Höffding and Kroman, Sociology by Wilkens and Starcke, and Æsthetics by Wilkens.

Professor Höffding and Kroman in spite of their consensus in rejecting the unity of philosophy represent a very strong contrast, which is best characterised by their method of treating the law of causation. Kroman rejects all the former evidences employed to prove the law of cause and effect. Empiricism is wrong because it can at best show the temporal succession of two phenomena, and apriorism is wrong because _a priori_ knowledge lies in the subject alone and not in the object. In causation, however, the objects play an important part, and we can never know whether the objects will always conform to the subjective and _a priori_ laws. Kroman's view of the subject is that the causal law is the sole condition by which we can acquire any knowledge at all, accordingly for the sake of self-preservation we _hope_ that this condition will be fulfilled. The causal law accordingly is not only the condition of all knowledge, it is also the postulate with which we have to start.

Höffding attacks the problem in a different way. He asks first: "How do we come at all to a reality supposed to be independent of the subject?" and "What is the import of this reality?" Reality according to Höffding is not yet given in sense-perception, we arrive at the idea of reality not until our sense-perceptions are arranged in a coherent system. If I see a picture at the wall, this may be an hallucination, but if my sense of touch corroborates the perception of sight, I consider it as a reality. Thus the idea of reality originates and this reality is not distinguishable from a coherent and self-consistent dream. To the dreamer his dream is reality. Now the question of causality is not legitimate, whether things conform to the law of causation, for indeed we know things only by their being causes or effects. The main function of our consciousness is to recognise similarities and dissimilarities, it searches for unity and this search is performed through the application of the causal law. Höffding accordingly considers both ideas, the causal nexus and reality, as being of the same value. His causal law is more than a postulate, it is in part a result. Our organ of cognition would die of atrophy if it were not constantly nourished, and we should share the fate of Tantalus were we condemned to investigate and always unable to discover.

Kroman looks upon the law of inertia as a special application of the causal law. To him the conservation of matter and energy is an hypothesis. Höffding looks upon the law of inertia as a material principle. Where Kroman speaks of energy, Höffding speaks of corporeal energy. (It may be that here the German translation _körperliche Kraft_ is at fault.) As a material principle the law of inertia is something more than a mere corollary of the causal law, for in its present form it has made science possible. The conservation of matter and energy is conceived in an analogous manner, but considered as natural laws both propositions possess a mere hypothetical value.

It appears to us that the law of cause and effect lies deeper still, and there can be no doubt that the law of the conservation of matter and energy is the same thing only formulated for different purposes. Hume's merit was exceedingly great when he laid his finger on the sore spot of philosophical thought, pointing out the prevailing confusion about the law of causation. But when investigating the subject, he led us on a wrong track. Cause and effect are not two objects following one another, and not even two phenomena following one another. It is not a synthesis of two events. It is on the contrary an analysis of one event. Cause and effect is a change. In this change the same amount of matter and energy is preserved, yet the form is altered. Hume broke the process of cause and energy into pieces, he lost sight of their interconnection and was astonished that one piece was not exactly the same as the other. Hence his skepticism.

The law of cause and effect can be proved, except to him who would obstinately refuse to acknowledge the law of identity that _A_=_A_. There may be some one who thinks that something can come out of nothing, or that something can suddenly disappear into nothing. If there is, the weight of the argument rests with him, yet we shall not listen to him until he presents an unequivocal case in which we can observe a transition from being into not-being or _vice versa_. Until then we consider the law of identity and also its practical application and corollary, the conservation of matter and energy as unrefuted.

The law of cause and effect and its corollary the conservation of matter and energy rest ultimately upon our recognition of the _Gesetzmässigkeit_ of formal laws. He who acknowledges the correctness of the statement "2×2=4" as universal and necessary, implicitly accepts also the law of causation and of the conservation of matter and energy. The law of the conservation of matter and energy contains no other proposition than this that 2×2 will always be 2×2 or its product, i. e. 4; it will never be less, it will never be more.

The ultimate basis of the law of causation lies in the laws of form. We may call causality and the law of inertia and the conservation of matter and energy hypotheses, but in that case the meaning of the term hypothesis would have to be changed, for if these laws are hypotheses, the statement 2×2=4 would be just as much an hypothesis.

* * * * *

In psychology Kroman and Höffding are more antagonistic than in any other subject. Both consider the soul as an _x_, but Kroman attributes to this _x_, unity and the faculty of feeling, willing and thinking; Höffding however looks upon feeling and motion as two sides of the same unknown object. Kroman in spite of his formal opposition to metaphysicism still believes in a subject underlying the acts of consciousness. After all, the name only of metaphysicism seems to be dead in Denmark, not metaphysicism itself. Höffding has shown how Kroman's psychological theory has led him into a highly mythical conception of the activity of the soul.

We may add that the proposition of non-interference with theological views may be excellent in preserving peace, but we cannot help considering this kind of peace as a mistaken policy. If there are conflicts between theology and philosophy, they should be settled, for there cannot be two contradictory truths, and it is wrong also to leave errors alone simply for the sake of peace. Yet it is objected that religion is a matter of the heart and philosophy a matter of the brain. Certainly, but the heart should have its emotion regulated by the brain. If our world-conception is the product mainly of our emotions and of our imagination, it would be simply foolish to let the heart build its world-conception just as it pleases without consulting the head. Wherever philosophy and religion or our world-conception (the latter considered as the product of our emotion) have nothing to say to each other, wherever they are kept distinct, it will lead to confusion in all the departments of our existence, it will put our philosophy, our scientific thought, and our ethics out of joint. A rent will go through the world of our life producing disharmony in every spot and the end will be a dreary pessimism. Our emotions are not a separate chamber of our being which should be kept private and unaffected by scientific knowledge, our emotions are springs of action, and it is of paramount importance to keep them in harmony with our knowledge of facts. The policy of theological non-interference may do for some time, but certainly not long. It is a mere armistice but no peace, and honest war is better than a sham-truce which is an ill-concealed state of intolerable hostility. (Heidelberg: G. Weiss.)

κρς.

VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII. Vol. II. No. 3. March, 1891.

CONTENTS:

SCHILLER'S DOCTRINE OF BEAUTY AND ÆSTHETICAL ENJOYMENT. By _P.
Kalenov_.

ON THE NATURE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS. (Conclusion.) By _Prince C.
N. Trubetzkoi_.

IDEALS AND REALITY. By _B. V. A. Golzev_.

LETTERS ON COUNT L. N. TOLSTOI'S BOOK "OF LIFE." (Continuation.)
By _A. A. Kozlov_.

RELIGIOUS METAPHYSICS OF THE MOSLEM ORIENT. A Sketch. By _C.
Umanetz_.

THE MORALITY OF MENTALLY DISEASED PERSONS. Ethics Of Mental
Diseases. By _V. Tchij_.

CRITICISM AND BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1) Introduction to the history of
the new philosophy. Problems of history and of the history
of philosophy. The significance of ancient and mediæval
philosophy. By _N. Grote_.

2) The ideals of most recent Ethics. A review of W. Wundt's "Eine
Untersuchung der Thatsachen und Gesetze des sittlichen Lebens."
By _A. Bao_.

REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC PERIODICALS.

BOOK REVIEWS. Russian and foreign books on Methodology, Logic,
Psychology, Psycho-pathology and Philosophy of history.

POLEMICS ON N. N. LANGE'S ARTICLE. By _E. Tchelpanov_.

APPENDIX: 1) Materials for the history of philosophy in Russia.
1855-1888. (Continuation.) _Y. Kohibovsky._ 2) Bibligraphical
Index. 3) Proceedings of The Psychological Society.

_Schiller's Doctrine of Beauty and Æsthetical Enjoyment._ The nations of western Europe have been long familiar with Schiller's doctrine of beauty and of æsthetical enjoyment; but one must agree with the writer, that it is still a subject that has not outlived, probably never will outlive, that unfading freshness and deep interest which it ever must possess to all cultured and thinking minds. The writer, moreover, calls attention to the fact, that as regards Russia, Schiller, although well-known as a poet, is too little known as a philosopher.