Chapter VI: Part 6

Hallucinations, the production of which are facilitated by the fixation of shining surfaces, do not occur with all persons; and there may be a kernel of truth in the tradition which designates women and children as endowed with especial capacities in this respect. The investigations of Fechner upon the varying vividness of after-images; the statistics of Galton upon hallucinatory phantasms in artists; and the extensive statistical work of the Society for Psychical Research, appear to point to a connection of this character. Miss Goodrich told me that her dreams were few in number and colorless. I must confess that I was surprised at this; but she added that all her recollections of places were accompanied with the vividness of actual sensory impressions. If, for example, she desires to describe a room in a friend's house, she returns in recollection to the occasion of her last visit; she again occupies the same chair; the carpet at her feet becomes visible, then the furniture nearest her, then the walls and ceiling, until a true picture of the whole room is extended before her mind's eye. Crystal-visions are distinguished from internal visions of this character only by the single circumstance that they are projected outwards to or upon a reflecting point. These visions often consist of a room that Miss Goodrich has lately seen, or a street sign, or of some movement that has startled her, as of a servant letting a plate fall, or of a dog running under a wagon. No consideration that the objects are not before her is of avail; the force of out-rushing memory-formations and the acquired established connection of the elements of soul-life are reduced to the primitive state that obtains in the soul of a child, to whom life is in reality a dream without definite limits. I well remember from the period of my early boyhood, the peculiar sensation of a state flickering between reality and fancy, and I understand the condition of those primitive tribes with whom dreamland and life intermingle in the strangest way; but capacities in this direction have disappeared down to the striking want of a normally developed faculty for colors.

* * * * *

Summing up then, we may say, that with regard to their _contents_ the phenomena produced by the agency of the magic mirror proceed from the realm of subconsciousness; and that with regard to their _form_ they belong to the category of hallucinations. Their contents, not regarded as a performance of memory, appear to possess no great value—so grotesque and ordinary are the few ideas brought up from this invisible storehouse. But they often supply us with a deep view into the secrets of character, and inculcate with terrible emphasis the truth that nothing is lost in the realms of the soul, any more than in the external world which is ruled by the law of the conservation of energy. Every thought that ever traversed our brain, every emotion that has ever thrilled our heart, every wish that has ever animated for a fleeting moment our breast—has all been entered in ineffaceable characters in the day-book of our earthly existence. Would that this knowledge could strengthen our feeling of moral responsibility!

Thus does the expansion of our psychological conceptions not infrequently lead to an enrichment of our notions of morality. But whether we place a higher value upon this aspect last mentioned, or upon the purely scientific object to which we referred at the beginning of our article, or finally upon a factor connected therewith, namely the enlightenment of society—at any rate we must confess that in the much abused "magic mirror" a rich and attractive source of treasures has been opened.

MAX DESSOIR.

HÖFFDING ON THE RELATION OF THE MIND TO THE BODY.

Few topics are of greater speculative or indeed practical interest than that of the relation of the body to the mind. Rarely has the subject been treated with such perspicuity and at the same time with such candor and avoidance of hasty dogmatism as by Professor Harald Höffding, of Copenhagen, in his "Psychology" (translated into German from the Danish and published in Leipsic, Reisland). A leading American professor of philosophy remarked to me recently that this for its size (the volume contains 452 pages) was the best all-around work on Psychology; and an examination of the section entitled _Seele und Körper_ (Mind and Body) certainly gives countenance to the statement.

Professor Höffding does not indeed oppose himself to metaphysical speculation; he believes that the human mind will never consent to being shut out from the task of searching after the ultimate principles of the universe, of which it is a part. But his standpoint in this work is the purely empirical one, as one's standpoint must be in every positive science. Positive science deals with the facts of experience; metaphysics with their ultimate explanation. He regards it as a misfortune to confuse the two, as popular thinking in psychology does; and scientific thinking in this realm is characterised by the effort to avoid the confusion and keep solely to the facts of observation and experience. Accordingly both materialism and spiritualism are excluded from the field—each theory involving a transcending of the realm of experience, i. e., being metaphysical.

There are two subdivisions of the realm of experience according to Professor Höffding,—one coextensive with psychical phenomena, such as feelings, thoughts, and volitions, the other with physical phenomena, i. e., with what moves in space. They may be called respectively inner experience and outer experience. Each must be grasped in its distinct features; and only after doing so can we feel the _problem_ involved in the question of their relation to or connection with one another. For it happens that one set of outer experiences stands in an indisputably peculiar relation to the phenomena of consciousness, namely, the set which we describe by the term "body" and, more particularly, by that of "nervous system" or "brain." Much of what we call the physical world stands in relation to consciousness as the thing known to the knower; but a part of the physical world (i. e., the body or brain) seems a part of the knower as well—a body or nervous system of some kind seems an indispensable requirement or at least concomitant of anything like feeling, or thought, or act of volition.

Now, different as the movements of the nervous system, the processes of the brain are from the phenomena of consciousness, there are a number of resemblances between them. Professor Höffding specifies six: (1) As the nervous system is the central, unifying organ of the body, so does consciousness bring together into a unity all the varied phenomena of experience, scattered though they be in time and space. (2) Just as a change is necessary that consciousness may be awakened, (an absence of contrasts tending in the direction of unconsciousness,) so a stimulus is necessary that the nerves may act. (3) A stimulus may produce a commotion in the nervous system out of all proportion to its immediate efficacy, just as a spark may act on a magazine of powder; so a simple sensation may set in motion a whole train of ideas and emotions, owing to the complicated structure and multitudinous inner relations of consciousness. (4) The movements of the body are slow in proportion as they are conscious; now the nerves which appear to be closely related to consciousness act more slowly than those which direct purely physiological (i. e., unconscious) processes. (5) The lower nerve-centres form a system comparatively independent of the higher ones; corresponding to this is the fact that many bodily processes go on unconsciously and only make us aware of them when the circumstances attending them are particularly favorable or unfavorable. The _consciousness_ of the physical state corresponds to the excitation of the higher nerve-centres. Similarly the action of the will has its physiological counterpart; in the struggle between "the flesh and the spirit," the lower nerve-centres with their reflex and involuntary actions correspond to the flesh, the higher centres to the spirit. (6) The construction of the nervous system is similar to the constitution of consciousness; just as consciousness is at once receptive and active, with more or less of intervening reflection or thought, so the nervous system has both sensory and motor organs, with an intervening sphere.

Not only are there these formal resemblances, there is a real connection, according to Professor Höffding, as is shown by the fact that with the evolution of the nervous system go higher and higher forms of consciousness, that irritation on the surface of an organism must be communicated to the brain that conscious sensations may arise, and that when arterial blood fails to reach the brain unconsciousness supervenes. What hypothesis do these facts conduct to us? All of them must be born in mind that any special hypothesis may be legitimated. There are only four possibilities: (1) Either consciousness and the brain, mind and body, act upon one another as two separate things or substances; (2) or the mind is only a form or product of the body; (3) or the body is only a form or product of one or more mental substances; (4) or mind and body, consciousness and the brain, grow and develop as different manifestations of one and the same substance. It must be admitted that the author at this point somewhat deserts the empirical standpoint to which he declared at the outset that he should keep. The _facts_ of correspondence or parallelism are all that come within the realm of experience; their _explanation_ must be more or less a matter of inference and theoretical construction and involves a departure in the direction of metaphysics. Professor Höffding is aware of this and says that these hypotheses belong to the border-land between positive science and metaphysics. Moreover, he confesses that any conclusion he may reach will have only a provisional value and may need revision, before it can serve as a final part of a philosophical system. He will, however, follow as closely as possible the leadings of experience, as indeed he says we should do in all metaphysical speculation.

In considering the first hypothesis, (namely, that mind and body act on one another as two things,) Professor Höffding shows that it is inconsistent with the law of the conservation of energy. For, at the point where the nervous process is converted into mental activity, one sum of physical energy would disappear without being replaced by another sum of the same kind. As matter of fact no disappearance of energy takes place on account of the arising of a conscious state. The chain of psychical causation is not broken; its completeness no more suffers than if states of consciousness did not arise at all. Nor on the other hand does consciousness affect the sum of physical energy; it is hardly conceivable that it should even change the _direction_ of such energy (the sum supposably remaining constant, as is sometimes held), since to do this it must itself become a physical force. Moreover, if there is a relation of cause and effect between the brain and consciousness it would seem as if an interval of time must elapse between the process in the brain and the rising of the conscious state, a view to which the teachings of physiology lend no likelihood.

The second hypothesis regards matter as the real or actual thing and mind as an effect or form of it. Such materialism is certainly older than the now prevalent doctrine of the interaction of two distinct things. Homer and the earliest Greek philosophers held to it. Similar views prevailed among the early Christian fathers before Augustine. Modern materialists, however, regard the mind, not in the earlier fashion as semi-corporeal, but as a function or form of the corporeal. Yet when we closely consider the matter, we find that to conceive of the function of a bodily organ is simply to conceive of that organ as in activity. As Goethe said, "Function is das Dasein in Thätigkeit gedacht." But a bodily organ in activity is just as much corporeal as one at rest, and anything without corporeal attributes can no more be the function of such an organ than it can be the organ itself. The conception of function (in the physiological sense) as truly as that of matter implies something that exists in spacial form; while thoughts and feelings are without spacial form.

In dealing with the third hypothesis, (namely, that body is a form or product of mind,) Professor Höffding does not so much criticise it as explain a modified and interesting form in which Lotze held it. It is not, however, the view which he adopts.

To the fourth hypothesis he gives his adhesion. The parallel and proportional relations between consciousness and brain-activity point, according to him, to an underlying identity between the two. One and the same principle, he says, has found its expression in a two-fold form. The physical interaction between the elements of which the nervous system is composed, is an outward form of the inner ideal unity of consciousness. What we immediately experience as thoughts, feelings, volitions, has its physical representation in certain brain-processes, which as such are under the law of the conservation of energy, though this law has no application to the relation between brain-processes _and_ consciousness. It is as if one and the same content were expressed in two languages.

This conclusion, however, he repeats, is but an empirical formula and has provisional value only. One substance, he says, acts in both consciousness and the bodily organism, but what kind of a substance is this, and why does it have this twofold form of manifestation? These are questions, he replies, beyond the reach of our knowledge. We can simply make a statement which seems to be required by the facts, namely, that the same thing which lives, grows, and takes on form in the outward world, apprehends itself inwardly as thinking, feeling, and willing. No opinion is thereby ventured as to whether mind or matter is the more original form of existence. By no means is metaphysical speculation upon this question excluded. The hypothesis of identity (for so Professor Höffding terms it) is consistent with philosophical idealism and also with the view that the innermost nature of being is not identical with consciousness. He simply claims for it that it is the most natural conclusion with regard to the relation between two empirical sciences, physiology and psychology. These sciences, according to the hypothesis, treat of the same material viewed from two different sides, and there can be no more conflict between them than between one person who looks on the convex side of a circle and another who looks on the concave side (to borrow an illustration used by Fechner).

On another occasion I may give my own views, and content myself now with saying that I have followed with the greatest interest and with much (if not unlimited) satisfaction the treatment of the subject at the hands of the genial, large-minded Danish professor.

W. M. SALTER.

LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE.

FRANCE.

The work of M. FOUILLÉE which I announced in my last communication (to your other magazine), bears the title of _L'Evolutionnisme des Idées-Forces_. It is a voluminous work; and it contains a great many things—perhaps too many. We have from M. Fouillée, the promise of a constructive work—_La Psychologie des Idées-Forces_, in two volumes; but his present book is chiefly devoted to the labor of demolition. As contemporaneous psychology has its weak sides, and as M. Fouillée is a skilful critic, you may imagine that his attacks upon Wundt, Herbert Spencer, Taine, Ribot, W. James, and numbers of others, both living and dead, are conducted with spirit. The successful fulfilment of the task he has set himself would necessitate the ruin of the hypothesis, avowed or concealed, that has supported psychological research as well as furnished occasional excellent conclusions; for it is the aim of M. Fouillée to overthrow what he has ingeniously termed the theory of "idea-reflexes," and the place once cleared, to substitute for it the theory of "idea-forces."

The chief feature of the book is therefore M. Fouillée's criticisms of the theories "that make consciousness the intermittent illumination of a mechanism"; of the theories "that reduce the sentiments and the emotions to simple reverberations of organic movements and even of expressive movements"; of those finally "that make of desire and the feeling of effort, simple passive muscular sensations, the reflexions of movements already executed." Solid objections are not wanting in these pages. M. Fouillée does not refrain from playing when he has a good hand.

So far so good. But—we ask—would psychology have ever made any advances if it lacked the hypothesis that M. Fouillée condemns? And, as a matter of fact, are the majority of psychologists really thus irretrievably bent upon establishing a mechanical explanation of life, a theory of "man as automaton"? The truth of the matter is that the opposed point of view has rendered no results, and that in taking consciousness for our central position we too easily go astray in fanciful speculations. On the other hand, by the endeavor to grasp the bonds of mind through the medium of the body, it _has_ been found possible to throw some light upon unobserved facts. It would not do to let this be too quickly forgotten; and if some have seen fit to pass beyond and to attempt to reduce the Universe to a mechanism, imprudent saltations of this character into open materialistic metaphysics concern them alone.

Will M. Fouillée be more fortunate in his reduction of the world to idealism? It yet appears doubtful. The definition of 'idea-forces' presents at the outset elements of embarrassment. That every idea, every mental image, however absolutely an image it may be, of emotions or of passions, always contains some motor elements, and consequently acts like a force, is easily comprehended, and every body allows it. When physiologists speak of the power of ideas, they mean nothing else. But beyond that we cannot go. The idea, in M. Fouillée's sense, is every state of consciousness. Now, all the facts of consciousness are reducible to the following elementary connected process: sensation, perceptual excitation, reaction; and the three factors of this process cannot be separated or reduced to one. Every idea, or state of consciousness, is accordingly the source of motion since it contains desire. Desire is basal to the nervous act; the nervous act does not precede and does not explain the higher states that psychologists, viewing things from a different point of view, have regarded as epiphenomena. The essence, not only of man, but also of the world, is desire. The idea-force, "the abridged formula of the appetitive process," becomes the shaper of universal evolution, and, in a word, the physical is a reflection of the psychical.

Such are, if I am not deceived, the chief propositions of the work, put into a logical form, from which no doubt you will judge that the facts do not correspond without evident hiatus.

You do not believe in absolute truth, and I no more hope for it. The mind does not escape certain illusions, which come from what it necessarily places in the reality that it wishes to know, or which it acquires from itself. Meanwhile both the opposing doctrines triumph, seeing that there is always something in each that cannot be explained; but let them not be too severe on each other, and not forget that if they succeed in explaining something, it is perhaps as well that they resign themselves to not explaining everything.

I had intended to give in this letter a detail of the theory of Mme. CLÉMENCE ROYER, in order to compare it with that of M. Fouillée; I had prepared it from certain published memoirs, as her great manuscript work has unfortunately not found a publisher. But _The Open Court_ has given a résumé of it sufficiently complete to excuse me from returning to the subject. Whatever service can be rendered by the hypothesis of Mme. Clémence Royer, or, more strictly whatever use can be made of the mathematical formulæ which explain them, or which are deducible from them, it will belong to special scientists to inform us. She begins the explanation of the world by physics, and M. Fouillée by psychology. It is a difference in the point of departure. Let us add that M. Fouillée appears to imagine an activity without substance, a mind without muscles, if it can be thus expressed; on the contrary, in that which she calls world-stuff Mme. Clémence Royer distinguishes a hyperethereal or vital state, and she assigns for the substratum of life this simple state of the cosmical substance.

Opposed as may be the character of the minds of these two authors, the two theories seem to coincide in the notion of a living and conscious monad. We meet it when they are farthest apart! Thus, for Mme. Clémence Royer, life and consciousness are everywhere, they are in the atom, and from the beginning. There, in the great "romance of being," is a scene which reappears almost always the same. As to the ultimate explanation we have no great choice, and each of the hypotheses that we form almost produces the other. All the value of a system of philosophy is really in the help it lends to scientific curiosity or to the conduct of life.

* * * * *

M. ERNEST NAVILLE is one of those who cannot comprehend moral conduct in life apart from spiritualism. He endeavors, accordingly, in a work called _La Physique Moderne_, to prove that the study of the phenomena of matter does not imply materialism and does not necessarily lead to atheism. The argument of M. Naville is well worn. We shall grant to him only that "it is necessary to avoid implicitly solving questions by saying that we do not deal with them at all." On the whole, this pledges to nothing. Practically, and in good faith, abstention is nevertheless a solution.

* * * * *

I have now to point out _L'Esthétique d'Aristote et de ses Successeurs_, by M. CH. BÉNARD, an _Etude sur Francois Bacon_ by M. J. BARTHÉLEMY ST. HILAIRE, and _L'Anthropologie Criminelle et ses Récents Progrès_, by M. CESARE LOMBROSO. M. Bénard is one of the good old masters, who, what they do know, know well, and his book is one of those that it is profitable to possess. The study of M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire is followed by the Report on the Memoirs presented to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, which had proposed as a subject "The Philosophy of Bacon." As to M. Lombroso, the celebrated Italian criminologist, he has wished to reply to the objections that have been made to his views, especially by the French medical alienists at the Congress of 1889, and this is why he has written on this occasion in our language: he supports by new facts the notion, hitherto contested, of a "criminal type."

* * * * *

The last work of which I have to speak, is the _Souvenirs de M. Charles Mismer_,[31] of which the third volume which recently appeared, has for its title _Souvenirs de la Martinique et du Mexique pendant l'Intervention Francaise_. There is in these volumes no express philosophy, as this term is understood, but they are the work of an observing, reflecting mind, and in these pages one sees a man living and growing. In the course of his adventurous existence, M. Mismer, already instructed by experience, by chance acquired knowledge of the _Cours_ of August Comte; he became attached to it, and found there an opening into sociology, a tie by which to link together his personal ideas. He afterwards published several articles[32] in the Review conducted by M. Littré, and he records to-day in his _Souvenirs_ the valuable observations which he has had occasion to make on very different races of men and strongly opposed social states. He is one of those whom the philosophic spirit has led to a philosophic life, and the persons who read his work will thank me for having made them acquainted with a unique and worthy character.

[31] In course of publication by Hachette. The other works
mentioned are published by Alcan.

[32] A part of these articles formed a volume entitled
_Principes Sociologiques_.

LUCIEN ARRÉAT.

BOOK REVIEWS.

THE WAY OUT OF AGNOSTICISM, or, THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREE RELIGION. By
_Francis Ellingwood Abbott_, Ph. D., Boston: Little, Brown & Co.

"This book aims to show that, in order to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism, nothing is now necessary but to philosophise that very scientific method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and misuses ... It aims to develop the philosophy which must (consciously or unconsciously) underlie any and every free religious movement or institution: namely the philosophy which results from the faithful application of the scientific method to the universe as a whole."

The author further observes that "nothing is more common or more confusing than a loose vague and indeterminate use of this phrase" [scientific method] and that his object is "to give definiteness and scientific precision to a much abused expression by showing that the Scientific Method ... is neither more nor less than the SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF UNIVERSALS APPLIED IN PRACTICE TO THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE."

Now whether or not the identification of the scientific method with the practical application of the theory mentioned, will give the much needed definiteness and precision, depends very much upon the definiteness and precision of that theory itself.

The Scientific Theory of Universals, the author tells us, receives "no adequate exposition" in this book. We are in possession, however, of several other publications of the author, one of which—"Scientific Theism"—is largely devoted to that purpose.

We will endeavor in a spirit of studious candor and fidelity, to state as well as we can the essentials of that theory. We must protest, however, that we cannot undertake to clear up the obscurity that must necessarily involve any theory that is stated by the aid of such shifty and inconstant terms, as objective, subjective, knowledge, relation, existence, reality, etc., when the same are used without rigorous definitions of the respective senses thereof that are intended.

The Scientific Theory of Universals affirms, that objectively real individuals do exist, that objectively real genera do exist, that objectively real relations do exist, that the objectively real genera are in every instance constituted as such by that set of objectively real relations uniquely appropriate to it; that in every instance of a genus the objectively real relations "reproduce" themselves _in specie_ in the mind separate from aught of the objective realities that are brought into relation by them, that these "reproduced" relations in the mind constitute the subjective concept that is designated by the word appropriate thereto, and that the single objective Universal is _at once_ and integrally the objective genus, the subjective concept, and the term or word. The Universe is the _summum genus_, concept and word, which is, means, and expresses the correlated totality of all genera together.

Dr. Abbott neglects reference to genera of purely mental existences, and relies for proof of his theory upon the single argument that no postulate is used that Science has not taken for granted, and proved by the finding that the facts are in agreement with the postulates.

Now "the only possible justification of any theory is that it makes things clear and reasonable." In this theory the central and controlling position is that the objectively real relations invade the mind in person and there obtain as the concept.—This doctrine is so far as we can see the original idea of Dr. Abbott and must be considered as his contribution to philosophy. It is by this that his work is to be tested. Does the addition of this new postulate clear up any obscurity?—Is this new postulate one of the assumptions of Science?

The truth about this whole matter of universals seems to be that it belongs to the theory of notation primarily, and then to psychology and ontology.

The mind proceeds to obtain correspondence with its alternative by analysis and synthesis. The recognition of difference or otherness is an indispensable condition of consciousness itself. One phase of the recognition of difference is that activity called abstraction. But along with difference comes the recognition of what is different from difference, or likeness in all its grades and involutions. The sense of relation, and the impulse of generalisation also arise, and altogether these mentalities become effectual in virtue of some system or some plexus of systems of notation. Long before man ever began to reflect upon his mental operations and the means or tools employed on that behalf, his mental manners and customs had become a second mental nature. What warrant have we for taking these mental manners and customs as the same are reflected in ordinary language as adequate criteria for the world-problems, or even as representative of the very constitutional laws of thought itself? Just as philosophy found it profitable to postpone ontology to psychology, so it is submitted may it again find it profitable to postpone psychology to a study not merely of language but of notation generally, of which the notation of mathematics will undoubtedly be found the most significant. Here we have distinction, abstraction, assimilation, relation, and generalisation carried on and carried out with unchecked thoroughness, and systems of universals ascertained that not only correspond exactly with every acquired and incoming item of our experience, but are also in respect to one another continuous throughout the whole of their range. It will be impossible for any one who once appreciates the nature and competence of mathematical notation to regard any theory of universals relating to ordinary language as a solution of its problem that does not conform to the perfect models set in mathematics.

Dr. Abbott claims that _scientific method_ is neither more nor less than the application of his theory. Granting that science makes the same presumptions, can scientific method be said to be neither more nor less than the application of his theory in any other sense than it could be said to be neither more nor less than the application of the theory of the existence of matter, energy, ether, and mind?

The scientific method consists not in its data but in the ways in which it deals with its data, in other words it consists in its logic. It observes and infers. It never stops to inquire if what it observes are the "things in themselves" or only phenomena. That is an utterly inconsequential question to it. It tests the validity of inductive and hypothetical inferences by comparison with experience, and phenomenal experience is every whit as good a criterion for it as any other. It has a metaphysics of its own which is mathematics and which it acknowledges as the supreme and unquestionable arbiter over whatever of its presumptions and theories that arbiter may undertake to govern.

No philosophy that neglects to comprehend and apply the now supremely important methods and results of mathematics can be anything but an ineffectual attempt. No doubt this will seem to most of those who affect philosophy a statement worthy only of scorn. Prof. Crystal, at the close of his article on "Parallels," in the ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica "calls the attention of those who busy themselves with mental philosophy" to that geometrical subject and its affiliations "as one of the results of modern mathematical research which they cannot afford to overlook." We can imagine with what an air of conscious eminence one or more of our dilettanti philosophers may have perused this suggestion, wondering what in the world parallels and measurement have to do with philosophy.

But, nevertheless, so it is that a new departure in philosophy has been made inevitable by the stupendous researches of modern mathematics and this the philosophical world is just beginning to find out. It seems to us, that the incomplete view taken by Dr. Abbott will prevent that success for his theory which his most distinguished ability might otherwise achieve, and which his devoted efforts well merit.

F. C. R.

RACES AND PEOPLES: LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF ETHNOGRAPHY. By _Daniel
G. Brinton_, A.M., M.D., etc., etc. New York: N. D. C. Hodges.

These lectures, which are dedicated to Mr. Horatio Hale, the veteran philologist and ethnographer to the United States exploring expedition in 1832-42, go over a very wide ground. The ground traversed is, indeed, so extensive that Dr. Brinton feels bound to apologise for being often superficial, as otherwise he could not have compressed into so small a space the subjects of which he treats. This apology must necessarily to some extent disarm the critic, although it should do so only where a conclusion is not supported by sufficient evidence. Where a statement made is not merely unsupported by, but is contrary to, the best evidence available, the author must expect to be called to account. We were prepared to act on this principle, thinking that possibly confession like charity would be found to cover a multitude of sins, but we must admit that with certain exceptions, the chief of which are to be found in the lecture on "the psychical elements of Ethnography," we were mistaken.

We do not propose to follow the author in his classification of the varieties of mankind, or in his views of the origin of the various races into which they are divided, both of which will meet with keen opposition from most of the anthropologists of Western Europe, although those of Germany may receive them with more favor. We are concerned chiefly with the opening and the closing chapters of the work before us, from which we may draw some conclusions bearing on the race question, that disturbs the minds of so many people in this country. Dr. Brinton remarks that the physical traits of man are correlated to the physiological functions in such a manner as profoundly to influence the destiny of nations. He adds that from the physical point of view, the pure white is weaker than the dark races, worse prepared for the combat of life, with inferior viability; but in the white this is more than compensated by the development of the nervous system and intellectual power. The white "can bear greater mental strain than any other race, and the activity of his mind supplies him with means to overcome the inferiority of his body, and thus places him at the head of the whole species." It might be supposed that a mixture of races having these different qualities, would result in the formation of a hybrid race, superior to either of the parent stocks.

Dr. Brinton, who is strongly opposed to the practice of miscegenation, endorses the opinion that the offspring of a cross between the white and the black races are deficient in physical vigor, and that such hybrids gradually die out. He admits, however, that it was not so within the African area in early times, and he suggests that special causes are now at work to affect the results of race-mixture. One of these is the fact that the white blood is derived exclusively from the father, and the dark blood exclusively from the mother. Now, if it be true, as is supposed, that physical qualities are derived chiefly from the father and the psychical qualities chiefly from the mother, we may reasonably expect, as is indeed recognised, that the children of such unions will be physically superior to members of the black stock, although inferior to those of the white race. It is admitted, moreover, that mulattoes are, as a rule, intellectually superior to pure negroes; so that miscegenation is undoubtedly of relative advantage to the immediate offspring, whatever may be its result on their descendants. What Dr. Brinton and other writers of the same opinion object to, however, is the deterioration of the white stock. If there was any reason to believe this possible, the objection would have weight. But it supposes miscegenation to become general, which, in the first place, is an event which could never happen, unless the women of this country descended to the level of a Messalina. And in the second place, Dr. Brinton admits that "in the earlier conditions of social life, no such debility attended the crossing of the Eurafrican [white race] and African race as seems at present to be the case." It is possible, therefore, that if the mixture of the two races became general, and were regarded as perfectly legitimate, the present physical and intellectual debility attending such unions might disappear. We do not advocate miscegenation, but we wish to point out, that those who oppose it under the present limitations of our knowledge, do so either on insufficient grounds, or because they are influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by sentimental considerations.

We are glad to see that Dr. Brinton does not endorse the views so prevalent among English Ethnologists as to the existence of "communal marriage" among the lower races of mankind. In his recent work on "The Origin and Development of Marriage and Kinship," Mr. C. Staniland Wake has dealt exhaustively with that subject, and shown that the "marriage law" is fully recognised among the most savage peoples. We cannot accept Dr. Brinton's statements where he says that the Australian aborigines are led to associate "by much the same motives as prompt buffaloes to gather in a herd," or when he speaks of the "rare" custom of polyandry, or declares that mutual affection has no existence among the Australians and many other tribes, and that romantic love is practically absent among the African and Mongolian races. Our author is equally at fault when he says that no Asiatic nation respects truth telling, and that "the idea of independent personal ownership does not exist among them." These errors, and such misstatements as that "the excellent results of the extension of the Slavonian supremacy in Central Asia have been studiously ignored by British writers," which are due to Dr. Brinton's preference for Continental authorities, are serious blemishes. Nevertheless, his book is an excellent one, and we can heartily recommend it as an introductory Manual of Ethnology.

Ω.

STUDIES IN HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. With a Chapter On Christian
Unity in America. By _J. Macbride Sterrett_, D. D., Professor of
Ethics and Apologetics in Seabury Divinity School. New York: D.
Appleton & Co.

These studies in Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, except Chapters III and VIII, claim to be something more than a mere expository paraphrase of Hegel, although following Hegel's argument in Chapter IV. The author's purpose is strictly theological and _apologetic_. His work is written with faith, and in the interest of "the faith." In fact, in England and America the theological rather than philosophical interest taken in the study of Hegel has mainly been called forth by the supposed intimate relation of his thought to religion and to Christianity regarded as the absolute, full, and final religion. To this pseudo-Hegelian school of England and America, Hegel, above all, is radically a _theologian_; all his thoughts beginning and ending in that of divinity. It regards Hegel's Philosophy of Religion as the very heart of his thinking, as "the highest bloom of his philosophy." It is supposed to reconcile Christian theology with the modern science of religion (or comparative religion), with anthropology, and with the classification of positive, pre-Christian religions. American students of Hegelian philosophy, as a rule, do not desire to be regarded as Hegelians. "Bound to swear in the name of no master in philosophy, and only in the name of Christ in religion, would better characterise them all. They are simply using his _method_ ... they are getting great help, and looking for still greater from the method, which was greater than even Hegel's own employment of it." Hegel's method is thus declared to be greater than himself, and is received like an article of faith. In these studies, while freely discussing and criticising all that Hegel has thought or said upon the subject of the philosophy of religion, the author entirely omits to enter into a critical discussion of precisely the most important point; namely, the absolute value of Hegel's philosophical _method_. He overlooks the interesting fact, that all that is permanently true and great in Hegel was really reached by Hegel himself, and understood, from a point of view that was _diametrically opposed to his own accepted method_; in glaring contrast to his evolution of the logical idea, and to his theory of "pure thought" or "reines Denken." "To reconcile reason with religion, by finding reason in religion and religion in reason," is doubtless a correct Hegelian statement, yet, at the same time, it only expresses an exclusive, one-sided aspect of the system.

There was a time when the Hegelian system ranked as a foremost intellectual phenomenon. It was, perhaps, the highest that philosophy ever had achieved; but its manifest fault consisted in its being a purely philosophical and _a priori_ system. A philosophy that existed in external opposition to the sciences remained only an empty abstraction, just as force when severed from the phenomenon, or Deity when opposed to the outside world. Hegel's philosophy ultimately recognised, that force only is or exists in the phenomenon; that the internal itself constitutes the external, the Deity is only present in the universe, the infinite in the finite. Any philosophy proclaiming all this must be said to have succumbed with a vengeance to its own dialectic process.

A philosophy of this kind would seem to have signed its own death-warrant—or according to the popular German saying, "hat selbst den Stab über sich gebrochen!" And thus it really happened to Hegelianism—we mean to _genuine German_ Hegelianism. From that moment it forfeited its claim to be regarded as the highest truth. It was compelled to step forth out of its one-sided exclusiveness, out of its opposition to empirical science. Hegelianism was not expected to effect any kind of compromise or reconciliation with empirical science, because any yielding on its own part would have been illogical, and could only have brought about a momentary truce, but no lasting peace. On the contrary, Hegelianism had to suffer the infinitely bitter pang of self-immolation. It had deliberately to commit suicide, in order thereupon to be welded with empirical science into a much higher and more comprehensive _unity_. In other words,—in fact in _Hegel's own words_—"when the old principle thus reappears, it is no longer what it was before, for it is changed and purified by the higher element into which it is now taken up."

The Hegelian system was thus compelled to acknowledge, that not only must philosophy agree with experience, but moreover, the creation of a philosophical science premises as an indispensable condition the hypothesis of an empirical science, which itself implies that the ideas of space, of time, of movement, and of matter cannot be obtained _a priori_,—that is before the experience of the things themselves,—or be purely evolved, according to the Hegelian method, from the logical idea. To attempt to reconcile reason with religion by finding reason in religion and religion in reason, is simply to evolve _a priori_ a philosophy of religion from the logical idea. This is believed to be possible by means of the mystic factors—"the Hegelian method" and the "Logos." The original contents of eternal reason itself—of the _logos_—are supposed to exist within our mind in a form that constitutes our inmost truth; our spontaneous logical thinking coincides with the innate eternal reason in form and contents, and thus attains to the full revelation of itself.

But all this is purely an hypothesis, or a kind of belief in reason, "der Glaube an die Vernunft!" Hegel himself in conclusion was forced to admit that philosophy must closely observe the method of nature. (See Encycl. III, 22.) The editor of Hegel's Philosophy of History (Gans, page XV) says, "Hegel did not wish to personate the deity that creates or evolves history, but to be a man who contemplates created rational history"; and Hegel himself says (page 13), "we must take history as it is; we have to proceed according to an historical, empirical method. ... Only from the study of history itself are we allowed to infer that historical events are really rational events." And in Hegel's "Naturphilosophie," (page 24,) and elsewhere there are to be found perfectly analogous passages.

It cannot be denied, that the author of this work on Hegel's philosophy of religion has made a deep study of all the vast details of the Hegelian system; but his one-sided theological criticism exclusively aims at representing Hegel himself as a theologian. This American pseudo-Hegelianism may probably have had the effect of stimulating American thinkers, but in other respects it has only retained the phantom and empty shadow of Hegelianism, playing fast and loose with the old system under the captious name of the "Hegelian method," and making a free use of its obscure, obsolete phraseology. The cry "back to Kant" by English Neo-Kantianism, is declared to mean a speedy return to Hegel's method, and to be only the first step of the protest "against temporary, materialistic, and psychological thought."

The last chapter, in the form of an appendix, is devoted to the discussion of "Christian Unity." The author deplores the current abstract conceptions of the church, and regards them as the main obstacle to its visible organic unity. The Hegelian ideas on religion and the state are believed to suggest a more concrete, historical view, and to destroy the abstract conception.

γνλν.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF NECESSITY; OR, LAW IN MIND AS IN MATTER. By _Charles
Bray_. Third edition, revised and abridged. London and New York:
Longmans, Green, & Co.

This work was originally published in 1841, and comprised an Exposition of the Doctrine of the Philosophy of Necessity, or the Law of Consequences, first, in its relation to Mental Science, secondly, in its relation to Ethics, and thirdly, an application of its principles to the social questions of the day. The third part has been omitted from the present edition, as being out of date, but many of its statistics and observations are given as an Appendix. In a prefatory note it is stated as a reason for preserving in an accessible form the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Bray, that he "worked out for himself a theory as to the purpose of existence that satisfied his own mind, and became to him a cheerful philosophy which intensified his enjoyment of all things good and pleasant, helped him to bear the troubles of life, and to meet the end in a spirit as bright as it was resigned"—a statement which those who knew him personally will heartily endorse.

Mr. Bray's theory is embodied in the title of the work under review, and its key-note is "order in nature." His object is to show "that the mind of man is not an exception to nature's other works; that like everything else it has received a determinate character; that all our knowledge of it is precisely of the same kind as that of material things, and consists in the observation of _its order_ of action, or of the relation of cause and effect." According to this view we can know the real nature of neither matter nor mind, Nature herself having fixed the boundaries beyond which human knowledge cannot extend. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that Mr. Bray regarded Nature as something apart, giving to man laws from the operation of which it is itself free. A little consideration shows that such is not his idea. Nature is with Mr. Bray only another name for God. Moreover, man is nothing, God is all; "individuality, or anything separate from Him, is a mode of thought, and has no real existence." Electricity, heat, light, and other forces of nature are modes of the Unknowable, and are transformable into each other and into the other modes which we distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought. The qualities or properties of matter are mere force or power, and as they are qualities of God, the assumption of the existence of matter is not necessary. God "is the Universal Being, of which all things are the manifestations. Every thing is a mode of God's attribute of extension; every thought, wish, or feeling, is a mode of His attribute of thought."

To Mr. Bray the only _reality_ is God, the great Unknown, and as He is also the Unknowable, we have in the Philosophy of Necessity a system of Agnosticism. And yet Mr. Bray is hardly consistent with himself. For, unlike Mr. Herbert Spencer, he speaks of God in terms of Spirit, which becomes in his system identical with force. When, moreover, he declares that "the whole sensitive existence is but the innumerable individual eyes with which the Infinite World Spirit beholds Himself," we have a kind of Monism. This view however recognises God as "the only real and efficient power in the universe," and, as the Great First Cause and the Great Last Cause of all things, a Divine Being. Mr. Bray does not enter into the question of the personality of God, but that he supposes the Deity to possess consciousness is evident from his reference to the Great Soul of Nature, and his statement that the operation of its forces is governed by thought. His ideas are summed up in the words, "we feel ourselves a part

"Of that stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the Soul."

Holding this opinion, Mr. Bray could not be otherwise than a Necessitarian and an Utilitarian in his practical views. These are well shown in his treatment of the question of the freedom of will, as to which he accepts the opinion of Locke that a man is free within the range of the preferences or directions of his own mind. Mr. Bray's own conclusion is: "Since, then, the only freedom we have is limited to action in accordance with our natural powers and capacities, our aim must be to develop fully these powers and capacities, and to remove all impediments, external and internal, to their free and complete action. There must be no external compulsion from physical impediment, or internal compulsion from defect in the mind itself; no obstacle to the full exercise of our natural powers both of body and mind. Education in its full meaning is the developing and perfecting of all these powers."

Ω

GESCHICHTE DER ETHIK IN DER NEUEREN PHILOSOPHIE. By _Friedrich
Jodl_. Volume II. Kant and the Ethics of the Nineteenth Century.
Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta.

In this volume Professor Jodl continues his history of theoretical ethics; starting with Kant and coming down to contemporary philosophers. His work is thus mainly concerned with the classical philosophy of Germany till Feuerbach's time, and the spiritualistic and positivist philosophy of France and England down to the time of Cousin, Jouffroy, and Mill. Professor Jodl has been obliged to forego his original intention of appending to his work an epitome of the logical constructive results of his investigations, and has exclusively applied himself to the investigation and historical presentment of the fundamental and central principles of the ethical thought of the past century. He has therefore ever held in view the economical and historical purpose of his work, and avoided on the one hand an exposition of all systems in which originality of principles is lacking, and on the other abstained from the critical examination of the systems of his contemporaries. Thus he has aspired, by the constant emphasis of central basal principles and of the points whereon all have agreed, to refute the belief that the history of his science is a chaotic mass of contradictory views, and that ethical opinion presents in its historical expression only diversity, and never community of mental possession. Professor Jodl has only collaterally dealt with the non-ethical literature and tendencies of the times of which he treats, and he has disclaimed all intention of portraying the effects and influence that ethical systems have produced and exerted in practical spheres; France and England being the only instances in which, for manifest reasons, the discussion of literature and politics has preceded the criticism and analysis of philosophies. Nevertheless, his work throughout is interspersed with many well-judged and apposite thoughts upon the effective, though not always apparent, influence of a nation's intellectual activity upon its practical conduct of affairs; as well as, also, regarding the lamentable fact that, often, a people are violently and dangerously engaged in the solution of questions that their thinkers have solved decades before.

Let us look at Professor Jodl's examination of the historical position of Kantian Ethics. The element of non-interest in ethical judgment we find not to have been first emphasised by Kant. Whatever the success and worth of their speculations, a great many of Kant's predecessors sought to realise this very factor in their systems; thus it was with Plato as opposed to Protagoras, with Shaftesbury and Butler as opposed to Hobbes, Locke, and Hume; while Cudworth, Clarke, Wollaston, and Price were similarly actuated by the purely speculative consideration. Kant's real and original advance upon previous systems of ethics, was his emphasis of the element of conscious volition in ethical judgment and the statement of its imperative character. It was just in this last respect that his ethical philosophy formed so marked a contrast to the eudæmonism of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The imperative and absolute nature of duty, eudæmonism neglected to inculcate; Kant aroused the conscience of his time, and presented in contrast to the moral weakness then prevalent the strength and earnest grandeur of an absolute conception of duty.