Psychological review

03 &
THE

Psychological Review

EDITED BY

J. MARK BALDWIN J. McKEEN CATTELL

AND

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

WITH THE CO-OPERATION OF

ALFRED BINET, ficoLE DES HAUTES-£TUDES, PARIS;' JOHN DEWEY, H. H. DONALD-
SON, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO; G. S. FULLERTON, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA;
G. H. HOWISON, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA; JOSEPH JASTROW, UNI-
VERSITY OF WISCONSIN; G. T. LADD, 'YALE UNIVERSITY; HUGO
MtfNSTERBERG, HARVARD UNIVERSITY; M. ALLEN STARR,
COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS, NEW YORK; CARL
STUMPF, UNIVERSITY, BERLIN; JAMES SULLY,
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON.

Volume VI. 1899.

PUBLISHED BI-MONTHLY BY

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,

41 N. QUEEN ST., LANCASTER, PA.
66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK; AND LONDON.

P7

PRESS OF

THE NEW ERA PRINTING_COMPANY,
LANCASTER, PA.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI.

ALPHABETICAL INDICES OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS WILL BE FOUND AT THE
END OF THE VOLUME.

ARTICLES.

PAGE

History and Psychology : HUGO MONSTERBERG i

The Relations between certain Organic Processes and Conscious-
ness: J. R. ANGELL and H. B. THOMPSON 32

Professor Miiller's Theory of the Light Sense : C. LADD FRANK-
LIN 70

On Certain Hindrances to the Progress of Psychology in

America: GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD 121

The Evolution of Modesty : HAVELOCK ELLIS... 134

Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the American

Psychological Association, New York, December, 1898.... 146

The Study of Geometrical Illusions: CHARLES H. JUDD 241

The Nature of Animal Intelligence and the Methods of Investigat-
ing it : WESLEY MILLS 262

The Development of Voluntary Movement : E. A. KIRKPATRICK 275
The Instinctive Reaction of Young Chicks : EDWARD THORN-
DIKE 282

Studies on the Telegraphic Language ; the Acquisition of a Hier-
archy of Habits : W. L. BRYAN and NOBLE HARTER 346

Communications from the Psychological Laboratory of Harvard
University :

Automatic Reactions: L. M. SOLOMONS 376

Recognition under Objective Reversal : GEORGE V. N. DEAR-
BORN 395

A Plea for Soul-substance: W. P. MONTAGUE 458

The Reaction-time of the Eye: RAYMOND DODGE 477

A Study in the Dynamics of Personal Religion: G. A. COE 484

On the Validity of the Griesbach Method of determining Fatigue :

JAMES H. LEUBA 573

iv CONTENTS.

PAGE

On the Invalidity of the yEsthesiometric Method as a Measure of

Mental Fatigue : DR. GEO. B. GERMANN 599

A Plea for Soul-Substance II. : W. P. MONTAGUE... . 606

DISCUSSION AND REPORTS.

Professor Groos and Theories of Play: H. M. STANLEY 86

Professor Eucken on the Spiritual Content of Life : FRANCIS

KENNEDY 92

Experience under the Influence of Ether: J. B 104

The Material versus the Dynamic Psychology: C. L. HERRICK.. 180

The Postulates of a Structural Psychology: W. CALDWELL 187

Psychological Methods: W. CALDWELL 191

Professor Mii nsterberg on Mysticism : J. H. HYSLOP 292

Mr. Marshall and the Theory of Religion: H. M. STANLEY 298

A Lecture Experiment in Hallucinations: E. E. SLOSSEN 407

Professor Hyslop on Mysticism : HUGO MUNSTERBERG 408

Psychology and the Real Life : C. B. BLISS 410

A Reply to ' The Nature of Animal Intelligence and the Methods

of Investigating it ' : EDWARD THORNDIKE 412

Notes on After-images : J. M. GILLETTE 420

Attributes of Sensation : M. W. CALKINS 506

Is the Memory of Absolute Pitch Capable of Development by

Training: MAX MEYER 514

The Growth of Voluntary Control : HENRY DAVIES 639

Ethological Psychology : THOMAS P. BAILEY, Jr 649

Sensation Attributes and Sensation: GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN.. 651
After-images : MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN 653

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

Mivart's Groundwork of Science: A. C. ARMSTRONG, JR 107

Peres 1'Art et le real: W. M. URBAN no

Royce's Studies of Good and Evil, and the Conception of God :

J. G. HlBBEN Ill

CONTENTS. V

PAGE

Hibben's Problems of Philosophy: J. H. HYSLOP , 113

Individual Psychology (Guicciardiand Ferrari) : H. C. WARREN 113

Vision: C. LADD FRANKLIN 117

Psychophysical and Physiological (Binet's Annee, IV., 1898;
Yale Studies, V., 1898) : J. R. ANGELL, G. V. N. DEAR-
BORN, B. B. BREESE 195

Fatigue (Kemsies, Wagner, Kraepelin) : R. MAcDouGALL 203

Time-sense (Schumann, Ebhardt) : C. H. JUDD 208

Vision (Greef, Miiller, Marbe) : C. LADD FRANKLIN, C. H.

JUDD 212

Sutherland's Moral Instinct : A. ALLIN 4 216

Peckham's Habits of Wasps: H. M. STANLEY 219

Westermarck's Essence of Revenge: H. M. STANLEY 221

Creighton's Logic: J. G. HIBBEN 222

Leroy's Education de la volonte : W. R. NEWBOLD 225

Blondeau's 1'Absolu : H. N. GARDINER 228

Cron and Kraepelin's Auffassungsf ahigkeit : E. C. JONES 229

Mind and Body (Rehmke, Heymans, Weinmann) : D. S. MILLER 233

Le Bon's Psychology of Peoples: G. A. TAWNEY 305

Mercier's Psychologic contemporaine : R. S. WOODWORTH. 307

Piat's Personne humaine : H. N. GARDINER 310

Lloyd's Citizenship and Salvation: C. M. BAKEWELL 312

Hogan's Study of a Child: K. C. MOORE 316

Child Psychology (Gutzmann, Ziehen) : R. MAcDouGALL 317

Worm's Collective and Individual Psychology: C. B. BLISS 322

Heinrich's Intensitatsschwankungen, Fairchild's Ethical Instruc-
tion, Weir's Dawn of Reason : C. B. BLISS, E. A. KIRK-
PATRICK 326

Vision: C. LADD FRANKLIN 329

General : C. B. BLISS, WILFRED LAY, C. E. SEASHORE, W. M.

URBAN 332

Physiology and Neurology: G. V. N. DEARBORN 338

Powell's Truth and Error: D. S. MILLER 423

James's Human Immortality: C. W. HODGE 424

Recejac's Mystic Knowledge : A. T. ORMOND 426

Stern's Veranderungsauffassung : E. F. BUCHNER 428

Vi CONTENTS.

PAGE

Ziehen's Psych ophysiologische Erkenntnistheorie : E. F. BUCH-
NER 432

D'Eichthal's John Stuart Mill : J. G. HIBBEN 440

General: E. F. BUCHNER, ARTHUR ALLIN, H. C. WARREN, C.

B. BLISS 440

Vision: C. L. FRANKLIN, M. W. CALKINS 447

Pathology and Neurology (Duprat's ITnstabilite mentale) : D.

P. BARNITZ, G. V. N. DEARBORN 451

Marshall's Instinct and Reason: G. A. TAWNEY 517

Villa's La Psicologia Contemporanea : G. TOSTI... 529

Gidding's Elements of Sociology: J. H. TUFTS 533

James's Talks to Teachers on Psychology: E. H. GRIFFIN 536

Dexter's Conduct and the Weather : THE AUTHOR 539

Dearborn's Emotion of Joy : THE AUTHOR 540

Optical Illusions (Lipps, Witasek, Einthoven, Zehender) : C.

H. JUDD 543

General (Iowa Studies, Magic, etc.) : S. I. FRANZ, J. McK. C.,

F. KENNEDY, G. V. N. DEARBORN 548

Muir's Adam Smith: J. W. L. JONES 556

Gamble's Weber's Law and Smell: G. M. STRATTON 557

Experimental: S. I. FRANZ, H. C. WARREN 561

Ethology: C. B. BLISS 563

Genetic, Educational and Social: R. MACDOUGALL, J. M. B.,

G. V. N. DEARBORN 564

Neurology and Pathology (Janet's Nevroses et ide"es fixes),

Church and Peterson on Nervous and Mental Diseases :

M. ALLEN STARR 655

The Emotions (Hartenberg and Vaschide) : H. N. GARDINER ;
(Stumpf) : EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCHNER: (Stanley

Hall) : ARTHUR ALLIN 660

Experimental : C. E. SEASHORE, RAYMOND DODGE, CHARLES

H. JUDD 668

Philosophical: R. M. WENLEY, F. KENNEDY, N. P. GILMAN... 670

New Books: 118, 235, 343, 453, 569, 673

Notes: "9» 237> 344> 456> 571. 673

VOL. VI. No. i. JANUARY, 1899.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW.

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY.1

BY PROFESSOR HUGO MUNSTERBERG.
Harvard University.

A few years ago, at the Philadelphia meeting of our Asso-
ciation, the Presidential Address sketched the wonderful progress
of our modern psychology and culminated in the statement :
" We are past the time for systems of psychology; now hand-
books of psychology are prepared." Psychology, indeed, since
its declaration of independence, is eager to find out and to collect
the special facts, without allowing the traditional interference of
metaphysical philosophy, and that which brings us together in
our Association ought to remain our common interest in the dis-
covery of empirical psychical facts. And yet I cannot help think-
ing that many of us who sincerely agree with that enthusiasm for
daily use are ready to confess the wish of thoughtful hours that,
while handbooks of psychology appear now in masses, the time
may come again for systems of psychology. We strive, I think,
from the disconnected facts towards a systematic unity, and know
that such unity is never reached by even the most complete col-
lection of facts, but only by a philosophical understanding of
the fundamental principles of our work. The discussion of the
basal conceptions and categories of psychology, of its presup-
positions and its limitations, of its relations to other empirical
sciences and to philosophy, seems thus still more important and
essential than the results of any observation, and the fact that
in recent years inquiries in regard to the psychological standpoint

1 President's Address, American Psychological Association, New York Meet-
ing, December, 1898.

2 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

have come everywhere to the foreground of epistemological re-
search appears to point more strongly towards the real progress
of psychology than any discovery between the walls of our
laboratories. I welcome, therefore, the more, the honorable op-
portunity of this hour, as I understand that the Presidential Ad-
dress should emphasize the general problems of our science.

My address deals with the limits of psychology. I know
quite well that such a choice easily suggests the suspicion of
heresy ; whoever asks eagerly for the limits of a science appears
to the first glance in a hostile attitude towards it. To emphasize
its limiting boundaries means to restrain its rights and to lessen its
freedom. It seems, indeed, almost an anti-psychological under-
taking for any one to say to this young science, which is so full of
the spirit of enterprise : Keep within the bounds of your domain.
But you remember the word of Kant : " It is not augmentation,
but deformation of the sciences, if we efface their limits." Kant
is speaking of logic, but at present his word seems to be for no
field truer than for psychology. Psychology, it seems to me,
encouraged by its quick triumphs over its old-fashioned meta-
physical rival, to-day moves instinctively towards an expansion-
istic policy. A psychological imperialism which dictates laws
to the whole world of inner experience seems often to be the
goal. But sciences are not like the domiciles of nations ; their
limits cannot be changed by mere agreement. The presuppo-
sitions with which a science starts decide for all time as to the
possibilities of its outer extension. The botanists may resolve
to-morrow that from now on they will study the movements of
the stars also ; it is their private matter to choose whether they
want to be botanists only or also astronomers, but they can never
decide that astronomy shall become in future a part of- botany,
supposing that they do not claim the Milky Way as a big vege-
table. Every extension beyond the sharp limits which are de-
termined by the logical presuppositions can thus be only the
triumph of confusion, and the ultimate arbitration, which is the
function of epistemology, must always decide against it. It
is thus love and devotion for psychology which demands that its
energies be not wasted by the hopeless task of transgressions
into other fields.

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY.

Philosophers and psychologists are mostly willing to ac-
knowledge such a discriminative attitude when the relations
between psychology and the normative sciences, ethics, logic,
aesthetics, are in question. They know that a mere description
and causal explanation of ethical, assthetical and logical mental
facts in spite of its legitimate relative value cannot in itself be
substituted for the doctrines of obligation. The line of demarca-
tion thus separates with entire logical sharpness the duties from
the facts, the duties which have to be appreciated in their
validity as ideals for the will, and the facts which have to be
analyzed and explained in their physical or psychical existence
as objects of perception. But can we overlook the symptoms
of growing opposition against the undiscriminative treatment of
the world of facts in the empirical sciences? The creed of
those who believe in such uniformity is simple enough : the
universe is made up of physical and psychical processes, and it
is the purpose of science to discover their elements and their
laws ; we may differentiate and classify the sciences with regard
to the different objects which we analyze or with regard to the
different processes the laws of which we study, but there cannot
exist in the world anything which does not find a suitable place
in a system in which all special sciences are departments of
physics or of psychology. In a period of naturalistic thinking
like that of the Darwinistic age the intellectual conscience may
be fascinated and hypnotized by the triumphs of such atomizing
and law-seeking thought even to the point of forgetting all doubts
and contradictions. But the pendulum of civilization begins to
swing in the other direction. The mere decomposition of the
world has not satisfied the deep demand for an inner under-
standing of the world ; the discovery of the causal laws has not
stilled the thirst for emotional values, and there has come a chill
with the feeling that all the technical improvement which sur-
rounds us is a luxury which does not make life either better or
worthier of the struggle. The idealistic impulses have come to
a new life everywhere in art and science and politics and so-
ciety and religion ; the historical and philosophical thinking has
revived and rushes to the foreground. We begin to remember
again what naturalism too easily forgets, that the interests of

4 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

life have not to do with causes and effects, but with purposes
and means, that in life we feel ourselves as units and as free
agents, bound by culture and not only by nature, factors in a
system of history and not only atoms in a mechanism.

Such a general reaction demands its expression in the world
of science too, and there cannot be any surprise if psychology
has to stand the first attack. The naturalistic study of the phys-
ical facts may not be less antagonistic to such idealistic de-
mands, and yet it is the decomposition of the psychical facts
which oppresses us most immediately in our instinctive strife
for the rights of the personality. The antithesis becomes thus
most pointed in the conflict between psychology and history,
and it seems to me that only two possibilities are open. One
possibility is that these sciences stay yoked together, the one
forcing the other to follow its path. Then, of course, two
cases may happen. Either psychology remains as hitherto
the stronger one ; history must then follow the paths of psycho-
logical analysis and must be satisfied with sociological laws ;
every effort of history which goes beyond that is then unscientific,
and the works of our great historians must seek shelter under
the roof of art. Or — and this second case has all odds in favor
of it — the belief in the unity of personality becomes stronger
than the confidence in science, which merely decomposes, and
psychology becomes subordinated to the historical view of man.
That is possible under a hundred forms, but the final result must
be always the same, the ruin of real psychology. I think this
undermining of psychology with the tools of history is to-day
in eager progress. Here belong, of course, all the most modern
attempts to supplement the regular analyzing psychology by a
pseudo-psychology which by principle considers the mental life
as a unity and asks not about its constitution but about its mean-
ing. Whether authors, half unconsciously, alternate with these
two views from chapter to chapter, or whether they demand
systematically that both kinds of psychology be acknowledged,
makes no essential difference. Both forms are characteristic
for a period of transition ; both must lead in the end to giving
up fully the analyzing view, to shifting the results of such
analysis over to physiology, and thus to confining psychology

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 5

entirely to the anti-causal categories, that is to denying psy-
chology altogether. Such turnings of the scientific spirit are
slow, but if history and psychology remain chained up together
the symptoms of the future are too clear : there is no hope for
psychology.

But there is a second alternative open. The chain which
forces psychology and history to move together may be broken,
the one may be acknowledged as fully independent of the other.
What appears as a conflict of contradictory statements may
then become the mutual supplementation of two partial truths,
just as a body may appear very different from the geometrical,
from the physical and from the chemical points of view while
each one gives us truth. To those who have followed the re-
cent development of epistemological discussion, especially in
Germany, it is a well-known fact that this logical separation of
history and psychology is, indeed, the demand of some of the
best students of logic. They claim that the scientific interest in
the facts can and must take two absolutely different directions :
we are interested either in the single fact as such or in the laws
under which it stands, and thus we have two groups of sciences
which have nothing to do with each other, sciences which de-
scribe the isolated facts and sciences which seek their laws. A
leading logician baptizes the first, therefore, idiographic sci-
ences, the latter nomothetic sciences ; idiographic is history ;
nomothetic are physics and psychology. Psychology gives
general facts which are always true, but concerning which it has
not to ask whether they are realized anywhere or at any time ;
history refers to the special single fact only, without any relation
to general facts.

I consider this logical separation as a liberating deed, not
only because it is the only way for psychology to escape its
ruin through the interference of an historically thinking ideal-
ism, and also not only because the value and unity and freedom
of the personality which history preaches can now be followed
up without interference on the part of psychology, but because,
independent of any practical results, it seems to me the neces-
sary outcome of epistemological reflection. And yet the argu-
ments which have led to this separation appear to me mistaken

6 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

and untenable in every respect. I agree heartily with the de-
cision, but I absolutely reject the motives. No antithesis is
possible between sciences which study the isolated facts and sci-
ences which generalize ; such a methodological difference does
not exist. We shall see that it must be replaced by a difference
of another kind, but the end must be the same : psychology
and history must never come together again. To criticise the
one way of attaining this end and to illuminate the other new
way which I propose is the purpose of the following considera-
tions.

We must proceed at first critically ; what is the truth of the
view which contrasts idiographic and nomothetic sciences? At
the first glance the importance of the discrimination seems so
evident that it appears hard to understand how it could ever have
been overlooked. It seems a matter of course that the empirical
sciences can ask either about the general facts of reality, the
laws which are true always and everywhere and which do not
say what happened on a special place and in a special time, and
on the other hand about the single facts which are character-
ized just by their uniqueness. We may be interested in the
physical and chemical laws of fire, but our interest in the one
great fire which destroyed Moscow has an absolutely different
logical source, and if we extend our historical interest from the
physical to the psychical side, and investigate the stream of
associations which passed during the days of that fire through
the mind of Napoleon, we have again an absolutely different
kind of interest from that of the psychologist who studies the
laws of association and inhibition, which are true for every mor-
tal. How small from a logical standpoint appears the difference
between the search for physical laws and the search for psycho-
logical laws compared with the unbridgable chasm between the
search for laws and the inquiry for special facts which happened
once ! And this difference grows if we consider that all our
feelings and emotions refer to the special single object, not to
any laws, that, above all, the personalities with which we come
in contact come in question for us just in their singleness, and
that we ourselves feel the value of our life and the meaning of
our responsibility in the uniqueness of the acts by which we

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 7

mark our individual role in the history of mankind. These ar-
guments of recent epistemological discussions will easily find
the ear of the multitude. Common sense, which demands for
itself the prerogative of being inconsistent, will probably hesi-
tate only at the unavoidable postulate of this standpoint, that also
the development of our solar system, of our earth, of our flora
and fauna, belongs then to history and not to natural science, as
they describe a process which happened once, and not a law.

I may begin my criticism at the periphery of the subject,
moving slowly to the center. I claim first that all natural
sciences, of which psychology is one, do not seek laws only but
set forth also judgments about the existence of objects. Of
course, we can make the arbitrary decision that we acknowledge
the natural sciences as such only so far as they give eternal laws
without reference to their realization in a special place or in a
special time, while any judgment about the existence here or
there, now or then, has to be housed under the roof of history.
The sciences as they practically are would then be mixtures of
historical and naturalistic statements, the historical factor dimin-
ishing the more, the more abstract the science, reaching its min-
imum in pure mechanics. Such decision has only recently
found able defense, but do we not destroy, by its acceptance, the
whole meaning of natural science? Are the laws for themselves
alone still of any scientific interest at all? Why do we care at
all for such general laws, as the law of causality, the most gen-
eral of them, which embraces all the others, is included already
in the presuppositions of science, and thus anticipated before-
hand? When formal logic or mathematics deals with A and B
and C, they state valid relations without asking whether A,
B or C is given anywhere or at any time, even without ex-
cluding the possibility that their real existence may be impos-
sible. The scientific judgments of physics and psychology, on
the other hand, have lost all their meaning if we deprive them
of the presupposition that objects which prove the validity of
such laws have real existence in the world of experience.

We can construct well-founded physiological laws also for
the organism of the centaur and psychological laws for the
mind of nixes and water fairies, but both attempts do not be-

8 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

long within the system of science. The claim of existential-
ity is not explicitly expressed in the formulation of scientific
knowledge, not because it is unessential, but because it is a
matter of course. The larger the circle for which the law is
valid the more we find these included judgments of reality de-
prived of their reference to special local and temporal data, but
even in the most general propositions of mechanics, such judg-
ments are tacitly included. The question is not whether the ob-
jects with which the laws of mechanics deal have real existence
from a philosophical point of view ; certainly they have not.
The important point is that mechanics by its laws tries at the
same time to make us believe that even the atoms have existence.
On the other hand, the existential judgment must become the
more detailed the more special the law is, that is, the more com-
plicated the conditions of its realization. If the psychologist
states the laws of the feelings, he claims that it is not true that
only men without feelings exist ; he claims that men with feel-
ings have reality too. If he gives us the more special laws of
ethical feelings, he claims that experience knows men with
ethical emotion. If he goes on with his specialization of the
psychical laws, claiming that under special conditions the eth-
ical emotion of obedience to the state comes to inhibit the desire
for life, he tells us that this really happened. His psycholog-
ical law becomes finally only still more detailed if he lays it
down that under such and such conditions obedience to the state
discharges itself in the drinking of a hemlock potion in spite of
antagonistic suggestions of escape from philosophical friends.
It is a psychological law and yet it claims at the same time that
all this once at least really happened, while the complication of
conditions practically excludes the possibility of its happening
more than once in the world of our experience.

Of course, it remains a law of general character with regard
to the absolute space and the absolute time ; when all conditions
including our solar system and all the events on the earth are
given once more in infinity, then Socrates necessarily must drink
once more the poisoned cup. But in the limited space and
time of our experience the conditions for the realization of such
a psychological law can have been given only once, and that

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 9

they really once were given is decidedly claimed and thus
silently reported by the law. If our opponents maintain that
the naturalistic sciences need as supplement a historical descrip-
tion of one special stage of the world to give a foothold for the
working of the eternal laws, we can thus reject this external
help for the explanation of the world, as the laws themselves
furnish all that we need. The system of the laws is at the same
time a full and graduated system of existential propositions with
regard to the limited space and time of our experience. If ever
and anywhere in the empirical universe a molecule had moved
otherwise or another thought had passed through a conscious-
ness, then the system of laws, thought in ideal perfection, would
have demanded a change. Our physics and psychology pre-
suppose and assert the real existence of exactly our world.
They do not seek the laws with the intention of neglecting and
ignoring the special facts.

The separation of the single facts from the general facts is thus
untenable, because the explanatory law includes the description ;
but we can also emphasize the other side of this mutual relation :
every description includes explanation, every assertion of a
special fact demands reference to the general facts. A descrip-
tion has a logical value only if it points towards a law. We
describe a process by the help of conceptions which are worked
up from the general facts, common to a group of objects, and
these general conceptions are the more valuable for the purposes
of description the more their content is a condensed representa-
tion of real objective connections. The descriptions in popular
language make use of conceptions which are deduced from super-
ficial similarity, but every new insight into the physical and
psychological laws gives to the general conceptions a more and
more valuable shape. The history of science is the steady de-
velopment of the means of description ; there is no description
which by its use of conceptions does not aim at working out the
laws. Thus, far from the trivial belief that the law is merely
a description of facts, we ought not to forget that the description
of facts involves the laws and is only another form of their ex-
pression. To describe a physical thing as a group of atoms or
an idea as a group of sensations demands the whole knowledge

10 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

of the psychological and mechanical laws and condenses in its
conceptions the progress of science. To separate the descrip-
tive report from the explaining apperception is thus again im-
possible.

It could appear that this does not hold for all kinds of
description ; we communicate with one another in practical life
without relying on general conceptions. But our communica-
tion then is no description. Any mode of personal expression,
gestures or tears, may tell us what is going on in the mind of
another without reference to psychological laws. But the fact
is that they give no description either; they give a sugges-
tion. The words of practical life, the words of the poet and,
as we may add at once, the words of the historian, work like
such movements of expression ; they make every mental vibra-
tion resound in us, because they force us unintentionally or with
conscious art to follow the suggestion and to imitate the mental
experience. The rhythm and the shade of the words may then
be substituted for logical exactitude, and interjections may have
deeper influence than complete judgments, but all that is de-
cidedly no description, as a description demands a communi-
cation of the elements. Such a suggestion allows us an un-
derstanding of the meaning, but gives us no knowledge of
the constitution. Where a single object really has to be
described, there conceptions and laws are inevitable, and the
historian cannot make an exception.

But just this fact, that description and explanation cannot be
separated and that the conception includes the law, has opened
in recent philosophical discussions a new way of thought which
also seems to lead to those claims which we rejected. Granted,
it is said, that every description presupposes generalizing ab-
stractions, but such abstraction must then lead us away from the
endless manifoldness of the reality. Every scientific description
deals with physical or psychological abstractions ; does that not
mean that we need still another kind of treatment which does
justice to the existing richness and fullness of the real single
fact? If we give this mission to history we acknowledge that
its communications would not be ordinary descriptions, but we
should in any case again have the separated camps with the

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. II

antithesis : Manifoldness and abstraction, single fact and general
fact. But the presupposition is wrong ; the manifoldness of the
reality is not endless and the abstracting conceptions are not at
all unfit to do justice to the richness of the single fact. The
single conception abstracts, but the connection of conceptions
in the sentence reconstructs again. On the other hand, what-
ever is the possible object of perception and discrimination
must be the possible object of descriptive determination.
Whether the task of a complete conceptional description is
difficult or not is no question of principle ; impossible it is not.
The ability to perceive differences is even inferior compared
with the power to separate the differences conceptionally, and
the abstracting description of science must, therefore, frequently
increase and not decrease the manifoldness of the object. We
know about the objects more than we perceive ; above all, the
description can never leave behind it a perceivable remainder
which from its too great manifoldness excludes description. The
full variety of the single facts thus belongs just as much as the
most general law to the physical and psychological sciences ;
the antithesis psychology and history as coinciding with the
antithesis abstraction and manifoldness of reality is then impos-
sible. That history stands, indeed, nearer to reality than any
psychology we shall later fully acknowledge, but, as we shall
see, for very different reasons ; history abstracts, we shall see,
not less than psychology, and psychology is interested in the
variety of the facts just as much as is history.

This brings us to our central arguments : Every science con-
siders the single facts in their relations to other facts, works
towards connection, towards generalities. Science means con-
nection and nothing else, and history also aims at general facts,
or it cannot hope for a place in the system of science. Does
that mean that it is valueless to consider the single fact as it
stands for itself, isolated and separated from everything else?
Certainly not ; the isolation is not less valuable than the con-
nection, but it never forms a science ; it is the task of art. The
single fact belongs to art and not to history ; history has to do
with the general facts. That is the thesis which I must inter-
pret and defend. One point, of course, is clear before the dis-

12 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

cussion. If we maintain that history has also to work up its
material with respect to the general facts and not with regard to
the single facts, then it is evident that there is in the deepest
principle of the inquiry no methodological difference between
physics and psychology on the one side and history on the
other. But we insisted that an important difference does exist.
The difference must then be not in the kind of treatment, but in
the material itself. To be sure, there cannot be a physical or
psychical object in the universe which would not be possible
material for psychology or physics ; if history deals with a ma-
terial which is different from the possible objects of those em-
pirical sciences, then it must deal with facts which differ from
the physical and psychical objects in their kind of existence ;
in short, the difference between psychology and history is not a
methodological but an ontological one.

We must then ask what kind of existence belongs to the
material with which physics and psychology deal and how it is
related to reality ; above all, how far reality offers still an-
other kind of facts which could be the substance of other sci-
ences. Reality means to us here the immediate experience
which we live through. This immediate truth of life may be
transformed and remoulded in theories and sciences, and these
remodelings of reality may be highly valuable for special pur-
poses of life ; we may even reach finally a point of reconstruc-
tion from which the subjective experience appears as an illusion
and the supplementation stands as the only truth. Yet the
importance of such constructions must not make us forget
that we have then left reality behind us. Our doubting and
remoulding itself belongs to the reality for which its prod-
ucts can never be substituted. And this primary reality can, of
course, never be reached when we start from the finished theories
of the physical or psychological sciences. Whether we pre-
tend that the world is a content of our consciousness, a system
of psychological ideas, or whether we start from the mechanical
universe and consider experience as effect of the outer world
on the consciousness, or whether we confuse the two and call
the world a product of the brain, it is all equally misleading if
we seek the reality, as each view presupposes equally the psy-

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 13

chological or physical constructions. It is then, of course, for
us also impossible to reach the less remoulded primary experi-
ence by going backward through the genetic development of
the individual or of the race to an earlier simpler stage of ex-
perience. Just this genetic tracing backward fully presup-
poses the categories of the psychological view ; we must have
already considered our own inner life as a complex combina-
tion of elements before it has a meaning to call the mental life
of the child or of the animal less complex ; the starting point of
the genetic development is thus itself an artificial construction
which lies further away from the primary experience.

If we thus escape all theories and stand firm against the sug-
gestions which psychology and physics plentifully bring to us,
then we find in the reality nothing of ideas or of mechanical
substances, neither consciousness nor a connected universe.
The reality we experience does not know the antithesis of psy-
chical and physical objects, but in the primary stage merely the
antithesis subject and object. We feel our personal reality in
our subjective attitudes, in our will acts which we do not perceive
but which we live through, and with the same immediacy we ac-
knowledge other personalities as subjects of will. They too are
not objects which we merely perceive, but we acknowledge them,
by our feeling, as subjects with whom we agree or disagree and
whose reality is thus not less certain than our own. Our acts as
subjects are directed towards objects which in reality exist only
as such objects of will, that is, as values. They are our ends
and means, our tools and purposes, and nothing is to us real that
is not called to be selected or rejected, to be favored or dis-
missed. Subjective acts of will and objects of will form the
reality, the whole reality, nothing lies outside and nothing is valid
beyond this world of will relations, and even if we form judg-
ments about objects which we think as independent of the will,
this judgment and this thought itself is an act of will working
towards a purpose.

As soon as we begin to bring order into the manifoldness of
this real world the subjective acts as well as the objects divide
themselves into two groups, those of individual character and
those which are common to all, over-individual. This division

H HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

means not a result of counting whether several subjects or by
chance only one subject have made the decision or appreciated
the object : it is a question of intention merely. My act is over-
individual if it is willed with the meaning that it belongs to
every subject which I acknowledge, and my object is overin-
dividual in so far as I consider it as a possible object of attitude
for every subject. My overindividual will-act is that factor of
reality which we call duty ; every duty lies in us as subjects, as
our own deepest will, and yet as more than our individual de-
cision. The overindividual objects are those which we call
physical ; the individual objects are the psychical ones ; we
must only not forget that these physical and psychical objects
are in reality not in question as independent objects of percep-
tion, but are always related to the will ; they are not contents of
consciousness and mechanical bodies in a continuous space, but
suggestions which have a meaning, things which have a use.
We find thus four factors of reality, beyond whose validity a
constructive metaphysics alone can go. Metaphysics may ask
whether the individual and overindividual acts do not blend in
an absolute subject and whether the objects are not posited by
such a subject of higher order ; epistemology must be satisfied
with the more modest task of settling how we deal with this
reality in our scientific or aesthetic knowledge. Reality itself
is, of course, neither art nor science, but life. Art and science
must be thus transformations of the material which life offers to
us, while these transformations themselves are acts of the sub-
jects and thus belonging to those will-formations which claim
for themselves an overindividual character, creating the values
of beauty and truth.

The acts which lead from life to art and science are thus for
epistemology free acts of that subjectivity which we find in our-
selves by immediate feeling, and which we acknowledge in
others by an understanding of their propositions and sugges-
tions ; they are not functions of the psychophysical organism, not
psychophysical processes, as we must have reached already the
artificial reconstruction of science before the subject is replaced
by that object among other objects, the psychophysical person-
ality. Scientific and aesthetic acts are not the only functions of

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 15

the real subject; the ethical and others stand coordinated, but
we are concerned here only with the two functions which do not
aim to change and to improve the world but to rethink it in
beautiful or truthful creations. It seems to me now that the
two attitudes are in every respect antagonistic ; to express their
direction in a short formula, I should say science connects the
factors of reality ; art, on the other hand, isolates them. The
material of science and of art is then the same, though treated
by a different method. Both can deal with all the four factors
of reality, with individual acts and overindividual acts, with in-
dividual objects and overindividual objects. Life does not iso-
late fully and gives no complete connection ; whatever we turn
to with our will has features which lead us further and further
to ever new interests ; life does not let us sink into the one alone
— we rush beyond it to new realities. And life does not give
connections beyond the immediate needs of practical purposes
in the narrow circle of chance experience. Wherever is full
isolation of single facts there is beauty, wherever truth there
must be full connection.

The assertion that every isolated fact in its singleness means
beauty has for us here only the character of a critical argument
and is not for itself object of our discussion. It has for us merely
the negative purpose of proving that the singleness cannot be
characteristic of history. We cannot thus defend here this asser-
tion by detailed discussion ; we have only to elucidate its meaning.
Certainly the real life, too, brings us pulses of experience in
which our will is captivated by the given experience, satisfied
with the object in itself or in the acknowledgment of other sub-
jective acts ; then we have the beauty of nature, the beauty of
forms and of landscapes, of love and of friendship. Of course,
it is only an exception when life offers to us in the untrans-
formed reality such complete beauty ; it remains the duty of art to
change the world till everything is eliminated that leads the sub-
ject beyond the single experience, and the will can rest in the
single fact. The world of objects is thus transformed in paint-
ing and sculpture, the world of subjective acts remoulded in
poetry. The sentiment or the conflict which the poet suggests
to us, the bust or the landscape which the artist brings before

1 6 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

our eye, is severed from the practical world ; as long as anything
connects it with the background of the daily world it may be
useful or inspiring or instructive, but it is not beautiful. The
poet projects his work into an ideal past ; the painter cuts an
ideal space out of the reality, and the sculptor fills an ideal space,
not the space of our surrounding, to take care thus that the acts
and objects may not link into our real world, may never become
causes for outer effects, motives for actions, or centers for as-
sociations which lie beyond the frame.

We ought not to become skeptical in regard to this point on
account of the overhasty generalizations in which empirical
psychology mostly characterizes the aesthetic act as rich in as-
sociations. The epistemological problem we are discussing can
not be settled by psychology, but as soon as the facts are ex-
pressed in the terms of psychological language they can not
possibly assert the opposite of the epistemological truth. But
there is no reason for such a conflict, as psychology is undoubt-
edly in the wrong. The psychological claim is based on the
general theory that all pleasant mental states represent an in-
crease of activity, and with it an increase of associations, while
all unpleasant states are marked by a decrease of activity and
lack of associations. I think that is wrong ; there are different
kinds of increase and different kinds of decrease in both ideas
and actions. The antithesis pleasure and displeasure does not
at all coincide with increase and decrease if we do not arbi-
trarily select such emotions as joy on the one and grief on the
other side. Increase of activity characterizes pleasant and un-
pleasant states, only in the pleasant states it produces action of
the extensors, in the unpleasant states action of the flexors. In
the same way decreases of activity can have a double type ; it
can have its ground in the absence of stimulations, and this is,
indeed, characteristic of some unpleasant states, but the lack of
outer action can have its ground also in the fact that every mo-
tor impulse goes to the antagonistic muscles equally. This in-
crease of tonicity without possible action is characteristic for
one pleasant state above all, the aesthetic one. The increase
and decrease of associations is here, as always, parallel with the
motor impulses. Here also increase of associations is essential

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 17

for some pleasant states, but for some unpleasant ones too, only
like the muscle activity, in antagonistic directions, in the one
case turning to the future, in the other case falling back to the
past. And the same doubleness is to be noted in the decrease of
associations ; in some unpleasant states the decrease comes from
a mere lack of ideational impulses, in some pleasant states
from the fascination which leads every ideational impulse again
to the object itself, so that no thought can lead beyond it. This
is again true, above all, for the aesthetic state. The beautiful
object includes all that it suggests in itself, and where we con-
nect we sin against the spirit of beauty.

By the contrast with art the fullest light falls on the process
of science ; every step towards science leads in the opposite di-
rection. The incomplete connections of life are severed by art,
but made complete by science, while the material is the same.
We had four groups of facts in reality, and we must thus have
four groups of sciences which bring systematic connections into
the four different fields. We have the science of the over-in-
dividual objects, that is, physics ; secondly, the science of the in-
dividual objects, that is, psychology ; thirdly, the sciences of the
over-individual will-acts, that is, the normative sciences; and,
last, not least, the sciences of the individual will-acts, that is, the
historical sciences. Physics and psychology have thus to do with
objects ; history and the normative systems, ethics, logic, aesthet-
ics, deal with will-acts. Psychology and history have thus ab-
solutely different material ; the one can never deal with the
substance of the other, and thus they are separated by a chasm,
but their method is the same. Both connect their material ; both
consider the single experience under the point of view of the to-
tality, working from the special facts towards the general facts,
from the experience towards the system. And yet the differ-
ence of material must, in spite of the equality of the methodo-
logical process, produce absolutely different kinds of systems
pof science. We must consider again from the standpoint of real
life how the connections of objects is different from the connec-
tion of attitudes, and how the purposes of the systematizing re-
construction are different in the two cases.

We and the other subjects have objects which are in reality,

1 8 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

as we have seen, objects of our will. Why have we an interest
in considering the objects from a scientific standpoint, that is in
systematized connection? If we do so, it must serve, of course,
a special purpose in our real life. The purpose is clear. We
cannot do the duties of our life, that is, we cannot act on the ob-
jects, if we do not know what to expect from them with regard
to the reality which we prepare, and we call the reality which
we can still prepare the future. We must ask, therefore, what
we have to expect for the future from the objects alone, that is
from the objects thought as if they were independent from the
subjective will reaction. The answer to this question as to our
justified expectations is the system of physical and psychological
sciences. To reach this end we must think the objects, the
individual or over-individual ones, as if they were no longer
objects of a will, as if the subject were deprived of its real ac-
tivity and were a merely passive perceiving subject the objects
of which are thus definitely cut away from the will. Our inter-
est was to determine their influence on the future. We thus con-
sider every object as the cause of an expected effect, and call
those characteristics of the object which determine our expecta-
tion of the effect its elements. Physics and psychology thus look
on their objects as complexes of elements. It is the task of sci-
ence to reconstruct and to transform the objects till each is thought
as such a combination of elements that the effects to be expected
can be fully determined from the elements. In this service
grew up the atom doctrine in physics and the sensation doctrine
in psychology. Each object is thus linked into a causal system ;
each is considered not as that which it really is, but as a complex
of constructed factors which are substituted for the purpose of
the causal connection, and each is in question in its relation to
all the others. The world thus becomes a system of causally
linked objects which can be described by their elements, while
these elements themselves are chosen from the point of view of
explanation by causality. The determination of the effects by
means of the elementary causes is expressed by the laws which
give the rules for our expectations. We can say thus that
physics and psychology may very well consider any special
facts, and, as we have seen, they certainly do not ignore the spe-

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 19

cial facts at all, but they consider them with regard to the causal
law, and the laws as types of causal connections are thus the
only general facts towards which the systematized study of ob-
jects can lead us.

Quite different is the systematic connection of the subjective
will-attitudes ; we may abstract here at first from the over-indi-
vidual attitudes and concentrate our interest on the individual
will-acts. In psychology the will-attitude as such, as act of the
real subject, cannot have any place whatever ; psychology deals
with objects ; the subjective attitude is never an object ; it is never
perceived ; it is experienced by immediate feeling and must be
understood and interpreted, but not described and explained.
If psychology wishes to treat of the will, the psychophysical
organism must be substituted for the real subject and thus the
will be considered as a process in the world of objects. The
description of any known will-acts as psychophysical functions,
that is, as illustrations of psychological laws, thus as a matter
of course belongs to psychology, and if the psychologist
should analyze into psychophysical elements and explain as
causally determined all will-acts and human functions of the
last three thousand years, he would not transcend the limits of
psychology. It would be a very useless psychological under-
taking, but it would be such and not history. History starts
from and deals with the real subjective will-acts which cannot
be found in the world of psychophysical objects.

Our personal life in its political, economical, religious, scien-
tific, aesthetic, technical and practical aspects is a manifoldness
of will attitudes and acknowledgments. We live in the midst
of a variety of political and social, technical and practical in-
stitutions, but no institution means anything else than expecta-
tions and demands which reach our will, and suggestions towards
which we take attitudes. State and church, legal community and
social set, what else are they but will attitudes which we acknowl-
edge and which are, therefore, never understood in their real
meaning if they are considered as describable objects, but which
must be interpreted and appreciated as subjective will relations,
striving towards purposes and ends. And to understand all the
technical and practical institutions which civilization brings to

20 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

us means again not to describe or explain them, but to interpret
them as will suggestions to be imitated. The machine and the
book, the law and the poem, are not physical and psychical ob-
jects for our interests as living men, but suggestions and demands
for the understanding of the intentions and attitudes of other
subjects which we can enter into only by taking an imitating or
rejecting attitude, thus reaching will by will. All our knowing
and believing, our enjoying and respecting — as long as we ab-
stract from their over-individual values — all our education and
civilization, our politics and our professional work, is such a
complex of real affirmations and negations, demands and inhi-
bitions, agreements and disagreements, which have to be under-
stood and felt and interpreted, but which are not touched in
their reality if merely their p&ychophysical substitutions are
analyzed and causally explained. To be a Chinese or Moham-
medan, a symbolist or a Hegelian or an atomist, means to be the
subject of special complexes of will attitudes and nothing else.
If, for instance, we substitute the race for the state, then, of
course, we have objects before us and no longer subjective atti-
tudes, but then we deal with biological conceptions and no longer
with history.

The manifoldness of will-acts the totality of which forms my
real personality thus refers in every act to the will- acts and
attitudes of other subjects which I acknowledge or oppose, imi-
tate or overcome. These demands and suggestions of others
are not in question in my life as causes or partial causes of my
will ; they have not to be sought in the interest of a causal con-
nection ; they are merely conditions which I as subject of atti-
tude and acts presuppose for my free decision and which are
thus logically contained in it ; the connection is, therefore, not a
causal, but merely a teleological one. The endless world of
will-acts which stands thus in teleologically determining relation
to our own will-attitudes forms the only material of history.

The material is, of course, unlimited. If every act of ours
means an attitude towards acts of others which we must try to
understand, it is clear that those others are understood only if
their acts again are interpreted as attitudes towards the proposi-
tions and demands and suggestions of others, and so on and

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 21

on. Every will-act is thus ideally related to an unlimited mani-
foldness of other acts, just as the movement of every grain of
sand is causally related to every molecule in the universe. It is
the unique task of history as a science to work out and make
complete this teleological system of individual will-relations,
thus to bring out the connections between our acts and all the
acts which we must acknowledge as somehow teleologically
influencing our own. While physics and psychology thus pro-
duce a connected system of causes and effects, linking all ob-
jects which stand in connection with our objects, history follows
up all the subjective acts which stand in will-relation to our sub-
jective attitudes.

Physics and psychology, as we have seen, reach this end
through striving towards laws and causality ; that, of course,
cannot be the way of history. The objects interested us only
as factors which influence the future, and the laws by which we
have connected them have satisfied this expectant interest. The
subjects, on the other hand, do not interest us in first line as causes
of effects. Of course, we are able to consider them also as ob-
jects which produce effects, and that aspect may become impor-
tant to us in many practical respects ; psychophysics will fully
satisfy this kind of interest. And in the same way we may look on
the development of peoples with an interest in what we have to
expect from them ; they are then sociological organisms, the
laws of which we study ; but such study is not history. The
aim of the real historian is not to prophesy the future. Peoples
never learn from history, and the forgotten doctrine that we
ought to study history to find out what we have to expect from
the future stands on the same level with its contemporary, the
doctrine that it is the purpose of art to instruct us and to make
us better. No, the historian makes us understand the system
of will attitudes to which our individual will is related. That,
indeed, alone, is our primary interest in the will-acts of other
subjects ; we want to understand them, not to analyze them into
elements ; we want to interpret their meanings and not to calcu-
late their future. The objects awake our expectations ; the
subjects interest our appreciation, and all that we want to know
about them is with what other attitudes they agree or disagree.

22 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

We thus have the logical aim, to consider them in their rela-
tions to all other will attitudes and to work out the system of
these connections ; that is, to consider the institutions which
are the representatives of will suggestions, together with the
personalities themselves, as links of this endless chain of will
relations.

The purpose of history is not reached until every institution
and personality with which we may be in a direct or indirect
will relation is understood as a complex of agreements and dis-
agreements, that is, of will attitudes towards other subjects. This
regress must be, of course, infinite, just as no physical process
can be reached which has not again causes and effects ; and
this task demands also, like the naturalistic sciences, a continual
transformation. Just as the physical object is not really a com-
plex of atoms and the psychological idea not really a complex
of sensations, but must be in thought transformed into such to
make causal connection possible, so in exactly the same way
history must reconstruct the personalities and institutions as
complexes of will attitudes, which they really are not, but as
which they must be considered to make the unbroken teleological
connection possible. And again, like physics and psychology,
history too cannot communicate to us the whole of the connected
system, but has to work out the general facts which give to every
single fact at once its place in the whole system. These gen-
eral facts in the teleological will system cannot be causal laws,
but must be will relations of more and more comprehensive
character. Just as in the world of objects the general law
covers and determines the causal changes of an unlimited
number of objects, so the important will-actions cover and deter-
mine in the world of subjects the impulses and suggestions for the
decisions and attitudes of an unlimited number. The regularity
of the causal law and the importance of the imposing will lift in a
corresponding way the general fact over the level of the single
facts. It is the work of history to make conspicuous the in-
creasingly important will influences, as it is the work of physics
and psychology to work out the laws. If I say I am a German,
I want to assert by that statement that I acknowledge by my will
a world of laws, institutions, hopes and ideals which are the will

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 23

demands of an undetermined multitude of subjects ; this multitude
constitutes the historical nation of Germany. But it would be un-
scientific if I should start to interpret the attitude of every one
who is part of that chaotic mass of subjects ; it is the work of sci-
ence to find those influences which determined the multitude, those
will-acts which were imitated and acknowledged by the unim-
portant subjects. The chaos thus becomes order, and Goethe and
Beethoven, Kant and Hegel, Luther and Bismarck, stand as the
general facts for the millions and millions of less important sub-
jects who were determined by their suggestions. Any individual's
historical place is then characterized by his will attitudes towards
the leaders. Just as the naturalist knows a whole hierarchy of
sciences which work out increasingly general laws up to me-
chanics as the most abstract system, so history can consider in
different stages the will relations of more and more comprehen-
sive character. The most abstract view is represented by the
so-called philosophy of history, which aims at understanding the
history of the world as determined by one decision of the will.
In this spirit the conception of original sin in the theological
systems of the Middle Ages was in the field of historical think-
ing perhaps not less marvelous than the conception of atomistic
mechanism in the realm of natural science. The fact that
Adam did not exist in reality is as little an objection to the
mediaeval construction as the fact that no atom can really exist
militates against our atomism ; both reconstructions of reality
fill merely ideal places as necessary goals of thought.

On the other hand, in the same way that mechanics does not
lower the importance of special natural sciences, no all-embrac-
ing theory of the history of man can interfere with the impor-
tance of the special historic disciplines down to the biographies
of single personalities. But even the biography has to work in
the same direction as the most abstract philosophy of history, in
the direction of general connection. The real biography writ-
ten in an historical spirit shows in the individual the attitudes
towards the demands and suggestions which make the history
of mankind ; the single man becomes thus the crossing point
of all the political, technical, religious, aesthetical, intellectual
impulses of his time, and he is thus by the will-attitudes which

24 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

constitute his personality connected with the whole universe of
will-acts. As the astronomer in his calculations describes the
one curve of a star as the combination of a large number of im-
pulses by attraction, and thus brings the star in relation to the
whole firmament, so the historical biographer reconstructs the
one life as a system of single attitudes towards an endless mul-
titude of demands and suggestions. It is a complete transfor-
mation in the service of connection. The man's life can be
told also otherwise : the life as he feels it as a personal experi-
ence ; so also do we learn to understand the man ; but we have
then poetry and not history ; it is isolation and not connection.
And if we, instead, describe and explain his life as a set of ideas,
feelings, emotions and volitions which arose in his psychophys-
ical system from birth to death, then we have again a transforma-
tion in the service of connection, but this time for the causal
connection of objects, not for the teleological connection of sub-
jects ; it is again not history, but psychology.

The separation of the material of the two sciences is thus
simple and clear ; there can never be a doubt about the line of
demarcation, as there is no psychophysical object in the world —
from the sensations of a frog up to the ideas of Newton, the
emotions of Byron, and the volitions of Cromwell — which is not
a suitable object of psychology, and as there is no subjective in-
dividual act which cannot be linked into the endless teleological
system of history. A division of material, as if a social psy-
chology, for instance, were to deal with the psychical processes
of the unknown masses, while history were to deal with the psy-
chical processes of the well-known men, is an absurdity. Not
less misleading would be an antithesis between savagery and
civilization. From a psychophysical standpoint such a line is
secondary ; the organism which has outer appendages of his
body to make the psychophysical functions more effective has
reached merely a higher stage of biological development, but is
not different in principle from the lower type in which nature
does not provide for detachable acquisitions of the organism.
The animal which runs with locomotives, sees with microscopes,
hears with telephones, makes gestures of expression through
newspapers, attacks through cannons, remembers through libra-

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 25

ries, stands above the savage as a dog stands above a jelly-fish,
but it is by principle nothing new ; it is a more complicated
product of nature which, therefore, offers a more difficult prob-
lem to the descriptions and explanations of psychology and
physiology, but does not become as such material for history.
And still another line of separation has to disappear ; the fight
between the * materialists ' and the ' idealists ' of the recent eco-
nomical schools has nothing to do with the doubleness of psy-
chological naturalism and real historical aspect. If the materi-
alists claim that every occurrence among men is the direct or in-
direct effect of economical causes, while the idealists consider
other causes still which seem to them independent of material
conditions, for instance, religious and patriotic emotion or ambi-
tion and love, both sides stand fully on the ground of psy-
chology and outside of history. Those emotions of practical
idealism are in question only as psychophysical causes and are
thus material merely for a causal system. In the system of his-
tory exists no causality.

Here is the point where even the historians themselves are
inclined to compromises which, at least in principle, must be
rejected. Whether or not practically quite interesting reports
of periods of civilization can be written by mixing the two
attitudes is secondary. Historians, we know, produced in
earlier times their deepest effects by mixing history with ethics,
but the philosopher at least must be clear that ethics is not
history, and he ought to be still less in doubt that a causally
explaining social psychology is not history either. As soon
as it is acknowledged that we have, on the one side, an interest
to consider human life as an object and thus to describe and to
explain it, and that we have, on the other side, a logical aim to
understand human life as subjective acts which can be only
interpreted and linked together by will attitudes, then we must
have the energy to keep the two systems separated. Each is
logically valuable, each is therefore true, but if confused both
become logically useless.

We can say that Socrates remained in the prison because his
knee muscles were contracted in a sitting position and not work-
ing to effect his escape, and that these muscle-processes took

26 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

place because certain psychophysical ideas, emotions and voli-
tions, all composed of elementary sensations, occurred in his
brain, and that they, again, were the effects of all the causes
which sense stimulations and dispositions, associations and inhi-
bitions, physiological and climatic influences, produced in that
organism. And we can say, on the other hand, that Socrates re-
mained in the prison because he decided to be obedient to the
laws of Athens unto death. This obedience means, then, not a
psychophysical process, but a will attitude which we must under-
stand by feeling it and living through it, an attitude which we
cannot analyze, but which we interpret and appreciate. The
first is a psychological description ; the second is a histor-
ical interpretation. Both are true. They are, to be sure, not
equally valuable for science, as that particular psychophysical
process is not more important for the understanding of the psy-
chological system than millions of other emotions in unknown
men, while that will attitude influenced by its demand the ac-
knowledging will of twenty centuries, and is thus most impor-
tant in the historical system. And yet both are equally true,
while they blend into an absurdity if we say that those psycho-
physical states in the brain of Socrates were the objects which
inspired the will of his pupils and were suggestive through two
thousand years.

A history which interprets subjectively and understands their
purposes out of the deeds of men relinquishes, indeed, its only
aim if it coordinates these teleological relations with the causal
explanation of human happenings from climatic and geograph-
ical, technical and economical, physiological and pathological
influences. The subject which is determined by purposes is
free ; the action which is the effect of causes is unfree. In the
unfree world there cannot be any action which must not be
understood causally, and we have no right to stop anywhere in
our explanation ; the unexplained action means only an unsolved
problem which is in no way solved if we seek for its subjective
meaning instead of its elements and causes. In the world of
freedom, on the other hand, it would be meaningless to ask for
cause, as the objects then come in question merely as objects for
the willing subjects and not as realities for themselves. The

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 27

realm of freedom is not made up of oases in the world of neces-
sity ; the reality of history is not spread here and there over the
field of nature, but lies fully outside of its limits. The an-
tithesis between psychology and history is thus not law and sin-
gle event, but causality and freedom, and this difference is the
logical result of the ontological difference of the material, the
one dealing with objects, the other with subjects. Both go
methodologically the same way, considering the single facts
from the point of view of the general fact, and both transform-
ing the disconnected material until a perfectly connected system
is reached. But because objects are understood by describing
and explaining them, while subjects are understood by interpret-
ing and appreciating them, the connection of the one system
must be causal, that of the other system teleological, and the
general fact in the one field must be a law and in the other field
the will relation of importance. As every subjective act can be
substituted by a psychophysical function of an organism in the
world of objects, and as every object can be understood as a
value for a will, the whole reality can be brought without any
possible remainder under the one aspect as well as under the
other. History, in the real historical spirit, then need no longer
fear that the progress of psychology can inhibit its functions,
and the psychologist need not feel discouraged that his psycho-
logical laws of history appear so utterly trivial to the historian.
That which is important for psychology, that which is fit for
constructing connections between psychological objects, has the
privilege of being indifferent for the historian, that is, of being
unfit to link subjective will attitudes. Psychology and history
cannot help each other and cannot interfere with each other as
long as they consistently stick to their own aims. Each of
them has thus unlimited opportunities for development. The
processions of the great psychologists from Aristotle to Herbart,
and that of the great historians from Thucydides to Macaulay,
can both have for the future an unlimited number of followers
without any quarrel, in spite of the naturalistic claims of our
age, which for a while was under the illusion that all is under-
stood when all is explained, and that the historians should better
become psychologists.

28 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

As soon as the difference of the two standpoints is recog-
nized, light falls on all the special characteristics of the two
sciences. Now we understand why history stands so much
nearer to real life than psychology. Not, as it was suggested,
because history deals with single facts and psychology with
general facts, but because psychology deals with objects which
are thought as independent of the subject, while in reality and
so in history the material is acknowledged only in relation to
willing subjects. In real life we are subjects which must be
understood but not described ; psychology starts thus at once
with a material which in its singleness is already farther away
from reality than the material with which history deals. Now
we understand also why the substance of history has value for
us, while the objects of psychology and of all naturalistic sciences
are emotionally indifferent. That is not, as it was suggested,
because the single facts are important for us and the general
facts indifferent; no, it is because the psychological objects, the
contents of consciousness, are thought as cut loose from the will
and thus no longer possible objects for appreciation, while the
historical objects are thought as in their relation to the attitudes
of the will. Now we understand also under which principle
the historian selects his material. If we accept the view that
all single facts belong to history as such, it is arbitrariness to
chronicle Napoleon's battles and state acts but not his flirtations
and breakfasts, while now we understand how it is that this se-
lection means the most essential part of the historian's work, as
it is the way to transform the reality into a system of teleolog-
ical connections, thus dropping more and more the will-acts
which have no teleological importance for will-attitudes of other
subjects. Now we understand also why the language of the
historian has so much similarity with that of the poet. The his-
torian, we have seen, has aims which are directly antagonistic to
those of the poet, as the poet isolates, while the historian, like
every scientist, connects his material. But the materials them-
selves, the subjective acts, are common to the poet and the histo-
rian. Where the psychologist encourages the reader to take the at-
titude of the objectively perceiving observer, the poet and the his-
torian speak of facts which can be understood only by interpreta-

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 29

tion and inner imitation ; they cannot be described by enumer-
ating their elements ; they must be suggested and reach somehow
the willing subject which enters into the subjective attitude of
the other. Thus the means of both may approximate to each
other. The poet and the historian may use the same methods
of suggestion to reenforce in the reader the subjectifying atti-
tude which is the presupposition for the understanding of the
isolated will-acts in the work of poetry and the connected will-
acts in the work of history, while the psychologist has to adapt
even his style and his presentation to the service of his objectify-
ing aim.

But we now understand and see in a new light also the rela-
tions of the psychological and historical sciences to the norma-
tive doctrines, to ethics, logic and aesthetics. As long as his-
tory appears merely as a part of psychology or as long as
the one is given over to single facts, the other to laws, all the
normative sciences stand without any inner relation to any
empirical science, those speaking of duties, these of facts. For
us the relation takes a very different form. We have seen that all
the historical sciences are systems of individual will relations and
nothing else. On the other hand, we have found that duty never
means anything but our own over-individual will-act. All the nor-
mative sciences are thus the systematic connections of our over-
individual will-attitudes, our will-attitudes aiming toward morality
and truth and beauty and religion. As the over-individual will
is, of course, thought as independent of the individual sub-
ject, the connection which is sought cannot lead as it did in his-
tory from subject to subject ; as all subjects are presupposed as
agreeing in their over-individual acknowledgment, the connec-
tion, the scientific aim can then lie here merely in the systematic
connection of our own over-individual purposes and their inter-
pretation. A transformation becomes here, too, necessary in the
interest of connection ; each single will attitude must be linked
into this teleological system and must thus be transformed till it
represents a crossing point of all the ethical, aesthetical, re-
ligious and logical impulses and demands. The normative sci-
ences and history stand thus in the nearest relation to each other ;
both are transformations of will-acts in the service of teleolog-

30 HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

ical connection, only the one reconstructs and systematizes the
individual will-acts in us, the other the over-individual will-
acts.

The relation between these two groups of sciences, the histor-
ical and the normative ones, is thus perfectly parallel to the rela-
tion between the psychological sciences and the physical sci-
ences, of which the one systematizes the individual objects and
the other the over-individual objects. The proportion — history
— stands to the normative doctrines, as psychology stands to
physics — is, indeed, true in every respect and in every conse-
quence. We may consider here as our last word only one of
them. The historical development of the naturalistic sciences
shows the continuous tendency to take more and more of the
properties of the physical object into the psychological object,
that is, to show that the apparent over-individual qualities of the
thing are qualities which depend upon the individual ; color and
sound, smell and taste, go over from the physical thing into the
idea, and thus the whole manifoldness of our experience moves
over into the sphere of ideas. In exactly the same way and led by
the same methodological motives, history takes more and more
of the normative duties over into its own field, and shows how the
special duties, the logical beliefs, ethical convictions, aesthetical
demands and religious postulates are the results of individual
attitudes under the suggestion of the individual groups of will-
influences. The absolute duties and beliefs and obligations and
truths seem thus lost in our life as the colors and sounds and
smells are lost for the physical objects. But the parallelism holds
for the end-point of this development too. We must deprive the
physical object of its colors and sounds, but we cannot give up
the truth that there is a physical object nevertheless, as the quan-
titative reality to which we project, with objective truth, our sen-
sations and ideas ; all the naturalistic sciences would be destroyed
if we were to give up this realistic conviction of physics. In
the same way we may take into the individual all the single
over-individual special duties of special nations and ages and
social groups, but the reality of the background of projection
we cannot give up. Whatever history teaches, the postulate of
the reality of duties, of absolute values, stands firm. The abso-

PSYCHOLOGY AND HISTORY. 31

lute duties may be abstract and deprived of color and sound as
is the world of physics, but they stand and must last like the
physical universe, and whoever in striving towards truth denies
the reality of absolute values and gives up the belief in morality
and the belief in logic, thus destroys and undermines his own
endeavor to find the truth as logical thinker and to stand for the
truth as ethical man.

A STUDY OF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN CER-
TAIN ORGANIC PROCESSES AND
CONSCIOUSNESS.

BY PROFESSOR JAMES ROWLAND ANGELL AND HELEN
BRADFORD THOMPSON.

I. INTRODUCTORY.

Circulation and respiration are the organic processes with
which this paper is mainly concerned. An inspection of the
literature dealing with the relation of these processes to con-
sciousness reveals a condition of disagreement among investi-
gators, both as regards fact and theory. On the side of fact the
discrepancies are gradually giving way before more accurate
methods of observation and experiment. On the side of theory,
however, the progress toward agreement is, perhaps, less notice-
able.

The thesis which we shall defend in the following pages
is based primarily upon experiments undertaken by us some
two years ago with the purpose of determining whether changes
in the character of attention were accompanied by any regular
alterations in the organic processes above mentioned. The
formulation we have reached should, however, if true, be
equally applicable to the observations of other investigators.
This we believe to be the case, although the description of these
observations is often too meager on the psychological side to
permit a satisfactory comparison with our own work. Within
the bounds of its pretensions our formula, if correct, will have
the value of a centralizing, harmonizing principle for a mass of
facts which, from many points of view, appear self-contradictory
and unintelligible.

At the risk of devoting a disproportionate part of our space
to the matter, we shall begin by attempting a sketch of the
more important of the relevant facts hitherto observed. So far
32

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 33

as we are aware, these have never been brought together in
the form we adopt, and they furnish the best possible proof of
the necessity for some general connective principle.

II. HISTORICAL OUTLINE.

It will be convenient to state first the factors in the processes
under consideration which have been thus far differentiated.1

The most striking alterations shown by the respiration con-
sist in changes of rate and depth, or amplitude. The general
type of the breathing also displays certain differences under
varying conditions. Thus breathing in which costal or thoracic
movements predominate may take on a more abdominal or dia-
phragmatic character. In addition to these changes, however,
must be mentioned alterations in the general rhythm and in the
duration of the various constituent factors in the total respiratory
act. Thus the slight pause which follows expiration may be
exaggerated or may practically disappear. Similarly the pause
concluding inspiration may be altered in its relation to the total
act.2 Again, as accompaniments of such changes, we may find
the usual relation between the phase of inspiration and that of
expiration altered ; the normal relation being that of a slight ex-
cess of expiration over inspiration.3

The more important aspects of the circulation, to which ref-
erence is made in this connection, may be summarized as fol-
lows : (i) The rate and force of the heart-beat. (2) The
tension in the walls of the blood vessels — constriction or dila-
tion. (3) The blood-pressure. (4) The amount of blood sent

1 Excellent descriptions and illustrations of apparatus employed in such in-
vestigations will be found in ' La Fatigue Intellectuelle, ' Binet and Henri, Paris,
1897. The technique of such apparatus has been carefully studied by Hiirthle,
Pfliiger's Archiv, 53 ; also by Binet and Courtier, LSAnnee Psychologique, 1895.
Cf. also Langendorf, Physiologische Graphik.

2 Certain authorities question the genuineness of these pauses and regard
the second as distinctly abnormal. Cf. Landois and Stirling, Physiology, p. 200.

3 The amount of air breathed under various conditions, the amount of oxy-
gen used and the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled have all been studied with
much care, but we shall make no reference to these features, as the results at-
tained do not appear to bear in any essentials upon the considerations with which
we are here immediately concerned. See Speck, Physiologic des Menschlichen.
Athmens, Leipzig, 1892.

34 /• R> ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

to the brain. (5) The amount of blood sent to the viscera.1
(6) The amount sent to the periphery. (7) The interrelations
between (4), (5) and (6). (8) The features of the cardiac,
arterial or capillary pulse : its height or amplitude, shape, etc.,
with special reference to its anacrotic or catacrotic character-
istics. It will of course be understood that in this analysis of
salient features in the circulatory process, no implication of
complete independence of the elements so distinguished is for
an instant contemplated. As a matter of fact, some of the pro-
cesses do at times vary irrespective of the action of others, but
these interrelations will be canvassed more closely later on.2

We may summarize the results of the various investigations
as follows : The dominant tendency of sensations of every
kind is, according to the latest and most careful observations,
to produce a vaso-constriction in the periphery and an afflux of
blood to the brain. The amount and regularity of these alter-
ations probably depend on the intensity and duration of the
stimulus. Those investigators who find regular differences in
the organic processes as accompaniments of the algedonic tone
of the sensation, would necessarily make an exception in favor
of such sensations as are distinctly agreeable and productive in
their experiences of peripheral dilations. The effects of sen-
sation upon the heart-beat, the form of the pulse curve and the
respiration vary too widely with varying conditions to permit
any generalized statement. But wherever a sensation breaks
in upon a state of relative quiet and repose, so that a mild
emotion or shock is produced, it generally produces acceleration
of heart-beat and respiration, the latter being a trifle spasmodic
and often deeper.

Mental activity of the type illustrated by application to
mathematical computation, memorizing or recalling past experi-
ences is, when contrasted with conditions of greater repose, ac-
companied by afflux of blood to the brain. Under the conditions
of the ordinary laboratory experiment, such psychological pro-

1 Points (5) and (7) concern processes too inadequately investigated to per-
mit very definite formulations.

2 As in the case of the respiration and for similar reasons, we make no reference
to the observations upon the chemical changes attendant on alterations in these
various phases of the circulation. Cf. Hermann's Handbuch der Physiologic.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 35

cesses are sometimes productive of peripheral constrictions and
sometimes show peripheral dilations. Their effects upon the
form of the pulse curve are equally equivocal, but they result
with greater regularity in increasing the rate of both heart-beat
and respiration, the latter as a rule becoming more superficial.
Emotions of every sort seem more effective than other psy-
chological processes in producing increase of blood in the brain.
Vaso-constriction seems to be by far the most frequent volume
change in the periphery, although a modification, similar to that
mentioned under the head of sensation, has to be made in favor
of those investigators who find opposite physiological expres-
sions for agreeable and disagreeable experiences. The same
restriction has to be placed on the statement that acceleration of
heart and respiration and increased depth of the latter are ac-
companiments of all emotions. It is not possible at present to
speak definitely of the changes in the form of the pulse curve.1

Without injustice to earlier investigators, it may be said that our
serious knowledge of the connections between consciousness and the
organic processes with which we are here concerned, begins with the
classic and revolutionary observations, both clinical and experimental,
of the great Italian physiologist, Angelo Mosso.

The results of his investigations maybe briefly summarized as fol-
lows, bearing in mind that the psychological conditions involved are
those of sensation, emotion and application to mental calculations.
We may notice first the facts concerning changes in volume :

Psychic activity of every kind produces an increased flow of blood
to the brain and a decreased flow to the periphery.2 The changes
which follow emotional excitements are much more marked than any
produced by intellective processes, and the responses to emotional
stimuli are more noticeable in the brain than in the periphery.3 Sleep
is accompanied by a withdrawal of blood from the brain.4 Deep in-

1 We shall occupy the remainder of this section with a more detailed state-
ment of the investigations upon which this summary is based.

2 Die Temperatur d. Gehirns, p. 109. Cf. also Patrizi, Riv. musicale ital.,
1896. Some interesting exceptions to this general rule have been observed.
They consist of cases in which the activity of attention distinctly antedated the
circulatory change. Cf. Die Ermiidung, p. 195.

3Kreislauf d. Blutes im Mensch. Gehirn, p. 72 ft.

*Kreislauf d. Blutes im Mensch. Gehirn, p. 74 ff. Stimulations which are
oo feeble to produce awakening nevertheless result in circulatory alterations of

36 /. R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

spirations produce a decrease of blood in the brain, whereas deep ex-
pirations cause an increase. The same thing is noticed in the upper
limbs, but in the lower limbs the relations are exactly reversed, a fact
which apparently depends upon the inverse pressure relations of the
thoracic and abdominal cavities, the walls of the one moving out as the
walls of the other move in.1 Superficial breathing produces practi-
cally no effect upon the cerebral circulation. The plethysmographic
changes are not distributed simultaneously over the whole of the body.
Local changes of both blood pressure and volume occur.2 The changes
in the volume of the brain generally precede the changes in the pe-
riphery and are, therefore, not to be regarded as on every occasion the
mere consequences of such peripheral alterations.3 The change in the
brain is also often observed to outlast the change in the periphery.
Moreover, the amount of such changes in the volume of blood in the
brain is much less than the contemporary changes often occurring in
the arm, for example, and of course much less, therefore, than those
of both arms together.* Added to this is the fact that a decrease in
the volume of a limb is not invariably accompanied by an equivalent
increase of the brain volume.5 The disparity is at times extreme.

Upon the much-mooted point as to whether or no the blood supply
of the brain is controlled directly by mechanisms of its own, or indi-
rectly through changes in pressure inaugurated elsewhere in the body,
Mosso inclines to a positive opinion in favor of some neural process
intrinsic to the brain itself, chiefly on the ground of the apparently
primary and independent variations in the cerebral circulation.6

the brain and periphery. Several observers have confirmed these observations
upon the effects of unconscious stimuli. Cf. Binet and Henri, ibid., p. 80 ; also
Howell's Physiology of Sleep, Jour. Experimental Med., 1897.

1 Kreislauf d. Blutes, etc., p. 133. For following statements see pages 126
and 106. Cf. Marey, Circulation du Sang, for account of changes due to costal
or abdominal forms of breathing.

2Cf. Bayliss and Starling, Jour, of Physiology, 1894, p. 159.

3 Die Temperatur d. Gehirns, p. 152. Mosso's observations on changes in
the blood pressure do not lend themselves readily to a generalized statement.
The observations of other investigators to be mentioned later cover the ground
more fully, and we therefore make no attempt to epitomize Mosso's work on
this point.

4 Mays questions the accuracy of these observations. He states, moreover,
that he has only succeeded in obtaining noticeable alterations in cerebral circula-
tion in response to emotions, other psychic processes being ineffective. Vir-
chow's Archiv, 1882.

5 Die Temperatur d. Gehirns, p. 147.

6 The researches of Roy and Sherrington point to the direct effects, me-
chanical or chemical, of the metabolisms of the brain as sources, on some occa-

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 37

This is a convenient place to mention Mosso's striking view, con-
firmed in part by other observers, that the cerebral circulation is after
all not the matter of primary import in determining the phenomena of
psychic activities. It might naturally be expected that if mere in-
crease of blood to the brain were the essential precondition of intense
psychoses, any medium which would produce such increase of blood
would be followed by increased mental activity. This is not always
the case ; witness the effects of amyl nitrite. The activity of the atten-
tion and of consciousness in general is rather to be connected with the
functioning of certain nerves, which control those activities of the
brain cells that are accompanied by psychic events. The appropriate
analogy is that of the glands. Just as we find in these organs that
mere afflux of blood is insufficient, aside from the action of certain
nerves, to produce inception of their secretory functions, so the brain
cells require blood for the exercise of their peculiar activities, but the
mere presence of blood is not alone an adequate stimulus to such func-
tioning.1

Turning now to Mosso's observations on the pulse and the heart-
beat, we find the following general principles. With the exception of
the rhythm and the height, or amplitude, the peculiarities of the pulse
curve are entirely independent of the heart and find their explanation
in the changing conditions of the various blood vessels concerned.2
The relations between the energy and frequency of the heart-beat are
not as yet definitely formulated. The heart-beat is ordinarily slower
during sleep than at other times. The pulse becomes anacrotic (Fig.
i, A, after Mosso) after physical exercise, after heating the vessels
and after the inception of complete physical and mental quiet ; also as
the result of hunger. On the other hand, intellectual activity is ac-
companied by a catacrotic pulse (Fig. I, B), which is also the form
observed after a meal. The anacrotic pulse is not peculiar to the

sions at least, of circulatory control. Journal of Physiology, XL, p. 85. Cf.
also Wertheimer, Archives de Physiologic, 1893, p. 297. Gley has shown
that in mental activity the flow of blood to the brain is, as Mosso thought, due
to other causes than the heart. Etude experimentale sur 1'etat du pouls, etc.
Paris, 1 88 1.

1 Die Ermtidung, p. 195 ff. Moreover, it does not appear that the brain acts
more promptly or more accurately (within the limits of ordinary non-patholog-
ical changes of volume) when it is flushed with blood. Patrizi has found the
reaction time at the height of undulations in volume very slightly better than
that at the lowest point of such oscillations. Cf. Patrizi, Archiv d. Psichia-
tria, 1896.

2Kreislauf d. Blutes, p. 49.

3 8 /. R- AN G ELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

brain, but is found under certain conditions in other parts of the body.1
The changes in the form of the brain pulse are noticeable only when
vigorous mental activity is contrasted with complete rest. Intense in-
tellective processes are accompanied by increased force of the heart-
beat, probably because of the contraction of peripheral vessels neces-
sitating a greater power to propel the blood through them.2 Changes
in the heart-beat are not always results of changes in the respiration,
for they occur independently of such changes.8

Apart from the changes already mentioned in connection with the
circulation, Mosso's statements about the respiratory accompaniments
of psychic processes are somewhat unsatisfactory. In his book on
fatigue he says, that observations upon himself show that revery is
accompanied by faster breathing than voluntarily directed trains of
thought.4 When one does not attend closely, the diaphragm tends to
become quiet and the thorax makes larger but irregular movements.
In sleep the diaphragm is probably passive, but periodic changes occur
under the effects of drowsiness. In an earlier work, however, he says
it is impossible to make any satisfactory classification of breathing
types as connected with mental activity, and some of his diagrams
certainly conform but poorly to his formulation above quoted.5

M. Fere", in his treatise on sensation and movement, gives the first
definite statement of antithetical physiological processes as the accom-
paniments of agreeable and disagreeable experiences respectively.6 He
differs from Mosso in finding certain sensory stimulations of emotional
tone, which cause dilations of the peripheral vessels, instead of contrac-
tions. As is well known, he connects agreeable experiences of vari-

1 These statements may be verified by reference to Kreislauf d. Blutes, etc.,
pp. 52-58, IH-

2 Die Ermudung, p. 184.

3 Die Temperatur d. Gehirns, p. 150. There are, however, certain well-recog-
nized changes in the heart-beat, as well as in the blood pressure and volume,
which are due to respiration. The beats corresponding to inspiration are some-
what quicker than the others, and the amplitude of the pulse seems somewhat
smaller. Binet and Henri (ibid., p. 50) have called attention to similar rhyth-
mic changes occurring at intervals of three or four respiratory movements.

4 Die Ermudung, p. 182 ff. The description of the conditions under which
these observations were made is too inadequate to permit satisfactory compari-
son with the work of other investigators.

5Cf. Kreislauf d. Blutes, etc., p. 70 ff. The irregularities in the breathing
which he meets with in mental calculations are probably due to the distinctly
abnormal conditions of his subjects.

6 Sensation et Mouvement, Paris, 1887. He uses the words 'exciting' and
'depressing' instead of agreeable and disagreeable, but his meaning seems to
be essentially as indicated.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 39

ous kinds with such dilations of the peripheral blood vessels and with
heightened tone of the voluntary muscles. Disagreeable experiences
he finds accompanied by the opposite conditions of peripheral con-
striction and lowered muscular tone.1 He finds momentary intellect-
ual activity accompanied by momentary increase of power in the
voluntary muscles.2 His monograph is too inadequate in its state-
ment of details to warrant critical comparison with the more complete
investigations now at hand. It has distinct historical importance,
however, because its statements, like those of the next author we shall
mention, have been somewhat dogmatically incorporated in recent
psychological treatises.

A. Lehmann, in his scholarly treatment of feeling, reports with
much fullness his observations on the physiological accompaniments of
agreeable and disagreeable experiences.3 These agree essentially with
those of Fere, but emphasize the following facts.4 Pleasurable experi-
ences are probably accompanied by increased amplitude of heart move-
ments, disagreeable experiences by decreased amplitude of these move-
ments and ordinarily by dilation of the deep-lying blood vessels. He
also emphasizes more explicitly than Fere the deeper and more super-
ficial phases of the breathing which he finds characterizing the two
antitheses of feeling.5

Probably the most careful, systematic and important experiments,
after those of Mosso, are those conducted by Binet in conjunction
with Henri, Courtier and Vaschide. However much one may take
issue with their usually conservative generalizations — and this is cer-
tainly the least convincing part of their work — one cannot abstain from
the expression of admiration for the shrewd ingenuity and foresight
with which they have executed their tasks.6

xCf. ibid., p. noff. and p. 7.

2 The experiments of Patrizi (quoted by Binet et Henri, loc. cit., p. 194)
showed that mental work carried on for an hour weakened the power of the
voluntary muscles, unless there was some emotional excitement involved, in
which case increased power was observed. In the last case, however, after a
time the muscular strength fell below the normal.

3 Hauptgesetze d. Mensch. Gefiihlslebens, translated by Bendixen, Leipzig,
1892.

<Ibid., p. 82 ff.

5Lehmann's results, which were obtained by experiments upon five persons,
certainly require confirmation. Like Fare's, they differ in the manner pointed
out above from the results of Mosso, and they are distinctly at variance with
many results obtained by recent investigators, not to mention our own.

6 It will be convenient to refer in connection with these authors to a certain
amount of the recent monograph literature, much of which is canvassed by
them.

40 J. JR. AN CELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

They find that vaso-constriction of the peripheral blood vessels is
the usual result of psychic activity of any sort, especially when this
follows relatively greater quiet.1 There does not seem to be any con-
stant and demonstrable relation between agreeable and disagreeable ex-
periences on the psychic side and vaso-dilation and constriction on the
physiological side. Pain has been observed to cause a dilation under
certain peculiar conditions, and moderate pleasure has on several oc-
casions been accompanied by constrictions.2 The true psychic oppo-
sites from this point of view seem to be repose and activity with vary-
ing degrees of physiological excitation as their counterparts.3 When
attention is vigorously fixed on a calculation, for example, there is
sometimes a dilation, whose nature is not known, and sometimes a
constriction of greater or less duration.*

1This agrees with Mosso. See above.

2Binet et Courtier, L?Ann&e Psychologique, 1897, p. 87 ff., also p. 126;
Binet et Henri, ibid., p. 92.

Cf. also Patrizi, ibid. Rivista di Freniatria, etc., 1897. We know these
articles only from reports.

Shields finds vaso-constriction of periphery with both agreeable and dis-
agreeable odors — Journal of Experimental Medicine, 1896.

Dumas, Revue Philosophiqtie, 1896, also 1897. Dumas' investigations with
morbid and insane cases confirm in general the antithetical relations formulated
by Lehmann and others regarding joy and sadness and the physiological ex-
expressions of dilation, constriction, etc.; adding some interesting observations
on the changing number of blood corpuscles under these conditions. He meets
curious exceptions, however.

Sewall and Sanford, studying changes of volume in the forearm under vari-
ous forms of electrical, mechanical and thermal stimulation, found that strong
stimulations generally produced constriction, whereas weak stimulations gave
slight dilations after transitory constrictions — Journal of Physiology, XL, p.
179 ff.

3 The very interesting experiments of Howell on sleep, already referred
to, furnish beautiful supplements to Mosso's observations, and show that in
normal sleep there is first a rapid decrease of blood in the brain, owing to fall
in arterial pressure (chiefly in the periphery, it appears) with flooding of the
peripheral vessels. This is followed by a period of relative quiet, and then the
pressure gradually rises, the peripheral vessels undergo constriction and finally
awakening occurs. He regards the fatigue of the vaso-motor mechanism as the
immediate cause of sleep. He is inclined to disagree with Mosso concerning
an independent vaso-motor mechanism of the brain.

4MacDougall, in his article on the Physical Characteristics of Attention
(PSYCHOL. REVIEW, 3-158), practically agrees with the French observers, of
whom we are writing, as regards the volume changes here referred to. Under
the head of ' pulse and volume changes ' appearing when attention is focussed
on a continuous sensory stimulus, he omits any definite reference to the second
part of his paragraph title, so we cannot record his results. With what he calls

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 41

Short, intense mental application — e. g., the solution of a mathe-
matical problem extending over three or four minutes — almost invari-
ably increases the rate of the heart-beat.1 After the cessation of the
work, this acceleration may continue, or there may be a reaction toward
a rate slower than the original one. The effects of long mental effort
are less well known, but there seems to be an increased tendency
toward slowing of the heart-beat, when compared with the natural
tendency to retardation during the later hours of the day and in gen-
eral under increasing fatigue.2 Emotions of every kind, practically
without exception, produce increase in the rate of the heart-beat. A
few rare cases of pain and sadness have been observed to produce a
gentle slowing of the rate. In general the changes observed, not only
on the heart, but also on the other organic processes under considera-
tion, show much more dependence upon the intensity of the emotion
or affective condition than upon the quality as agreeable or disagree-
able.3

1 perceptual attention ' he obtains first constrictions and then periodic fluctua-
tions of dilations and constrictions. These undulations appear under several
of the conditions he has studied, e.g., attention to calculations, recalling of
past experiences, and continued sense impressions.

1 This has been noticed by a number of investigators, Cf. La Fatigue Intel-
lectuelle, p. 41 ff. Mentz (Phil. Studien, XL, p. 567 ff.) reports a quickening of
the pulse which seems closely related in its rate to the difficulty of the task un-
dertaken.

Moderate physical exercise generally increases the rate and force of the
heart-beat, but where excessive a contrary effect may be produced. The changes
under physical exercise are, perhaps, due more immediately to alterations of
blood pressure, which Marey has shown may by merely mechanical means affect
the rate of the heart. In mental activity the pressure seems to rise, and as this
alone should, on the grounds of merely mechanical explanations, decrease the
rate, it is probable we have here a direct nervous control. Cf . La Fatigue Intell. ,
p. 37 ff. and 58. Mentz finds (Cf. ibid., pp.83, 95, 101) that auditory stimuli,
•whether noises or tones, produce at first slowing of the pulse and then a gradual
quickening. Changes in intensity show the same result, the quickening begin-
ning at the point where the stimulus becomes disagreeable. With involuntary
attention acoustic stimuli were found to produce slowing, with voluntary atten-
tion quickening of the pulse. MacDougall (ibid., pp. 163, 169) obtained, with
voluntary perceptual attention, increase of heart rate, with continuous sensory
stimuli (tracing of figures on the face) slowing. The cases of retardation in the
heart-beat reported by both these investigators seem to lend themselves with
difficulty to harmonious incorporation in the observations and hypotheses of
Binet and his fellow workers. They agree with our own observations, however.

2 The capillary pulse may almost disappear under these conditions. It has
been suggested that this is due to increased pressure. If true, this fact would
seem to present a rather troublesome anomaly for Howell's interesting theory of
sleep, elsewhere referred to. Cf. Binet et Henri, loc. cit., p. 96 ff.

3 Binet et Courtier, U Annde Psychologique, 1897, pp. 104, 125-126.

42 /. R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

Mental work when intense shows a tendency to alter the form of
the capillary pulse curve by decreasing its amplitude and with some
persons rendering its angles blunter, while the dicrotic may move up-
ward or shrink. With others there is instead of this a distinct em-
phasizing of the dicrotic and no noticeable decrease in angularity.1
Conditions of quiet and repose are ordinarily accompanied by a pulse
of large amplitude with clear dicrotic. It is possible that a classifica-
tion of the emotions may prove to be feasible on the basis of the
changes of the pulse, but this is hypothetical.

The blood pressure probably rises under every mental excitation,
whether the occasion be attention to a sensation, to a calculation or to
an emotion. 2 Nor does the nature of the emotion apparently affect
the fact of this rise, although it may show a difference in the degree
of the latter.

The rate of respiration is increased by mental work of every kind,
both the expiration and the expiratory pause being shortened, emotions
producing an increased amplitude in the respiratory curve, mental cal-
culations and the like producing more superficial breathing, with de-
crease of amplitude in the curve. Occasionally sadness produces a
slowing of respiration.3 The effects of emotional states are, however,
relatively irregular.

1 Gley (ibid. ) finds mental work increases the amplitude of the carotid pulse
and accentuates the dicrotic. Binet et Henri (ibid.), p. 98 ff., also 113 and 120
ff. Binet et Courtier (ibid. ), pp. 30-65. Physical exercise of a violent type
seems to lessen the amplitude of the pulse and to diminish the clearness of the
dicrotic.

2Kiesow's observation (Philos. Studien, 1895) that changes in blood pres-
sure are noticeable only in connection with affective psychic conditions is criti-
cised on the ground of inadequate technique.

3 Binet et Henri, ibid., p. 156 ff. Binet et Courtier, ibid., p. 65.

Delabarre (JRevue Philosophique , Vol. XXXIII., p. 639 ff.) found that per-
sons who naturally breathe rapidly show relatively little effect on their respira-
tion when their attention is engaged ; but persons who ordinarily breathe
slowly display a distinct tendency to acceleration of respiration when exer-
cising their attention, the acceleration seeming to bear a general relation to
the measure in which, the attention is exercised.

MacDougall (ibid.) found that with perceptual and sensory attention there
are generally increased rapidity and superficiality of respiration. The long in-
spiration and short expiration of sleep and relaxed inattention give way to
lengthening of the time occupied by the second factor and shortening of the
time of the first. The effects on the respiratory pause are ambiguous. Calcu-
lation produces the same general changes found by the French investigators.
Recall of past events, when tinged with emotional excitation, is productive of
great irregularity of amplitude and form, although the increase of rate is still
observed.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 43

Like ourselves, these investigators have been relatively less inter-
ested in the effects of psychological conditions upon the voluntary
muscles. Mental activity certainly affects the muscles, but the effects
differ, depending on the length of time devoted to the psychic process
and on the presence or absence of an emotional tone in the experi-
ence.1

III. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS.2

It will be observed that the investigations which we have
been reviewing deal with two separate problems. The first
problem concerns the differences in circulation, respiration and
muscular tone which characterize the antithetical affective con-
ditions denominated respectively agreeable and disagreeable.
The second has to do with the differences manifested by these
physiological activities under the various typical psychological
conditions, e. £*., sensation, intellection, etc., and more espe-
cially with the differences distinguishing the affective from the
non-affective processes. It is unnecessary to emphasize the lack
of any established general principle of correlation for the re-
sults of these various investigations, much less to dwell upon the
disagreements in regard to details.

Mentz (ibid. ). In general the breathing tends to follow the rate of the pulse
reported above. The strong tendency of heart and respiration to change rate
together and in the same direction has been noticed repeatedly. The intimate
nature of the connection is unknown.

Lehmann's interesting observations (Philos. Studien, Vol. IX., p. 66) on
the fluctuations of attention and the different phases of respiration seem to show
that the moment of completed inspiration, when the volume and pressure of
the blood in the brain are at a maximum, is most favorable for mental activity.
Needless to say, this does not altogether agree with Patrizi's observations.
r - Whipple has found (Amer.Jour. of Psychology, 1898, p. 560) that forced
respiration seems to assist muscular activities, but to interfere with psychic pro-
cesses and the functions of the higher centers.

^astrow (Amer. Jour, of Psycho I., IV., 398 ; V., 223) and Tucker (Arner.
Journal of Psychol., VIII., 394) have studied the nature and direction of cer-
tain unconscious movements of the voluntary muscles connected with different
psychological processes. Heiurich (Zeits. fur Psycho 1. und Physio I. d. Sinnes-
o-rgane, IX., 342 ; XI., 410) and Mentz (ibid.) have found that with mental
calculations the pupils dilate, the lenses become flat and the eyes assume nearly
parallel axes.

2 Logically and chronologically, Section IV. of the paper dealing with our
own experiments should precede Section III , for the views defended here are
based on the observations therein reported. The present order is adopted in the
interests of brevity and clearness in presentation.

44 /• -ff- ANGEL L AND H. B. THOMPSON.

If we knew the precise significance in terms of organic me-
tabolisms of such processes as constriction and dilation, we might
hope to build up a theory on the basis of such knowledge. Un-
fortunately, this is not the case. Furthermore, we have seen
that various observers have failed to note any uniform connec-
tion of these processes with pleasure and pain, in which condi-
tions the * vitality ' theories would find the reflection of organic
weal and woe. We find ourselves thrown back then upon some
general view of the organism as a whole, if we desire a prin-
ciple of interpretation for the phenomena concerned.

Such a view is offered us by the ordinary evolutionary doc-
trine, which finds the essential problem of the organism in the
adapting of itself to an environment. This adaptation must
involve on its physiological side metabolisms of various kinds, in
which katabolisms and anabolisms must sustain certain fairly
definite relations of dynamic equilibrium, provided the life pro-
cess is to be subserved.

If we make reference to any one region or to any one pro-
cess, the exact relations of these antithetic metabolisms must be
constantly changing. Slight excesses of wastage at one point
and one period will be offset by repair at a later period. The
variations from equilibrium must in conditions of health be rela-
tively insignificant, in order to permit of elastic response to the
demands of the total environment. Moreover, these adaptive
processes must be constantly in progress and must accompany
the psychological conditions called intellective quite as truly as
those called affective. Having regard, therefore, to the very
various circumstances in which the organism is called upon to
respond to changing stimulations, it seems at least possible that
the regularity with which these metabolic processes progress,
rather than the presence or absence of any one feature in the
process, should be the most characteristic expression of the
total organic condition. Certainly the presumption that a psy-
chological process like pleasure in its multiform phases should,
regardless of its concomitant mental conditions, be accompanied
invariably by a single physiological process like dilation, im-
plies a simplicity of structure and function in the psycho-phys-
ical organism and a constancy of organic and environmental
conditions which probably do not exist.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 45

In view of such considerations our experimental observa-
tions lead us to believe that the changes in circulation and res-
piration which accompany alterations of consciousness can be
formulated in terms of attention as follows :

When the attentive process runs smoothly and uninterrupt-
edly, these bodily activities progress with rhythmic regularity.1
Relatively tense, strained attention is generally characterized by
more vigorous bodily accompaniments than is low-level, gentle
and relatively relaxed attention (of drowsiness, for instance) ;
but both agree, so long as their progress is free and unimpeded,
in relative regularity of bodily functions. Breaks, shocks and
mal-coordinations of attention are accompanied by sudden,
spasmodic changes and irregularities in bodily processes, the
amount and violence of such changes being roughly propor-
tional to the intensity of the experience.2

In order to make clear the application of this hypothesis to
the facts at issue, we must analyze briefly the mental conditions
concerned with reference to the attention. We shall need to
consider the following: (i) Emotions of various kinds. (2)
Sensations both feeble and intense, both expected and un-
expected, both transitory and continuous, both agreeable and
disagreeable. (3) Intellective processes involving memorizing,
recalling and reasoning in the narrow sense, e. g:, mathematical
calculations ; also revery.

Now, emotions represent psychological conditions of great
instability. Especially is this true when the emotion is profound.
The necessity is suddenly thrown upon the organism of react-

1 To prevent tedious repetition we shall hereafter, except when otherwise
stated, use the phrases 'bodily activities,' 'bodily processes,' 'functions,' etc.,
to mean respiration and circulation.

2 It will be remembered that the fundamental antithesis found by Binet and
his co-workers is that of mental activity in general as against mental passivity.
In apparently abandoning any one physiological change like vaso-constriction
or increased rate of respiration as a criterion, of the psychological condition,
we do not mean to imply, even tacitly, that no single change of such character
is an essentially constant companion of any one psychological process, like the
emotion of anger, for instance. We simply emphasize the apparent absence of
any such change as an invariable index of more than one or two conditions,
whereas the changes as we formulate them appear to be constant for all condi-
tions. The experimental portion of the paper will bring this point out more
fully.

46 /. /?. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

ing to a situation with which it is at the moment able to cope
only imperfectly, if at all. The condition is one in which nor-
mal, uninterrupted, coordinated movements are for a time
checked and thrown out of gear.1 Equally spasmodic and in-
terrupted is the activity of attention. It may on the other hand
be asserted, in opposition to this view, that never is attention so
monopolized and completely absorbed by a situation as in the
case of a deep emotion. But this is to overlook the cataclys-
mic change at the outset of the emotion, as well as the violently
recurrent rhythms with which the situation is surveyed.2 In no
strict sense does the attention ever delay long with absolutely
one phase of an idea,3 and by so much as the profound emo-
tions are more intense than the ordinary experiences of life, by
so much are the shifts in attention more violent than usual.

Moreover, affective conditions of every kind show their af-
finity with the emotions by a similar instability of attention.
This instability is far less with agreeable experiences than with
disagreeable ones. This may be connected with the fact, made
much of by some psychologists, that pleasure represents a ten-
dency to persist and pain a tendency to change.4 It calls to
mind also the theories of pleasure as associated with normal and
moderate activities, and pain as associated with excessive activi-
ties.5 But whenever the experiences are very intense we meet,

]Cf. Dewey, 'Theory of the Emotions,' PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, Vols. I.
and II.

2 It may at first sight appear that, however fairly this description applies to
the more tempestuous emotions, like anger, it is seriously defective when ap-
plied to some of the semi-morbid phases of grief and depression. Waiving
the justice of the criticism of this characterization of the play of attention in
the depressive emotions (we think the apparent difference of opinion rests on a
confusion of attention to a topic of thought with attention to a single image), we
may simply reiterate, that our observations indicate that the bodily changes
run parallel, as regards their regularity or irregularity, with the mode in which
attention proceeds. In general the emotions show a much disturbed condition
in this particular. But for us this is more or less of an accident, and our con-
tention would be in no wise affected if emotions showed a precisely contrary
condition, provided attention also changed its characteristics.

3 Cf. James, Prin. of Psy., Vol. L, p. 421. Ribot's Psychol. of Attention
presents a thoroughgoing account of attention as ' monoideism.' The effects
of neural fatigue would forbid any long-continued dwelling upon literally one
idea. Cf. Hylan, 'Attention,' Monograph, PSYCHOI,. REVIEW, 1897.

* Stephen, Science of Ethics. Horwicz, Psychol. Analysen.
6 Spencer, Prin. of Psychology.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 47

at the moment of their initiation at least, with relative instability
of attention, though the continuance of this instability is incom-
parably more marked with the unpleasant states than with the
pleasant ones.1 This is tantamount, of course, to saying that
the whole distinction is relative.

The different conditions of attention under which sensations
may be experienced vary rather more widely than those of
emotions, so that if we had regard only to the fact of the pres-
ence of a sensation, we might fallaciously assume a uniformity
of conditions which does not exist. What we have said of af-
fective conditions in general, in the previous paragraph, holds
equally true when these affective experiences have a sensation
as their basis, and need not be repeated here.

The distinction between expected and unexpected transitory
sensations is one of considerable import for our interpretation.2
This is the more true the more powerful the sensory stimulus
employed. It becomes relatively insignificant as such stimuli
approach the limen. The effect of an expected sensation upon
attention will, if the sensation be not so intense as to produce
shock, nor so feeble as to require excessive effort to detect it,
be the securing of a slight strain of anticipation, with at times a
somewhat definite relaxation when the sensation is felt. On the
whole the play of attention is relatively free and unimpeded.
When the stimulus is so faint as to require great concentration
we may get more irregularities, owing to the fluctuations of at-
tention from fatigue, distraction, etc. But still the conditions
are relatively stable. With the very intense stimulus, whether
expected or not, there is sure to be something approaching shock,
and with this the introduction of a distinctly disagreeable affec-

1 Ward's formulation of pleasure and pain in terms of the effectiveness of
attention has much that is allied with the view we are presenting. It does not,
however, seem to do full justice to the neutral-toned consciousness of moderate
intellectual labor, where attention is apparently exercised with distinct effec-
tiveness. (Cf. Ency. Brit., article 'Psychology.')

2 The conditions involved in expected and unexpected sensations approxi-
mate closely those of voluntary and involuntary sensory attention (cf. Mentz,
ibid.). The so-called cases of involuntary sensory attention are such as occur
when a stimulus succeeds in breaking in upon a condition of mental pre-occu-
pation, whether one be engaged in intense thought processes or in some of the
various forms of revery. We cover both these cases, but do not use this
terminology.

4§ /• R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

tive condition, whose consequences we have already canvassed.
Indeed, a sensory stimulus of very moderate intensity may, if
unexpected, produce this shock in a rudimentary way, and this
more violent disturbance to attention is the principal difference
noticed between the expected and the unexpected sensation.
With many unexpected sensations this shock may practically
disappear. The process going on at the time the stimulus is
given will determine in large measure its effectiveness or in-
effectiveness in producing such shock.

Sensations which are continuous, provided they be not very
intense, produce conditions of attention which are relatively reg-
ular and stable. We speak here of the cases in which atten-
tion is intentionally fixed on the sensations. If continued long,
we shall get rather definite fluctuations of attention, but these
need not be violent within any ordinary limit of time. Sooner
or later we should meet total collapse of attention, preceded by
the phenomena of mal-coordination that accompany fatigue.
Continuous sensations, which are not made definite objects of
attention, produce very various results, sometimes being rela-
tively ineffective and at other times seeming to modify materi-
ally the attentive process. The psychological conditions in-
volved appear too ambiguous to warrant laying much stress on
these cases.1 A series of very intense sensations, or a really
continuous sensation of this kind, will produce, as in the case
of the transitory sensation, distinct shock and its disturbing con-
sequences for attention.

From the standpoint of attention the intellective processes
involved in memorizing and in simple mathematical calculations
have much of affinity with the continuous sensation and repre-
sent relative stability and regularity. If the task becomes too
confused, as it may when one is required to multiply mentally
one three-place number by another, then we may meet with
breaks and irregularities in attention. Moreover, we shall often
find that such experiences are accompanied by a slight feeling
of anxiety and distress, springing from the interest in accom-

*Cf. Mentz (ibid.). The chief difficulty in these instances arises from at-
tempting to apportion the responsibility for the changes observed between the
existing mental processes, into which the continuous sensation is supposed at
times to inject itself, and the sensation itself.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 49

plishing the work promptly and correctly. Where this element
enters to any degree, we may look for the characteristics of
emotion. Indeed, we may properly remark in this connection
that under ordinary conditions these processes, which we are
analyzing separately, necessarily overlap one another at times.
The mental application in the case of the intellective processes
is usually to problems received from sensory sources, visual, au-
ditory, etc. The sensations impinge upon.already existing affec-
tive and intellective conditions, and emotions are, with the best of
intentions on the part of the experimenters and subjects, likely
to intrude themselves in some measure upon all the processes
studied. When the attention is relatively strained and tense,
we meet the greatest stability and regularity, if the task in hand
is just difficult enough to be successfully carried forward at the
rate at which new aspects of it open up. Thus we may obtain
great regularity of functioning, if series of problems in addi-
tion or multiplication are presented at just that rate which per-
mits their most rapid solution, avoiding on the one hand unoc-
cupied leisure between the problems, and on the other hand
insufficient time for completing them.

The cases in which one attempts to recall past events show
considerable variations, depending on the nature of the subject-
matter recalled. Verbal material which has been learned by
heart may be recalled under conditions of great stability and
regularity of attention. Events, on the other hand, may or may
not be recalled readily, and if they do not come to mind easily
we shall get more or less instability of attention, the results de-
pending on the amount of effort put forth. Such processes are
especially prone to take on emotional coloring with its tendency
to instability.

Revery, in the proper sense of the word, represents fre-
quently a high degree of free and regular play of attention,
interrupted now and then by the emotional suggestiveness of
the subject of thought. When revery passes over into drowsi-
ness, the attention becomes much relaxed and functions on a low
level of intensity, but yet as a rule with a considerable degree
of smoothness. Individuals vary vastly, however, in the nature
of the revery process.

50 /. R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

If we turn now and arrange our psychological conditions in
a hierarchy representing increasing stability of attention, we
shall obtain something of this kind : (i) The profound emo-
tions, presenting sometimes an appearance of stability, but even
here distinctly of the abnormal, paralytic type. (2) The more
violent affective conditions, certainly the disagreeable and pain-
ful experiences, less confidently the instances of extremely pleas-
urable experiences. (As has often been mentioned, it is ex-
ceedingly difficult to produce very intense pleasures under
laboratory conditions.) (3) Cases of transitory and relatively
superficial emotions (including cases in which emotional ex-
citement occurs, although the conditions are ostensibly those of
intellective processes, e. g., recall of past events) intermingled
with responses to unexpected sensory stimuli of moderate in-
tensity and brief duration. Expected sensations, if relatively
intense, also belong in this class, together with many agreeable
sensory experiences. (4) Cases of continuous sensations, the
regularity being greater in proportion to the effort made to
attend and being, perhaps, greatest with relatively weak sen-
sations. Mental application, as in the case of mathematical
calculations, when executed under the most favorable conditions
as above described. Many cases of non-emotional revery.
The revery of drowsiness differs in its type of regularity from
that manifested by application to a problem, in that one is ac-
companied by the phenomena of relaxation and the other by
those of greater organic excitation. But both are relatively
stable.1

This brings us to a consideration of our experimental ma-
terial. After a brief description of the conditions under which
we have worked, apparatus, etc., we shall proceed to show how
radically the physiological accompaniments of apparently sim-
ilar psychological conditions may vary from time to time, de-
pending on the manner in which attention functions. It should

1 It will be understood that this classification pretends to nothing but a
rough suggestiveness of the relations these different processes bear to one an-
other when attention is employed in this way for connecting them. It will
have served its purpose if it brings out a few salient relationships, such, for ex-
ample, as the community of certain sensation processes with intellective con-
ditions and that of certain other sensation processes with emotion.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 51

not be understood that we dogmatically deny any constancy of
changes aside from the form of constancy we emphasize, al-
though such constant conditions are rare. We simply maintain
that from our observations the only feature which appears es-
sentially constant under ALL PSYCHOLOGICAL conditions is the
relative stability and instability (of the dynamic type) which
these organic activities manifest in connection with the different
processes of attention. We have stated this previously, but
repeat it to avoid confusion and misunderstanding.

IV. REPORT OF EXPERIMENTS.

The experiments which give rise to this paper consist of two
very complete series of tests taken from two different subjects.
Less extended observations upon a number of other subjects
have tended to confirm our confidence in the general position
we adopt.

The curves showing circulatory changes are all capillary
pulse tracings, taken with the air plethysmograph invented by
Hallion and Comte. The air plethysmograph was adopted in
preference to the water plethysmograph, cardiograph, or any of
the methods of taking the arterial pulse directly, because of the
greater delicacy and accuracy with which it registers slight varia-
tions in the form and amplitude of the pulse curve. The plethys-
mograph was connected with a Marey tambour, writing in the
ordinary manner upon a smoked drum. After a somewhat ex-
tended series of experiments upon technique, the most advan-
tageous bodily position, adjustment of the plethysmograph,
quality of rubber and length of pointer for the tambour and
relative position of tambour and drum were adopted and pre-
served throughout the experiments.1 Careful tests upon the
accuracy of the instruments have convinced us that the curves
may be relied upon for recording the direction of changes in
the volume of the blood in the hand, in the rate of the heart-
beat, and in the form and amplitude of the capillary pulse.2

1 The conditions adopted by us agree substantially with those of Binet and
his co-workers. The fact that a few of our curves are to be read in a different
direction from the others arises from a temporary reversal of the drum, which
has no effect whatever on the curves, although we regret the lack of uniformity
in their appearance.

2 The apparatus does not record pressure changes.

52

/. R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

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ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 53

The absolute measurements of the curves of one day could not,
however, be compared with those of another, since slight
changes in the adjustment of the plethysmograph or of the tam-
bour produce slight alterations in the absolute dimensions of the
curves.1 A modified form of Bert's respirator was used for re-
cording the breathing curves.

The emotional experiences of this series of experiments
were spontaneous emotions arising from the subject's own
thoughts when left to himself. The most noticeable effects of
emotional states upon the bodily processes are the sudden,
violent changes and irregularities produced. The vaso-motor
shifts are the most evident of these changes, although marked
irregularities in the rate and amplitude of both breathing and
pulse curves occur. In Plate I., Figs. I. and II. show char-
acteristic cases of violent emotion ; Fig. III. is an example of
one of the milder emotions, embarrassment.

It is in the case of the emotions, where the agreeable and
disagreeable experiences are most intense, that we should ex-
pect to find the most marked and constant correspondence of
agreeable states with one set of physiological processes and of
disagreeable states with an antithetical set, if any such relation-
ship existed. But our curves show not the slightest evidence of
such an interconnection. None of the various factors involved,
vaso-motor level, rate and amplitude of the pulse curve, posi-
tion and emphasis of the dicrotic notch, or rate and amplitude of
the breathing, changes uniformly in one direction for agreeable
experiences, and in the opposite direction for disagreeable ex-
periences. No doubt cases occasionally occur where some
regular connection of the kind mentioned is found. But it is
occasional and not invariable, in fact probably rare. Almost all
of our emotional experiences, whether agreeable or disagreeable,
produced vaso-constrictions. This agrees with the observa-
tions at the Sorbonne and is what Mosso's work would lead
us to expect. Figs. IV. and V. (Plate II.) are examples of an
unpleasant and a pleasant anticipation respectively, experienced

1 Binet expresses a greater confidence in the comparability of curves taken
at different sittings than our experience has led us to feel. But, as the matter
is largely one of skill, he is doubtless justified in his assurance.

54

/. /?. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

a,
c

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 55

by the same subject at one sitting. Both cause violent vaso-con-
strictions. The most important exception to this rule is the fact
that with one of the subjects, laughter causes a slight, sudden
vaso-dilation (see Fig. VI., Plate II.).

At first sight the vaso-dilations due to laughter would seem
to be a confirmation of the theory that agreeable experiences are
accompanied by dilations of the peripheral blood vessels. But
there are several facts which take away the value of this evi-
dence. In the first place, the vaso-motor change seems to be a
secondary effect of the sudden spasmodic change in the breath-
ing. Of course, the spasmodic breathing of laughter is an es-
sential factor in it, and it is impossible to separate the secondary
vaso-motor changes due to breathing from those accompanying
the feeling of amusement in laughter. But the character of the

O O

vaso-dilations seems to run parallel with the breathing changes
rather than with the feeling of amusement, which does not, as
every one knows, always correspond with the heartiness of the
laughter. A hearty laugh, causing sudden, violent changes in
the breathing curve, is accompanied by the sharpest and most
marked vaso-dilation, while a smile or mild laughter causes
much slighter and more gentle changes in the vaso-motor curve.
In confirmation of this view, we have one curve from this same
subject, in which mere feeling of amusement, unaccompanied
by any of the breathing changes of laughter, produced a slow
vaso-constriction (VII., Plate II.). But more important still, as
contrary evidence, is the fact that, in the case of the other
subject, constriction and not dilation is the most marked vaso-
motor accompaniment of laughter. VIII., Plate III., shows char-
acteristic laughter curves for this subject. They display slight
initial dilations followed by marked constrictions. In this case,
too, the amount of the vaso-motor change is in general propor-
tional to the amount of the disturbance in the breathing. But
why in one subject spasmodic breathing should have vaso-dila-
tion as its concomitant, and in another subject vaso-constric-
tion, is a mystery. However, the facts show that the dilations
of laughter in this case can not be taken as confirming the
theory that vaso-dilation accompanies pleasant experiences.
The amplitude of the pulse curve shows a greater or less

/. R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

bo

3

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS.

57

58 /. R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

decrease for both subjects in almost all of the emotional experi-
ences,whether agreeable or disagreeable. There were, however,
a few cases of increase of amplitude. The great irregularity of
amplitude during emotional experiences is a more uniform factor.
(See Figs. I., II., III. and IX.) The rate of the heart-beat is
sometimes increased on an average, sometimes decreased, and
sometimes not changed at all. Increase of rate is much the
most frequent occurrence regardless of the quality of the emotion,
but all of these changes take place during each of the two great
emotional states (compare Figs. I., rate unchanged ; II., rate in-
creased; III, rate both increased and decreased ; and X., rate de-
creased). But whatever the average change of rate may be, a
more uniform and, in our opinion, more significant feature is the
spasmodic irregularities of the rate characteristic of curves cor-
responding to emotional states (compare Figs. I., II., III., IV.,
V. and X.), a feature strongly indicative of the general physio-
logical instability of emotional states for which we are contend-
ing. The changes in form and position of the dicrotic notch1 are
as erratic as the amplitude and rate changes. The notch is
sometimes raised, sometimes lowered, sometimes emphasized
and sometimes flattened, with entire disregard to the affective
tone of the emotion.

The breathing during emotional experiences shows no greater
uniformity in direction of change than the pulse. All the varia-
tions of increase and decrease of both rate and amplitude of the
breathing are found accompanying both agreeable and dis-
agreeable experiences. In the more violent emotions (see Figs.
I. and IL), and, of course, in laughter, the breathing becomes
very spasmodic and irregular as to both rate and amplitude.
The lesser emotions show smaller disturbances (see Figs. IV.,
and X.), while some of them show no change at all (see Fig.

1 The emphasis and position of the dicrotic notch vary greatly in our dif-
ferent curves. This is no doubt largely due to the fact that the dicrotic
notch varies so greatly at different times of the day and under different condi-
tions of nutrition and of activity. (See Binet and Courtier, L'Annee Psy-
chologique, 1897, p. 10. ) It may also be due in part to slight differences in the
adjustment of the instruments at various sittings. But, since our conclusions
are based upon immediately successive changes in the form of the curve only,
this is a matter of no moment in the present case.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS.

59

C/3 O

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2 <u

S.5.

x

60 /. R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

IX). The breathing, then, at least in the case of the more vio-
lent emotions, shows the same functional disturbance which has
already been shown to be characteristic of the pulse curves.

According to the psychological analysis of the states known
as emotion, sensation and intellectual application, which was
offered in the preceding section, we found that, when classified
with respect to the stability of the attentive process involved,
sensation occupies a middle range between emotion and mental
application. It was also pointed out that the term sensation
covers a great variety of experiences, some of which border
closely upon emotional states, while others approach the intel-
lective conditions. If the hypothesis is correct, that the degree
of stability of the physiological processes runs parallel with the
degree of stability in the attentive process, we ought to find in
general the curves for sensation showing less disturbance than
those for emotional states, and more than the curves for intel-
lectual application. Moreover, we ought to find the curves rep-
resenting sensation varying from curves approaching the emo-
tional type to those closely resembling the type of intellectual
application, according to the quality of the sensation as regards
the functioning of attention. This is exactly the relationship
which a study of our curves reveals.

Figs. XI. to XVI., inclusive, are typical curves of sensory
stimulation. The first three of the set are taken from one sub-
ject, and the last three from the other. A comparison of these
curves with the preceding ones of emotional experiences and
with the succeeding curves of mental application (Figs. XXVI.
to XXXI. ) will show that the vaso-motor shifts for sensory stimuli
are not so great as those for emotional experiences, but are much
greater than those in the mental application curves. The am-
plitude and rate are less spasmodic and irregular than those for
emotional states, but not nearly so uniform and even as the rates
and amplitudes of the curves of mental application. The am-
plitude and rate changes which occur are often equal in amount
to those of emotional experiences, but they are less jerky and
irregular. They approach more nearly the even, progressive
changes of mental application.

But within the large class of psychic states known as sensa-

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS.

61

62 j. R. AN G ELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

tion, for which the statements in the preceding paragraph are
true in general, we find the wide variations in the accompany-
ing bodily processes which our psychological analysis has led
us to expect. Various sensory stimuli produce experiences of
widely different intensities. A hot object touching the skin
produces a much more intense experience than a colored light
impinging on the retina, and, therefore, makes a much more
imperative demand for attention. The shift from the preceding
state to the new experience is much more sudden and violent
in the case of the hot stimulus, and involves a rudimentary
shock, which is entirely lacking in the color stimulation. The
different bodily processes accompanying these two sensations are
shown in Figs. XVII. and XVIII. The sudden violent changes
in vaso-motor level accompanying the heat stimulus are much
like those of the emotional experiences, while the slight gentle
fluctuations of the color experience approach the mental appli-
cation curves.

But even the same kind of sensory stimulus occasions states
which differ greatly in intensity at various times, according
to the actual physical intensity of the stimulus, the nervous
irritability of the subject at the moment when the stim-
ulus occurs, and the element of surprise involved. A loud
noise, for instance, produces a much greater shock, and a
correspondingly greater disturbance in the bodily processes,
when it is unexpected than it does when the subject is prepared
for it. Fig. XV. shows the effects of an unexpected noise. Fig.
XIX. is a curve for noise taken at the same sitting, with the sole
difference that in Fig. XIX. the noise was expected. The shock
involved in the unexpected noise made the experience take on
an emotional tone, which is reflected in the spasmodic change
of vaso-motor level and amplitude, while the expected noise
produces only a slight irregularity in the curve. When both
noises are unexpected, a loud noise produces a much more
violent shift of attention than a slight one. Fig. XII. is a char-
acteristic curve for a loud noise, while Fig. XX. shows the effect
of a slight noise upon the same subject. The contrast is much the
same as that between the expected noise and the unexpected one.
Furthermore, a stimulus which occurs while the subject is

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS.

W

h
<

PL!

64

/. R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

PLATE VIII.

XXXIV., Capsicum; XXXV., Knocking; XXXVI., Cross i, Camphor; Cross 2, Rub-
ber Cement; XXXVII., Addition.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 65

nervously excited produces a muc hmore disturbing effect, and
makes the readjustment of attention a much more difficult mat-
ter, than the same stimulus would if the subject were calm.
Fig. XI. is the curve of a cold stimulus which occurred during
a state of emotional excitement. Fig. XXI. is also the curve of
a cold stimulus, given at the same sitting, but at a time when the
subject was calm. The difference in the effect of the two
stimuli is entirely disproportionate to the slight difference there
may have been between the absolute intensities of the two.

The breathing luring sensory stimulations undergoes irregu-
lar changes in rate and amplitude, more or less analogous to
those of the pulse. An experience intense enough to cause a
profound change in one usually shows itself in the other also
(see Fig. XL). When the experience is less intense it some-
times produces an effect on the pulse curve, but none on the
breathing, although the reverse seldom happens. On the
whole, the breathing in cases of sensory stimulations is charac-
terized by slight spasmodic irregularities, usually of short dura-
tion (Figs. XL, XII. , XIII. , XIV., XXV.). With the weaker
and less effective stimuli these are often lacking, and some-
times fail even with the more intense experiences (see Fig.
XVII. ). As compared with emotional states, the disturbances
of the breathing during sensory stimulation are of less frequent
occurrence and of briefer duration.

The search for uniformity in classes or kinds of sensory
stimuli is as fruitless as it proved to be in the emotional states.
An overwhelming majority of sensory stimuli of all kinds,
whether agreeable or disagreeable, caused vaso-constrictions.
The few cases of pronounced vaso-dilation do not correspond
to the distinctly pleasant stimuli. The most distinctly pleasur-
able stimulus used, harmony, caused constrictions on all of the
few occasions when it was given. Unpleasant odors, such as
camphor and capsicum, caused dilations on a few occasions.
Figs. XXII. and XXIII. are the curves for two disagreeable
odors, both capsicum, given within a few minutes of each
other to the same subject. As the curves show, one caused a
slight dilation and the other a somewhat greater constriction.

The amplitude changes of the pulse curve show no greater

66 /. R. AN CELL AND H. B. THOMPSON.

constancy in the direction of change for different kinds of stim-
uli than does the vaso-motor level. There is a great preponder-
ance of decreases of amplitude over increases for sensory
stimuli as a whole, but here again there seems to be no particu-
lar significance in the direction of the change for different ex-
periences. For instance, disagreeable odors cause sometimes
increase and sometimes decrease of amplitude (see Figs. XXII.
and XXIII.) . Cold is sometimes accompanied by a decrease of
amplitude (Figs. XL and XIV.) and sometimes by increase (Fig.
XXI. ) . The relatively few cases of harmony among our tests all
produced an increase of the amplitude of the pulse curve, a fact
which suggests increase of amplitude as a correlate of pleasant
experiences, until we notice that discords have the same effect.

The rate changes of the heart-beat during sensory stimula-
tions are about equally divided between increases and decreases.
Cold, noise, odors — in fact, all the stimuli of which we have any
considerable number of tests — cause sometimes one and some-
times the other in a manner which, on present data, is entirely
erratic. The cold stimulation shown in Fig. XIV. causes a slight
temporary decrease of the pulse rate, while that of Fig. XI.
is accompanied by a progressive increase. Figs. XXIV. and
XXV. show the curves for two camphor stimulations, the first of
which causes an increase of pulse rate and the second a decrease.

The dicrotic notch changes its emphasis and its position
with reference to the apex of the pulse curve with as little re-
gard to the nature of the stimulus as is shown by the other fac-
tors. With one subject the dicrotic, when it suffers any change
at all, undergoes an almost uniform flattening during sensory
stimuli of all kinds. With the other subject it is emphasized
almost as often as it is flattened. The position of the dicrotic
remains unchanged during the great majority of sensory stimuli
for both subjects. When it is raised or lowered it happens ap-
parently without reference to the nature of the stimulus.

The mental application tests used were chiefly simple arith-
metical problems given as fast as the subject could perform them.
In a few cases the memorizing of a series of nonsense syllables
was employed. The curves of mental application are character-
ized by the slight amount of the vaso-motor changes involved, and

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 67

by the even progression in which changes in rate and amplitude
take place, when they occur at all. The vaso-motor level
usually shows slight fluctuations, although they are always less
than the fluctuations of revery for the same day. Frequently the
changes are so slight as to be scarcely noticeable (Figs. XXVI.,
XXVII. and XXVIII.). The respiratory rhythms disappear.

The breathing is more regular in most cases, although there
are some exceptions. In memorizing nonsense syllables the
breathing curve is broken up by a tendency to pronounce the
syllables. In some cases of mental application, such as Fig.
XXXVII. there are occasional irregularities. The fact that the
breathing is under voluntary control, and that it is immediately
affected by any tendency to use motor images of words, would
lead us to expect that the uniformities would be less evident in
that case than in the case of the purely reflex vaso-motor
phenomena. As compared with emotional experiences and
with sensory stimulations, and even with revery, the bodily pro-
cesses accompanying mental application are characterized by
greater stability and regularity. If our psychological analysis is
correct, mental application is a state in which the attentive pro-
cess is most stable, runs most smoothly and offers greatest
resistance to change. Here, again, the correspondence be-
tween the degree of stability of the attentive process and the
degree of stability of the accompanying bodily processes holds.

But as in the former cases, so in mental application, the di-
rection of the various changes which do occur, offers no basis
of classification which articulates with the psychological
classification, either into intellective as opposed to affective
states, or into agreeable as opposed to disagreeable states.
The subjects found no distinctly affective tone in the vari-
ous mental application tests used. Since no psychological
classification on the basis of agreeable and disagreeable is
possible in this case, it would be absurd to intrepret the vaso-
dilations and constrictions as having such a significance. If
the direction of the changes characterized intellective states as
opposed to affective states we ought, of course, to expect to find
some uniformity in the direction of change of mental application
tests as a whole. But this is entirely lacking. In almost half

68 /. R. ANGELL AND H. B. THOMPSON,

of the mental application tests the vaso-motor level shows both
dilations and constrictions within a single test (Figs. XXVI.,
XXVII. and XXVIII.) . Where the vaso-motor level changes in
only one direction it seems to be an even chance whether it shall
be a dilation or a constriction. Frequently there is no change of
level. Fig. XXIX. illustrates a mental application test where
there is only constriction and Fig. XXXVII. one where there is
only dilation.

The amplitude of the pulse curve in mental application
shows a greater tendency to decrease than to increase. In all
of the few tests made, which exceeded two minutes in time,
there was a marked decrease of amplitude at the end, even when
there was an increase at the beginning. But among the tests
of shorter duration there were several where the amplitude in-
creased without any subsequent decrease. The pulse rate of
mental application shows a greater tendency to increase than
to decrease, but the cases of decrease of rate, although less nu-
merous than those of increase, are frequent.1 But, whatever
the direction of the change, it takes place slowly and gradually.
(See Fig. XXXVII. for increase of pulse rate and Fig. XXXI.
for decrease of rate.)

The rate and amplitude of the breathing curves change in
contrary directions during mental application in quite as erratic
a manner as the pulse curves.2 One subject shows an almost
uniform increase of breathing rate, while the other has a few
more cases of decrease than of increase. With both subjects
the amplitude is more often decreased than increased, but there
are frequent cases of increase. (See Fig. XXVII. for increase
of breathing amplitude and Fig. XXXVII. for decrease.)

As a summary of the results of these experiments, we can offer
nothing better than a series of tests illustrating each of the differ-
ent types of processes from curves obtained at a single sitting of
about an hour's duration. There is first the emotional experi-
ence of the sudden thought of a friend's illness (Fig. XXXII.),

1 Most investigators report much greater constancy in the cases of increase
of rate in the heart under these conditions. Certainly it is the most usual oc-
currence.

2MacDougall and the French writers report increase in rate and decrease
in amplitude as constant. Delabarre's observations suggest a considerable dif-
ference in individuals in this respect.

ORGANIC PROCESSES AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 69

with its marked fall in vaso-motor level and its irregularity in
all the features of pulse and breathing curves. Next comes the
startling noise (Fig. XXXIII.), which involves as sudden and
violent a shift of attention as the emotion and produces a very
similar curve. Next in order is a disagreeable and annoying
odor — capsicum (Fig. XXXIV.). In this case the vaso-motor
fall is less, though still very evident, and irregularities in ampli-
tude and rate are decreased. The slight disturbance caused by
an unexpected knock at the laboratory door, makes still less of
a fall in vaso-motor level, but yet shows other irregularities (Fig.
XXXV.). The odors of camphor and rubber cement, which
were not at all annoying unless strong, produce no marked
change in the curve (Fig. XXXVI.) . The slight shifts of vaso-
motor level, and slight irregularities of rate and amplitude,
resemble closely those of the preceding state of revery. No
strong demand for attention is made by them. Finally, mental
application (Fig. XXXVII.) produces a steady strain of atten-
tion, which is accompanied by a curve practically devoid of
fluctuations in vaso-motor level, with an amplitude which is
almost constant, and a slowly, progressively increasing rate.

All the processes with which we have been dealing are cases
of readjustment of an organism to its environment. Attention
is always occupied with the point in consciousness at which the
readjustment is taking place. If the process of readjustment
goes smoothly and evenly, we have a steady strain of attention
— an equilibrated motion in one direction. The performance
of mental calculation is a typical case of this sort of attention.
But often the readjustment is more difficult. Factors are intro-
duced which at first refuse to be reconciled with the rest of the
conscious content. The attentive equilibrium is upset, and there
are violent shifts back and forth as it seeks to recover itself.
These are the cases of violent emotion. Between these two ex-
tremes comes every shade of difficulty in the readjustment, and
of consequent intensity in emotional tone. We have attempted
to show in the preceding paper that the readjustment of organ-
ism to environment involves a maintenance of the equilibrium
of the bodily processes, which runs parallel with the mainte-
nance of the attentive equilibrium, and is an essential part of the
readjustment of the psychophysical organism.

PROFESSOR MULLER'S THEORY OF THE
LIGHT-SENSE.1

BY CHRISTINE LADD FRANKLIN.

Professor Whitman, in his address as Vice-President of the
Section of Physics, has given an admirable account of the
present state of discussion upon the color-sense, as far as it re-
gards the theories of Helmholtz and of Hering, and he has also
devoted much time — more, perhaps, than they deserve ! — to the
modifications of those theories which have been made by Eb-
binghaus and v. Kries. He has, very politely, refrained from
anticipating what I have to say by giving an account of the sub-
ject of this paper, the theory of Professor G. E. Miiller, a
theory which, in my opinion, deserves to be put quite in the front
rank of the various attempts that have been made to account for
the color-process of the retina. I regret very much that this
paper of Professor Whitman's was given before the physicists
at an hour when it could not be listened to by the members of
this Section, for it contained a very clear account of the recently
discovered facts of color-vision, a knowledge of which, on your
part, would perhaps have lent something more of interest to
my discussion of the theory of Professor Muller.

This theory is set forth in four papers which have been
printed in 1896 and 1897 in the Zeitschrift fur Psychologic und
Physiologic der Sinnesorgane j these papers cover some two
hundred and fifty large pages, and form therefore practically a
book on the subject. The appearance of this volume, as it may
properly be called, marks a real epoch in the long discussion
that has been going on in the effort to reduce to order and sys-
tem the phenomena of the sensation of light. Its author has
shown a remarkable mastery of the immense mass of facts which
have a bearing upon the case, and a no less remarkable keenness

JRead before the Section of Anthropology, A. A. A. S., August, 1898.
70

MULLERS THEORY OF THE LIGHT-SENSE. 7 1

of logic in attributing to them their proper weight in the discus-
sion of theoretical considerations. Professor Miiller won his
spurs, as a young man, by his very acute treatment of the fun-
damental problems of psycho-physics ; his reasoning processes
are of a far more rigid character than those which are usually
consecrated to the subject of color-vision. His theory presents
great points of superiority over the Hering theory, and it is by
far the best attempt that has yet been made to construct a theory-
based upon the assumption of antagonistic retinal processes for
the colors and for white and black.

Professor Miiller himself modestly refers to his theory, in
many places, as merely a modification of the theory of Hering ;
at other times he speaks of it plainly as die hier vertretene
Theorie, in distinction from that of Hering. There is no ques-
tion that the latter designation is the correct one. When a
theory has some points in common with another it is difficult to
know just where to draw the line between regarding it as the
same and regarding it as different — it is impossible to lay down
any general rule that shall cover such cases. In regard to the
extraordinary fact of color vision — so totally unlike anything
that happens in sound or in any other quality of sensation — that
when certain two colors, which are neither particularly alike
nor particularly unlike, as far as one can tell beforehand, are
seen together, they both absolutely disappear from conscious-
ness, that their place is taken by a plain undifferentiated gray —
in regard to this fact1 there are, in two different respects, two dif-
ferent lines of explanation. In the first place, this extraordinary
fact of disappearing color-pairs may be a matter of physiology
or it may be a matter of psychology, — that is, it may be (in the
latter case) that it is the judgment, or rather the imagination,
which causes us to lose all sense of color in the sensation of
white, or it may be, on the other hand, that the loss takes place
in some lower stratum of the passage from external light to the

1 It is an act of discourtesy to the adherents of one or the other of the two
great schools of color-theorists to call such color-pairs as this either antago-
nistic or complementary colors, for either term commits us at once, of course, to
an opinion as to the intrinsic nature of the processes which call them forth. The
difficulty can be avoided if we refer to such a pair of colors as a disappearing
color-pair.

72 C. LADD FRANKLIN.

final sensation — for instance, in the photo-chemical process,
whatever it may be, of the retina. In each of these two cases
the loss of color may be of the nature of a composition into a
resultant gray, or it may be of the nature of an antagonism, and
a suppression of color, with the re-emergence of a gray which
was present all the time in a state of abeyance or of conceal-
ment.1 The only psychical theory that has been proposed hith-
erto is the Young-Helmholtz theory ; but there might equally
well be a psychical antagonistic theory, in which, by the action
of the mind, the colors of a color-pair, upon proper occasion, de-
stroyed each other. This theory would have quite as much
reason in its favor as the psychical complementary theory of
Helmholtz, and it is merely by an oversight, no doubt, that it
has not yet been seriously proposed.

If the cause of the disappearance of color is physiological,
it may, as I have said, be either of the nature of a re-composition
of the several constituents of white, or of the nature of an antago-
nism, and a suppression of color. Now the theory of Miiller be-
longs to the same one of the four possible classes of theories as
that of Hering — it is physiological and antagonistic. But that
is not enough to make it the same theory. If the assumption
of four antagonistic colors and a separate process for black and
white were sufficient to characterize a theory, then the theory of
Hering would not belong to Hering, for all that was maintained
by Mach for ten years before the appearance of Hering's
first paper on color-theory. What is distinctive of the Hering
theory is the assumption of assimilation and dissimilation as the
bases of the antagonistic sensation-pairs. For this Professor
Miiller substitutes the conception of * reversible chemical ac-
tion,' and he shows conclusively the utter inadequacy of the
processes of assimilation and dissimilation to play the part re-
quired of them. (Aside from all other difficulties, they are not
even antagonistic processes ; dissimilation does not inhibit as-
similation, but, on the contrary, the more rapidly any tissue is
being used up, the more quickly does nature hasten to restore

1 Thus there are four possible classes of color-theory — the psychical and the
physiological compository theories (or complementary theories) and the psy-
chical and the physiological antagonistic theories.

MULLENS THEORY OF THE LIGHT-SENSE. 73

it.) This difference in the character of the antagonism con-
cerned is very fundamental — so much so that in the one case
(that of the assimilation and dissimilation of Hering) it is quite
impossible to accept the theory based upon it, while the other
theory (that of Professor Miiller) is not to be so lightly brushed
aside, but, on the contrary, gives room for serious discussion. I
have, therefore, no hesitation in designating the theory of Pro-
fessor Miiller as a new theory, although it is a theory belonging,
like the theory of Hering, to the class of physiological (instead
of psychical) theories, and to that of antagonistic (instead of
complementary) theories.

Professor Miiller's paper begins with an acute discussion of
the doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism. He sets forth th'e
several axioms, five in number, into which that doctrine may
be resolved. He shows that Hering has violated these princi-
ples in a fundamental manner, in assuming that the quality of
a sensation of gray depends only upon the -proportion of black
and white which enter into it, while their absolute amounts may
vary to any extent without affecting sensation. This palpable
defect in the theory of Hering is removed by Miiller by the as-
sumption that the effect of light upon the black-white photo-
chemical substance is such that whenever more white process
goes on, by just so much there is less of the black process, and
hence that a given -proportion does not, as matter of fact, occur
with different absolute amounts of the two elements which make
it up ; if it did, we should see a given quality of gray in vari-
ous different degrees of intensity ', what is not the case.

Another application of the principles of psycho-physical
parallelism is made by Professor Miiller to determine what he
calls a psychic quality- series. Sensation is subject to ceaseless
change ; we assume it as self-evident that we are capable of dis-
tinguishing whether a sensation is varying in a constant direc-
tion, or not; if, for instance, we are making a purple light out
of a physical mixture of red and blue, we shall assume that we
can distinguish between the several cases, whether the operator
is adding always more and more blue to the mixture, whether
he suddenly begins to add more red, or more white, or more
black ; if the sensation is growing steadily more and more like

74 C. LADD FRANKLIN.

a distinct other sensation, the series shall be called a series which
varies in a constant direction ; in this case we are required to
assume that the underlying physiological process which im-
mediately precedes consciousness is also in some sense a series
which varies in a constant direction ; this may be a constant
change in quality (a change in a vibration period, for instance),
or it may be a constant change in the relative intensity of the
two elements of a mixture. Professor Muller shows, by an
exhaustive piece of reasoning, that in the case of the color
series there is every reason to believe that the latter is the
case, that the physiological process is a varying mixture of
two processes. This is, in fact, the only supposition that is
possible if the physiological process is of the nature of a
chemical change (for a chemical change is not capable of a
very large number of different qualities) ; and that it is of the
nature of a chemical change there seems to be very little rea-
son to doubt. Nothing else would be at all possible except an
electrical process, and that, if it took place, would be due to a
preceding chemical effect; so it is simpler, in the absence of
reasons to the contrary, to assume a chemical effect only.

The question which next arises is this, — and it is a very im-
portant one. Does the whole gamut (a circular gamut) of satu-
rated color-tones correspond to one or to more than one, and if to
more than one, then to how many -psychic quality series^ in the
above sense of the term ? It is plain that there are four such
series in the whole congeries of color-tones. The end mem-
bers of the series are the fundamental colors, red, yellow, green
and blue. Four fundamental color-tones have been assumed
before, but many psychologists have objected to the grounds
upon which both Mach and Hering urged the claims of these
four colors to their exceptional position. They have said that
in looking at an orange color, for example, it is impossible to
extract from it the red and yellow of which it is composed, in
the same way in which one can hear in a chord its separate
notes ; and violet does not * remind ' us, they say, of red and
blue any more than red and blue remind us of violet. Pro-
fessor Muller concedes that when we look at the colors singly
they appear all to be of equal dignity. By simply looking at a

MULLERS THEORY OF THE LIGHT-SENSE. 75

given color, we cannot tell whether it is a mixture or more or
less nearly an elementary sensation. The colors must be ar-
ranged in quality-series ; then the difference between the end
members and the intermediate members of these series becomes
distinct. Are a given set of quality changes proceeding in a
constant direction or not? The colors of the spectrum are not
well adapted for obtaining the answer to this question — they
differ too much in brightness. It is better to take a complete
series of papers, or, better still, of gelatine sheets, which can have
their brightness regulated by putting different grays behind them.
Then, if one looks on dispassionately, one cannot help saying
to oneself : When I pass from red through orange to yellow
the change in the quality of the sensation proceeds constantly
in the same direction ; so when I pass from yellow through
olive to green. These are, in the above sense of the term,
psychic quality series. But when I pass from orange to yellow
and from yellow to olive, or from olive to green and from green
to blue-green, the second part of the change is not in the same
direction as the first — these color-sensations are not members of
one and the same quality series. For a person who cannot per-
ceive the difference that is here insisted upon, there is indeed
nothing to be done ; but to the unprejudiced observation it may
be confidently predicted that, if we put in say five, or seven,
color-tones between purple and orange, through the reds, and
also between red and yellow, through the various tones of
orange, the difference in character of the two series will * spring
into the eyes ' with perfect distinctness.

All Professor Miiller's discussion of this subject, of which I
can give only a brief indication here, I regard as excellent, and
I adopt it bodily as a firm substratum for my own theory. But,
unfortunately, it does not fit Professor Miiller's theory well
at all. In order that the four colors which a careful inspection
of our sensations tell us are fundamental may also be antagonistic
(or, in the phrase of the other theory, complementary} , it is
necessary to manipulate those colors a little. The blue and the
yellow which consciousness tells us are end-members of psychic
series are, it is true, also complementary ; but green (in any
ordinary signification of the word) is not complementary to red

76 C. LADD FRANKLIN.

at all. In order to make things fit, Hering is obliged to assume
as green a color which the unbiased eye would pronounce to be
a distinct blue-green. (As confusion is constantly arising from
the fact that the simple word green has two totally different sig-
nifications, according as one is speaking in the language of
Hering or of Helmholtz, I propose to modify the spelling of
that green which is in reality a blue-green, and to write it grehn ,
meaning by this word the green of Hering. It is then grehn
and not green which is the complementary color to red.) Now,
this beautiful structure of the psychic quality series goes all to
pieces as soon as we attempt to fit the Muller-Hering theory to
it ; the grehn which is the complementary or antagonistic color
to red is not an end-member of a psychic quality series, but it
is a member which comes very distinctly in the middle of such
a series. While then this whole discussion of Miiller's gives
my theory a firm standing-ground against those psychologists
who profess not to be able to see that orange is a mixture, it
works immediate destruction to the theories of Muller and of
Hering.

The central idea of the theory of Professor Muller is, as I
have said, that of a reversible chemical action. (Assimilation
and dissimilation are offiosite chemical actions, in a sense, but
they are not reversible — the products of dissimilation are not re-
formed into the original tissue.) Professor Muller places at the
head of his presentation of his theory this passage from the
Theoretical Chemistry of Nernst : * * We were formerly of the
opinion that the reversible reactions belonged to the exceptions,
or that it was necessary to distinguish between two different
classes of reactions, the reversible and the not-reversible. But
we know now that a sharp limit of that kind is wholly non-
existent ; there can be no doubt that, upon proper arrange-
ment of the experiment, every reaction can be caused to
proceed now in one and now in the other direction — that is,
that every reaction is, in principle, reversible." This very
modern idea of the chemist furnishes the basis for Professor
Miiller's conception of the antagonism between the funda-
mental retinal processes, and he refers here not only to the
color-pairs, red-grehn and blue-yellow, but also to the connected

MULLEK'S TPIEORY OF THE LIGHT-SENSE. 77

pair of sensations, black and white : that is, he conceives that
the * proper arrangement of the experiment,' which Nernst says
is the only condition necessary to make chemical reactions re-
versible, has been secured for the vertebrate retina. Confining
himself at first to the black-white pair of sensations, in order to
facilitate speaking about them, he goes on to preciser his con-
ception of the retinal chemical process at the base of them in
these terms. A white-reaction, expressed in quite general terms,
consists in this : that a molecules of a substance A, ft molecules
of a substance B, f molecules of a substance C, etc., come to-
gether in order to form a! molecules of a substance A', ft mole-
cules of a substance B' ', f molecules of a substance O, and so
forth. And then a black-reaction consists in o.' molecules of A1 ',
ft' molecules of Bj etc., returning to their original places so as
to form again a molecules of the substance^, ft molecules of B ',
etc. This chemical reaction may be expressed in this form :

aA -f ftB -f . . . g=p a! A' + ft'B' + etc. (i)

If this is read from left to right it is a white-reaction ; if it is read
from right to left it is a black-reaction.

Nothing, of course, is to be said as to the actual degree of
complexity of these reactions, that is, as to the number of the
substances, on the right hand and on the left, which are involved
in them ; they may be numerous, or they may be one only. In
any case the total amount of the substances A, B, C, etc.
constitutes the white-material which is present, and the amount
of the substances A, B', C', etc. constitutes the black-material
which is present ; the separate substances, A, B, ... A, B1 ^ . . .
are the components of the black and of the white material re-
spectively. For a chemically homogeneous portion of that layer
of the retina which is sensitive to light, the intensity of the white
process will be equal to the number of white reactions which take
place in unit volume of the retinal substance during an element
of time. The law of mass action, which plays an important
role in his theory, will then be exhibited in this form :

K aa Wcv . . . dt

~

78 C. LADD FRANKLIN.

where 0, 3, c, . . . are the masses of the photo-chemical sub-
stances (expressed in gram-molecules) a, /?, f, . . . are the
numbers of these present in a given portion of the substance,
v is the volume of that substance, and ./Tis a coefficient, depend-
ing upon the temperature and other factors, which may be called
the specific velocity-coefficient of the white-process. We have
a similar expression for the intensity of the black-process. But
as there is no occasion for concerning ourselves with the separate
components of the black and the white material, we may write
these equations

Iw = KwMwdt,

/ = Ks M8 dt,

with similar expressions for the two pairs of color-processes.
This is simply the mathematical expression of the fact that the
intensity of any photo-chemical process in the retina is propor-
tional to the amount which is present of the material of the re-
action in question. Stated in this way, it does not seem to be a
proposition which any one need hesitate to admit.

It will be seen that the theory of Professor Miiller, in making
use of the ideas of the reversible chemical -process and of the
effect of mass-action , is a theory of the very highest fashion.
Let us see in detail how he overcomes the discrepancies which
exist in the theory of Hering. A chief objection to the view of
Hering, for those who have been interested in its theoretical as-
pect, is the inconsistency which meets us at the very beginning ;
why should black and white be regarded as an antagonistic
sensation-pair, when they do not destroy each other, but give
us, on the contrary, the whole series of grays? Professor
Miiller, in his general rectification of Hering's theory, has de-
vised an ingenious means of meeting this difficulty. He
assumes that the black and white chemical processes do exactly
neutralize each other when they take place in equal amounts in
the retina, but that there is a continuous black-white excitation
going on in the cortex (unaccompanied by any color-excitation) ,
that that is the cause of the so-called self-light of the retina —
the faint gray sensation which we are never free from though
the eyes are closed — and that any gray excitation sent up

MULLENS THEORY OF THE LIGHT-SENSE. 79

from the retina is added to or subtracted from this endog-
enous cortical excitation, corresponding to an antagonistic
pair of colors, according as the black or the white predominates
in it. If the black and white processes are equal in amount, no
additional excitation of the brain is sent up from the retina, and
the self-light is the only sensation experienced. But this is to
introduce a fresh difficulty as serious as the one which it is at-
tempted to remove. Why should not the yellow-blue substance
of the cortex be subject to a continuous excitation as well as the
black-white substance? If the two pairs of chemical processes
must be so unlike in the end, why take the trouble to make them
so like in the beginning? The situation is this : for sensation,
black and white constitute a psychic-quality series (in the above
defined sense of the term), while yellow and blue do not ; as re-
gards the assumed chemical -processes^ the one for the yellow-
blue series is finally antagonistic in the retina, while the one for
the black-white series must have a distinct and additional pro-
cess which can be superimposed upon it in the cortex. Is it not
much simpler to admit once for all that black and white do not
stand to each other in the same relation as yellow and blue (nor
as red and grehn) ? Why force them into an unnatural resem-
blance which they must immediately afterwards be despoiled of?
Why introduce a wholly unnecessary difficulty into a theory
merely for the sake of showing with what ingenuity it can after-
wards be done away with? This whole construction of chemi-
cal processes is at best purely an imaginary one ; absolutely the
only virtue that it can have is the virtue of consistency. The
idea of black and white occupying the same place, in a proposed
system of explanations, with a disappearing color-pair is, von
vorn herein, most causeless and most, unfortunate, and no
amount of bolstering up by subsidiary hypotheses can make it
anything else. Professor Miiller's real ground for executing
this tour de force is that he conceives it to be demanded by the
phenomena of constrast, successive and simultaneous. The
fact that unless black and white are regarded as a perfectly con-
gruent sensation-pair with yellow and blue (and red and grehn),
the explanations of contrast and of after-image do not run
exactly part passu for colored and for colorless sensations, is

So C. LADD FRANKLIN.

regarded by Miiller as a fatal objection to every theory except
his own and that of Hering. As matter of fact, Helmholtz gave
too much importance to the psychical elements involved in con-
trast, and we are all now convinced that the correct explanation
is to be looked for along physiological lines — a conviction which
we owe to Professor Hering and one for which our gratitude is
due him. But every explanation of contrast which can be given
in the language of Hering and of Miiller can be given just as
consistently in the language of any of the complementary color
theories ; it is true that it will read a little differently according
as the contrast to be explained is one of colored or of uncolored
surfaces, but that, instead of being a defect, is altogether a point
of merit ; since the grays do not constitute a series of the same
nature as the mixtures of yellow with blue (or of red with grehn) ,
it is a feature of extreme ineptitude when their contrast-effects
are explained in exactly the same language.

An admirable chapter in Professor Miiller's work is his dis-
cussion of the visual purple, as it was unfortunately named,
since it is now known pretty positively that it is not a chemical
basis for vision any more than it is -purple in color, in the Eng-
lish meaning of that term. Professor Miiller adopts my as-
sumption that the rod-pigment ( as I prefer to name it) is a
secondary means for securing adaptation to a faint light, and
not directly a vision-producing substance at all ; I suppose
that it acts by absorbing (for the purpose of re-enforcing faint-
light vision) a large amount of the light which usually passes
entirely through the transparent rods and cones to be lost in
the choroid coat, and Professor Miiller takes it as acting as a
sensibilisator, in the photographer's sense of the term. In Pro-
fessor Miiller's assumption, its color has no significance. In
mine it is of great importance ; it is adapted to aiding vision in
the gloomy depths of forests, because green light is the light
which it absorbs ; and fishes, which alone, of all vetebrates, have
a rod-pigment of a distinctly different color, are exactly fitted
for utilizing the last rays of the light which penetrates deep into
the water of the sea. v. Kries opposes this view, and he is led
thereby into countless inconsistences and contradictions ( espe-
cially in regard to the gray-vision of the periphery of the normal

MULLERS THEORY OF THE LIGHT-SENSE. 8 1

eye ). He goes so far as to regard the rods as functionless
whenever they lack their purple coloring substance.1

The progress of our knowledge of color-blindness forms one
of the interesting chapters in the history of science. The
Young-Helmholtz theory of three (instead of four) fundamental
colors having been taken as fact instead of theory, the conclu-
sion was jumped at that a defect in color-vision must consist in
the absence of some one or more of these three colors, and the
common forms of the defect were described as red-blindness
and as green-blindness. By a very brilliant piece of reason-
ing, it was discovered, about 1850, by William Pole, F.R.S.
(professor of Engineering in University College, London, and
author of the well-known work on whist), who is himself color-
blind, that as matter of fact the sensations experienced in both
cases are blue and yellow^ instead of blue and red or blue and
green. This discovery did not awaken as much interest as it
ought to have done, and the reasoning by which it is established,
cogent as it is, did not prove convincing to all ; Sir John Her-
schel said, " What the sensations of the color-blind really are
we shall never know with certainty." It happened not to occur
to him that there was a possibility of some individual being color-
blind in one eye only. It was only after the true state of the
case had been put wholly beyond question by several cases of
monocular color-blindness that it became matter of common
knowledge — in fact, it continues to be most unaccountably ig-
nored in England to the present day. This fact, that the senses
for red and for green are lost together and that the color-

1 It has lately been affirmed by Sherman and others that there is a certain
amount of change in the relative brightness of the different portions of the spec-
trum for the rodless regions of the retina when the light is diminished — that is,
that the Purkinje phenomenon is not wholly wanting there — an amount so small
however, that it has been denied to exist by other observers. This would be a fact
very damaging to the assigning of the adaptation -function to the visual purple, if
it could not be explained. It can, however, be explained very easily. Kiihne,
who is still the chief authority on changes in the photo-chemical substancesof the
retina, expressly states that the yellow coloring matter of the macula is subject
to a slight change in quantity with a changing intensity of the illumination; the
change in relative value of the blue sensation which is affirmed to exist by Sher-
man is, therefore, just what is needed to parallel this physiological variation in
the amount of a colored substance which absorbs blue light.

82 C. LADD FRANKLIN.

vision which persists in these cases is vision for blue and yellow,
was taken, and very properly, as working immensely to the good
of the theory of Hering. But immediately it appeared that the
situation was not so simple as it had seemed to be ; while the
warm end of the spectrum is seen by all alike as yellow, never-
theless there are still two classes of these defectives as regards
ivhat -part of the warm end of the spectrum is seen to be of the
brightest yellow ; and these classes are totally distinct — there
are no intermediate cases. It is as if red-vision had fallen out
and green-vision had been turned into yellow-vision for the
one sort ; and for the other sort it is as if green-vision had fallen
out and yellow-vision had taken the place of red-vision. Hering
denied for a long time that there is anything in this difference,
more than can be explained by individual differences in the
yellow coloring matter of the macula. But Miiller admits the
fact, and endeavors to account for it. The red light of the
spectrum, he assumes, besides its effect on the red-green sub-
stance, may have also an effect on the yellow-blue substance,
and it may even have two such effects — it may act upon it in
the first place directly, by producing out of the decomposition
of the red-green substance some one or more of the constituents
of the yellow material (with which, in the original form of the
hypothesis, red light had nothing to do). The first type of the
red-green blind — those formerly called red-blind — are totally
lacking in the red-green substance ; these are the typical yel-
low-blue visioned. But the second type — those formerly called
green-blind — see yellow in the place of both red and green for
some totally different reason — either because the nervous fibres
which conduct the retinal excitation are not of the normal con-
stitution, or because some still other constituent which is usually
found already prepared in the retina is now absent. In this
fashion it will be seen that the so-called red-blind lack all the
indirect effect of the light of the spectrum upon the yellow-blue
substance, while that indirect effect still persists for the green-
blind. It is plain that this is an explanation which is compli-
cated and far-fetched in the extreme.

The value of a theory which is offered as explanation of
any series of connected facts can be determined only by the

MULLERS THEORY OF THE LIGHT-SENSE. 83

method of comparison with the other theories which it is pro-
posed that it should replace. Any theory is better than no
theory, and the theories of Newton, Young, Helmholtz and
Hering have filled a useful function in giving direction to the
immense amount of work which has been expended upon this
subject in laboratories. But as soon as theories are thought out
which offer a more probable and a more natural conception as
to the nature of the unattainable link between external light and
conscious light-sensation, then the usefulness of the provisional
theories is at an end. It has been said, within a few years, by
the Vice-President of this Section, who is also one of the editors
of the PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, that the best theories now in the
field are the theory of Bonders, that of Wundt and my own ;
in this opinion I heartily concur ! In all of these theories the
attempt (which is fore- doomed to failure) to represent the black-
white series as of the same nature as a self-destroying color-
pair, although it is plainly a non-self-destroying pair of sensa-
tions, is given up. Black is regarded as a sensation which is
connected with white not differently from the way in which it
is connected with blue or with green, or that in which blue and
green are connected with each other. By this means the in-
genuity which is required to explain the fact that black and
white do not destroy each other is rendered unnecessary — there
is no reason why they should destroy each other, for they are
in no sense antagonistic. These three theories are all of the
physiological type : the cause of the mutual destruction of a
color-pair is in the retina and not in the imagination. Two of
them are of the component type ; the other (that of Wundt) is
of the antagonistic type. Wundt, as matter of fact, assumes
more than four elementary colors, but there is no reason what-
ever why he should do so. If Wundt were to accept Professor
Miiller's demonstration of the fact that there are, for conscious-
ness, just four — no more and no less — elementary colors, and if
he were to translate into the language of his own theory all the
Hering-Muller explanations of contrast and after-image (which
are, in reality, not explanations at all, in the correct sense of
the term), his theory would be an admirable one.

My own theory possesses the simple advantage that it is able

84 C. LADD FRANKLIN.

to assume all the good points of all the other theories, and to
avoid all their bad points ! It takes on, for instance, the whole
doctrine of the color-triangle, which is a bete noire for Hering,
but which nevertheless is the expression of a vast body of fact
in the domain of color-mixture ; and it takes on the whole new
doctrine of the perceptible psychic quality series of Miiller,
which renders absolutely necessary the assumption of four ele-
mentary colors instead of three, but which is destructive to
Miiller's own hypothesis, because the green which it takes as
elementary cannot possibly be both an end member of a psychic-
quality series and the antagonistic color to red.1 Moreover, there
is no explanation of any fact of contrast which is given by the
theory of Miiller which cannot be given just as well by my
theory and in quite parallel terms. The idea of a partial
chemical decomposition is in no sense more speculative than
that of a reversible chemical process. A reversible chemical
action has no distinct analogy in any other known physiological

1 While my theory assumes four fundamental colors, red and green are
nevertheless not complementary. I represent diagrammatically the progressive
development of a color-substance in the retina in this way :

I. II. III.

o

o o-o 11=0
o

I suppose that a primitive undifferentiated substance is composed of mole-
cules which (though they maybe of any degree of complexity) are indifferently
completely destroyed by light of every wave-length ; thus in a later stage this
substance consists, in each of its molecules, of two distinct parts, one fitted to
be shaken to pieces by light from the warm end of the spectrum and the other
by light from the cold end of the spectrum ; and that in a third stage of devel-
opment the yellow-producing constituent is in its turn broken up into two parts
of such different internal vibrative periods that they respond respectively to the
red light and the green light of the spectrum. (It cannot be said that there is any-
thing repugnant to the ideas of the chemists in this representation of molecules ;
this very diagram III. has lately been used in another connection as a picture of
a molecule byDuclaux.) Partial color blindness is an atavistic condition in
which the second stage of development is permanent, and in total color-blind-
ness the entire color substance remains in the primitive condition in which gray
is the only sensation produced. Blue and yellow are complementary colors, but
red and green, when acting in conjunction, re-compose the yellow-producing
substance out of which they have been developed, instead of together mak-
ing white. In other words, the fundamental green of this theorjr is a real
green, and not the evident blue-green of Hering.

MULLERS THEORY OF THE LIGHT-SENSE. 85

process ; but we have not far to go for an analogy for a partial
chemical decomposition — the retina itself presents in the rod-
pigment (which is first broken down into a yellow substance
and then into a colorless substance) exactly the analogy which
is required. And this is not all : it seems to have been made
out by Hamburger and by Kottgen and Abelsdorff that this de-
composition in two successive stages occurs in no animals lower
than man ; this is an instance of a progressive differentiation of
function in an adjunct photo-chemical substance which is ex-
actly what is needed to form a parallel case with the develop-
ment of a color-substance subject to a partial decomposition out
of an undifferentiated gray-substance, which is what my theory
requires.

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS.

PROFESSOR GROOS AND THEORIES OF PLAY.

Professor Groos's book on Animal Play — to which renewed atten-
tion is given by its appearance in English dress — invites discussion and
criticism from several points of view. In the first place, we must re-
gret that human play is deferred for separate treatment, for assuredly
the child is preeminently animal in its plays. A monkey which de-
lights in snapping open a match-safe and a child which does the same
are at the same stage and should be treated together. To divide plays
into animal and human, and animal, into plays of birds, mammals,
etc., has little significance.

Professor Groos sets forth elaborately the practice theory of play.
Play is the expression of developing instinctive tendencies, an antici-
patory, tentative practicing, which accomplishes no immediate serious
service. Thus the kitten pounces on the straying leaf, and so prac-
tices for pouncing on its prey. We may express it by saying that Na-
ture here shows her prentice hand, or that here is Nature's school, but
no forced attendance, no specified time, no set lessons, and only free,
spontaneous, pleasant activity. Under natural selection this play
period of instinct has been developed, wherein the energies of the pro-
tected young act in non-serious forms in preparation for mature life.

To this theory of play we must object that instinct as such needs
not practice, and again that instinct fully formed at birth is the more
advantageous. If the kitten could at once seize a mouse as a chick
does a grain of wheat, it would be much to its advantage. If the
prey of cats were of definite size, color and motion, and always ap-
peared at the same distance, an instinct would work at the first occa-
sion; but as it is, instinct cannot cover the varying complexity,
but intelligent play practice is called in. The kitten has the in-
stinct to spring, but the regulating for size, distance, etc., is acquired
intelligently. The learning may be by hereditary impulse, but yet it
is better to define play in terms of intelligence rather than in terms
of instinct.

But much of the developing activity of animals can scarcely be
brought under the term play as psychic. Thus the young bird, flut-
86

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS. 87

tering and trying its wings, seems not playing, but serious, as also the
child taking its first steps. But when the bird becomes skilled in fly-
ing, it flits playfully, and when the child is able to run easily, it de-
lights in running plays. A large proportion of Professor Groos's
examples of play fall under work. The imperfect, immature, prac-
tice is not thereby play, as, for instance, the calf sucks your finger as
seriously as it does the teat. Real sucking play we see in children
sucking through straws. Play belongs to childhood rather than to in-
fancy, though both are full of developing activities.

We must, then, dissent from bringing all the inceptive preliminary
activities of young animals under play. Further, it is not proved that
play as fact of biologic history originates in these activities. Has it
yet been shown that play does not appear first as life method among
organisms adult from the start, long before a youth period emerges ?
Some micro-organisms seem to swim playfully, and a sham alarming
and attacking is seen among adults low in the scale of life. It is quite
conceivable that play started with adult practice, and was conserved
and developed through natural selection, at length becoming most
prominent in earliest phases of life period, and so making the youth
time. The adult practicing among his mates must be harmless, and
so easily became sportive, that is, practice-work became play, a pleas-
ing method of unreality.

Another outlook for the origin of play is in the one-sided form,
teasing. A very combative animal, having no enemy to fight, will
be led to attack its mates, but not violently, as that would break up all
its associations, but teasingly. This tendency is so strong in the horse
that we have the term ' to nag.' The tricks of boys and the chaffing
and practical jokes of men are plainly a low form of play, and per-
haps point toward the primitive form. The scare game is also a very
popular and crude play with animals and children. To rouse real
though groundless fear gives an aboriginal delight in sense of power
both to achieve and deceive. After a time the teased one would learn
that its best defense is not to resent, but to play back, and hence arises
full, two-sided, mutual play. The teasing hypothesis of the origin of
play is, like practice of young or adult, a possible mode which ought
to be kept in mind by the investigator.

One point which deserves notice in this connection, but which
does not appear to be touched on by Professor Groos, is the relation
of the play of domestic animals to the play of their wild congeners.
Though the dog has been domesticated for millenniums, its play is wild
and wolfish, and so contrary to practice for its adult life. The colt

88 THEORIES OF PL A Y.

in its play rears, kicks and bites — wild habits which have to be over-
come in its domestic life. The colt does not play at drawing loads,
nor the collie at driving sheep. Selection by man is but a kind of
natural selection, and we might expect some preparatory play, or at
least some reduction in the period of wild play. But is this the case?
Though young domestic animals do not have tame plays, yet they may
play at work taught by man, as the elephants at Bridgeport sometimes
playfully practice standing on their heads. It is probable that many
wild animals are more playful than their tame congeners largely because
intelligence and alertness are more required in the wild state. Wild
sheep are a case in point. But if man had bred the sheep for intelli-
gence rather than wool, would not the domestic sheep be more play-
ful than the wild ? Some breeds of dogs, being bred for their play-
fulness, are doubtless far more playful than any wild dogs. But what
we need here, as everywhere on play, are data.

Another point which is not considered by Professor Groos is the
close relationship of play and work, which requires a study of both to
understand either. The life of animals and children is a complex of
play and work, a rapid passing from one to the other. Man, adult
and civilized, is the only persistent player or worker. Birds in build-
ing or nesting seem to be continually interrupting play with work and
work with play. A boy begins to pile wood in the shed as play, but
as soon as it is felt to be work he ceases, unless you offer a wage.
The start is often play, but the continuance work. In most plays the
pressure of companions makes some continue playing against inclina-
tion, that is, makes them work. From dead earnest to pure play is a
long series of mergent psychoses. Pure play and work are rare, most
activities being merely dominantly one or other.

We have noted that preparatory activity of young is not always
play, and vice versa. Thus the fledgling, coaxed and compelled in
its learning to fly by its parents, is plainly working, and the colt rear-
ing, kicking, and doing just what he must not do as adult, is plainly
playing. Now, both reversion and recapitulation are practically ig-
nored by Professor Groos. But it is certainly worth inquiring
whether play tendencies of survival origin may not exist, say among
monkeys. Is not there a general psychic embryology which has play
forms ? The place for reversion in the play of youth is evident in
such actions as climbing, swinging, playing with stones, animal plays
and plays with animals, deceit plays — civilization is founded on truth
— hunting, fishing, camping. That these latter sports appeal little to
the gentler sex may be due to the inherited reminiscence of camp

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS. 89

drudgery of savage life, and the fact that the excitement of the chase
was not then their part. Indeed, anticipatory play is more common
with woman than reversionary, because reversion is mainly joyless. If
the work methods of past life are the plays of to-day's life, the works
of to-day will be the play of ' beyond-man' millenniums hence.

If we divide all conscious activities into work and play, we have
a difficulty in distinguishing them in the plexus of life. Take the
commonest actions in daily routine, as the morning toilet. Here,
many are merely mechanical, and so neither work nor play. But so
far as consciousness enters it is generally work for men and play for
women. In walking down town one will often go several times
through the variations of work, play and the mechanical. But play is
constantly emerging in life as activity for its own sake. Thereby it
is amateurish, is not a means, and has no wage. Is then pleasurable
work play? Professor Groos remarks (p. 253) that bird courtship,
while being set a « real end, yet may have the psychological aspect of
mere play,' because of 4 satisfaction ' in the exercise. But we think
that 4 satisfaction ' applies to work. Work-pleasure is satisfaction in
results achieved by effort, but play-pleasure is not satisfaction ; rather
it is the immediate, fleeting, inherent pleasure in the act itself. Fresh,
free, joyous spontaneity is the mark of play, which begins, ceases, re-
begins when, where and how it pleases. And play-pleasure has no
form of its own, but is that of power, skill, competition, possession,
etc., that is work-pleasure, so pointing to work as the origin of play.

Professor Groos's definition of play, * instinctive activity exerted
for purposes of practice or exercise, and without a serious intent/ begs
the question. ' Not of serious intent* means play, and that is what
he is defining. Practice, being less serious than the thing practiced,
easily degenerates into play, but, so becoming less efficient than seri-
ous practice, it would not be favored by natural selection. We often
see play originating as degenerate practice, as when a company as-
semble to practice for an exhibition, but this completely spoils the
practice. The less playful practice is, the better it is. We surely
grant all that can be said for practice, yet much play is recapitulation
or embryologic, and reversionary or degenerate or recreative, or it
may be wanton. Plays of the degenerate type are gambling, drunk-
enness, debauchery and similar amusements, and, indeed, all degener-
ation belongs under play rather than under work. In degenerate
activities play freedom is only subjective; there is really bondage.
And all play freedom is false and unreal as being mere hereditary
impulse, and in so far as the play world is one of unreality and illu-

90 THEORIES OF PLAY.

sion. Rational and real freedom lies in work ; the captain of an At-
lantic liner has a truer and higher freedom than a boy sailing a mimic
craft in a pond. It is easy to idealize play as spontaneous practice,
perfectly free, pure and joyous, but at best play is only conservative,
and very often is reversionary and even degenerate. Play is a low form
of life ; and it might be said to be on the whole of more disservice
than service, and to be supplanted in the highest evolution of man by
work-satisfaction, of which we already see some evidences.

Play, as we have noted, may be described as fresh, free, joyous,
spontaneous, impulsive, self-contained activity, whether practice or any
other mode. The unseriousness of a practice does not of itself make
play, for the unseriousness may be carelessness and laziness, the re-
verse of play.

To the elements of play we have mentioned are we to add sham-
ming? It might seem that activity which did not contain shamming
must be earnest, and so not playful, but earnestness enters into play,
and makes it real play. In shamming, the activity is so far unreal,
and if playful, doubly so. That is shamming, deceit, guile, is a work
form of activity evolved in the struggle of existence, and may, like
any other, become play. Shamming play is then merely one definite
kind, rather than, as Professor Groos would make it, a phase general
to later forms. Much of later play is not mock activity, but a real
activity used as a pleasure in itself. The boy driving his ponies is
playing as well as the boy who is playing horse by driving his com-
panion or riding a stick, and the man yachting is playing as well as
the child sailing chips in a tub. So any activity once fully integrated
through work by race or individual may be either played or played
at, both modes growing side by side through the whole history of play.

Professor Groos traces aesthetics to shamming play. But the only
fine art for which such play could account is realistic portraiture.
However, mere resemblance is not art. An interest in clever counter-
feits of reality for the skillful way they deceive is plainly not the
aesthetic feeling for the intrinsic beauty of the thing. Do not ' What
a good likeness ! ' and 4 What a beautiful picture ! ' indicate different
mental states ? Now the method of development shows the method
of origin, and the method of progress in fine art is plainly one of
severest toil. ^Esthetics must then originate as work-form under
natural selection as mode of socialization, specially in sexual relation,
and becoming integrated, reappears, like other integrated activities, in
play form. Struggle, effort, is the initiating and developing factor in
evolution, and how is art an exception by a unique relation to play ?

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS. 91

To the artist and art-lover lart is the most serious and highest work.
If art originated in shamming play we should expect the earliest art-
plays of children to have this form. But we see children showing a
crude aesthetic enjoyment in whistling and drumming, which cannot
be accounted deceptive play. Woodpecker music — unnoticed by Pro-
fessor Groos — is a similar play. So also if animals and children show
aesthetic appreciation of bright colors, this cannot be based on decep-
tiveness. (We have discussed the subject more fully in 4 Evolutionary
Psychology of Feeling,' Chapter XVII.)

As to classification of plays Professor Groos's scheme is certainly
not shown to be a complete and connected natural whole. He omits
humor, which ought to be discussed as a possible play with the very
highest animals ; and scare plays are unnoticed. My dog took the
same delight in coming up quietly behind a small dog and giving a
terrifying bark as does the child in jumping out from a corner and
crying boo ! Fighting and hunting plays are hardly to be separated
as two distinct kinds. He makes the rationale of fighting play
among non-predacious animals to be preparation for struggle for the
female ; but do not also young females fight, and may not such fight-
ing be preparatory to struggle for food and for defense of young ?
He makes courtship a division of plays, but it is plain that 4 calf love '
and flirtation are in strict sense the only love plays, that is, playing
love and playing at love. Again does not imitative play enter into
all kinds of play?

But what we need as a basis of classification is a thorough scien-
tific record and study of the facts. For instance, a continuous study
of a dog from birth to death for play and work with photographs and
phonograms would be a first step in a science of play, if made by a
psychologist familiar with dogs. The records which Professor Groos
uses, as made by travellers and naturalists, are mostly incidental ob-
servations of slight value. However, it is plain that, since any volun-
tary activity may be played, the classification of such activities be-
comes that of plays also. Thus among children even winking and
breathing may be used playfully, and we also have finger plays, toe
plays, etc. But such an anatomical or physiological classification is
little fruitful for psychology. It would see more in such stages as
simple play, play and plaything, playing at, player and person played
to. As any psychosis may become a play form, a genetic classifica-
tion of psychoses would apply to plays. Any psychosis well inte-
grated as instinct in the race or as habit in the individual — habit plays
are lawyers' jokes among lawyers, etc. — may issue in play. Play is

92 A SPIRITUAL CONTENT OF LIFE.

a peculiar emotion which may invest any action. Play is probably
the earliest of the complex emotions. Its distinctness in kind is shown
by the fact that we can define it only in terms of itself; when we say
an action is playful we have but used the simplest terms, and every
one who can play recognizes the peculiar psychosis implied. Play is
a generic general phase of emotionalism, which may express itself in
the form of any intellectual or feeling mode or of any outward ac-
tivity.

HIRAM M. STANLEY.
LAKE FOREST, ILL.

THE STRUGGLE FOR A SPIRITUAL CON-
TENT OF LIFE.1

Eucken's latest and most significant work has as yet received no
adequate notice in the English or American philosophical magazines.
The following is an attempt to give the reader some understanding of
the methods and conclusions of this remarkable contribution to the
metaphysics of our time.

While the reviewer is, of course, responsible for the general run of
the following, he has taken the liberty of paraphrasing the text in
numerous places. In this connection it may be well to say that the
paper was submitted to Professor Eucken, who advised its publication
in its present form.

He who, to-day, raises the question of the meaning of existence
and the goal of our activity is caught up not only by the stream of the
time, but also by a great flood which springs out of the world's history.
The answer to which he is carried is clear and simple. Man belongs
to nature — he is a part of her — body and soul. She surrounds us from
outside; she rules us from within. She points out to us the only way
to truth. When man in his pride and strength turns from nature, his
home, and pictures to himself the existence of an independent world
of spirit, he has only fallen into error — he has only gone out in search
of a fabulous realm. And this vain thought of a spiritual world is
only a bar to truth and to happiness. As such it is to be fought and
conquered.

With this thought of our time has come a great turning-point in
history. Through it there arises the hope of a return to primitive,

JDer Kampf urn einen geistigen Lebensinhalt ; von Rudolf Eucken, Profes-
sor in Jena. Veit & Comp., Leipzig. 1896.

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS. 93

elemental truth. Once more humanity shall be revived through closer
and more intimate contact with nature.

Into such a relation to nature our time has actually brought us.
And this it was able to do just by means of its incomparably sharp
distinction between spirit and nature. At first both were one, indis-
tinguishably woven together. The reflection of ancient times and the
Middle Ages spun around nature a web of human thought. But this
network was to be broken — nature was to be seen in its independence,
in its self-existence. Its true being, as distinct from man, was yet to be
distinguished, and the soul, as an evil spirit, was to be driven out.
This accomplished, nature was seen to be a complex of spiritless
masses and motions — all unity was dissolved into small and smallest
elements, all worths and ends as mere figments of mind were banished
in behalf of a self-sufficient, self-satisfying actuality. For in this
vision of nature, so simple and so complete, where is there place for
thought? in this vision of world-energy governed by an imminent logic
of its own, where is there room for spirit?

As soon as this reduction was accomplished and spirit was driven
out of nature, spirit and nature were seen to be two opposing realms.
The independence of each was recognized. But nature revolted
against this opposition. She turned against man in his isolation and
in his alienation. She went out to draw him to her again, to sub-
jugate him. And she succeeded. That she was successful was due
to the very power which man had acquired over her by virtue of his
alienation from her.

The decay of the vision of the Middle Ages and the rise of an exact
natural science was a triumph of man over nature, a subjugation of
the external world through human thought. And so, also, the applica-
tion of technical knowledge and skill. But, again, it was in reality
the vanquished which was victorious. For the vision which resulted
from the outgoing of man to the external world to overcome it, was so
clear and well ordered that it acquired a peculiar power and charm,
by virture of which it was carried over to the inner world. Our con-
cepts of the natural became so definite and exact that on their lines
was built up our view of the spiritual. The more our knowledge of
the exterior world develops, the more are we occupied with it ; the
more our technical skill increases, the more is life bound up in the ma-
chine ; the more power man wields over nature, the more she rules his
thought, his life and his senses. In this manner man, who believed
that he had subjugated nature, was overcome by nature. And thus
we find that the opposition between man and nature has been over-

94 A SPIRITUAL CONTENT OF LIFE.

come by our time. It has been dissolved by the rise of our knowledge
of nature and by the development of our technical mastery over her.
There exists no longer a recognition of the two independent worlds,
each existing in and for itself.

But the effect of this dissolution was not the reduction of nature
to the inner power by which we came to rule over her, but the oppo-
site. Man has been reduced to nature. He has become in his thought
of himself a mere moment in the world processes, an insignificant fac-
tor in the varied interplay of phenomena. In the laws which grind
out the world he must find his satisfaction; in the hard actuality
which opposes him he must see the end of his existence. He falls
back again into nature ; there is a return to the naive view of the
world in which man and nature are one.

And in this philosophy of our time is there not a certain sublimity ?
He who would give up his self-existent spiritual world, who would
again turn himself out into nature, must be prepared to leave behind
many a desire cherished through centuries. But the reward of this
self-denial is the falling down of the barriers between humanity and
the all.

But sublime as this philosophy is; as deeply rooted in our time as
it is ; as strongly as the current of world history forces it upon us — we
must still raise the question as to whether it can be our philosophy.
For if it be true, our ethics and our religion lose their significance ; if
it be true, a really developing life is no longer possible; if it be true,
there is, in short, no spiritual world at all. It is the primal thesis of
our work that it is not true. It is the central belief of our author that
man has broken through nature — that there exists in and for itself a
self -centered spiritual world.

Of the thesis let us at the start make sure. Nature knows of no
working from within, no being for itself, no self-activity, no initiative
of the thing. Rather every element is bound to its environment, it
exists only as a link in an endless chain ; all work is the result of
stimulus from without and is directed to another. If we men were
mere things in nature, time and space would completely dominate ;
by them we would be forever limited and hemmed in. But the old
opinion is false ; man transcends time — it is his very nature to rise
above the temporal flow. True, we stand in time and seem to be
driven about in its stream. But not quite. Were it so, human his-
tory would be impossible, for such a history does not arise in a mere
flowing by of events. In order that there may be a history man may
not merely live his span of years, but he must reach back into the

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS. 95

past ; that which is gone must become present ; he must unroll the
course of time anew. And in doing this we do not merely contem-
plate the past : we take it up into our life ; it becomes a part of our
doing; it complements the present. Through history the limitation
and contingency of the moment are overcome ; through history we
conquer time. And so with space.

And thus through history there arises a unity which transcends
time and space. This unity is more than a mere summation — it is a
welding of the life of the past with the life of the present. But as
such it transcends nature. For nature is dominated by time and space.
And in nature there is no unity which is not a mere being together — a
mere summation. Man as a part of nature is a mere point — like other
parts — the mere point of self-preservation. An inner subordination of
the one to the whole, the recognition of the right and love of another
as products of nature were wonders, compared with which the wonders
of the religions pale. From time immemorial the energies of man
have endeavored to reduce the source of all action to the mere interest
of the individual. But through all time the self-sacrifice of man
stands out in protest. What has the overcoming of self to do with the
interest of self ? Are the heroes and martyrs only sharper Jews than
the rest of us ? Is not all this a protest against a mere natural ordering
of things ? In our history and art, in our ethics and religion, in our
very penetration of the external world, have we not overcome nature ?

These facts of human life are the proof of our thesis. Through
them we see the necessity of the existence of an independent world of
spirituality over against nature.

But this new reality did not fall as a ripe fruit into the lap of man ;
it does not surround us as something given. It was fought for through
work and experience ; it was produced by self-activity ; it is the result
of a long and fierce struggle. For the mere natural processes could
never have produced this spirituality — it must be the result of a free
act, a transcending of nature through self-activity.

The first step in the struggle for a spiritual life was the lifting of
ourselves above the mere' natural environment, a freeing of ourselves
from the limitation and narrowness of the immediate, a breaking away
from the life which exhausts itself in its effort to preserve itself and to
adapt itself to the immediate situation. For in order to have a spirit-
ual world at all we must transcend the here and the now, we must
raise ourselves above the demands of a natural environment.

This step marked the great turning-point in the history of human-
ity. It brought about something utterly new, something opposed to

96 A SPIRITUAL CONTENT OF LIFE.

the merely natural life. It freed us from nature in that it freed us
from the bonds of the immediate and from the littleness of the natural
self. For as long as our activity was consumed in a mere adjustment
of ourselves to the situation of the moment there could be no freedom,
no opportunity for the creative work of spirit. As long as ourselves
were mere points, the mere centers of natural instincts, there could
arise no spiritual world. The immediateness of life and the punctu-
ality of the selves of that life had to be transcended. For the spirit-
world is not a world which rests upon a point. It is a world which
rises above all points, which embraces all reality. Thus this spiritu-
ality which arose out of nature as a new creation was a sphere which
floated above the individual. It was a whole, a unity. For the indi-
vidual as such could never have conceived it, could never have created
it. It was the whole which spiritualized the individual. And the
spiritual life wherever it exists is something which is not depend-
ent upon any one self, but something in which the particular self finds
its existence. It is always an independent, self-existent whole. And
yet this whole was brought about in the creative activity of man. His
free act is needed that it come into being. It found its origin in a
union of free, creative activity transcending all particularity.

And what is this common activity but work?1 It is the idea of
work which marks the great turning-point in life. Through work
there arises a new content of life. By means of work we raise our-
selves above the limitation and contingency of the natural here and
now. For all work arises out of some transcendent whole ; in it a unity
to be realized is always presupposed. Work means life-work, At
first this unity is the particular unity, a whole to be gotten by the in-
dividual. But even so the work of the particular brings about the
work of the whole. The particular works are worked into the work
of the whole. Reality is the work of works.

As this common reality is the result of work, so is work the result
of transcending the immediate here and now — the product of our
struggle to rise above the mediocrity of life, of our strife against the
average.

In work we see a new creation, something which cannot be de-
duced from the spiritless masses and motions of nature. It is a self-
centered spirituality, a self-active life, a world resting in the struggle
of the whole. As such it hangs over against nature and the punctual
self.

And thus, in conclusion, we see that the spiritual life has no exist-

1 This word is a translation of Werk as distinct from Arbeit.

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS. 97

ence and no meaning, no strength and no marrow without a rising
above the average ; that no such transcendence is possible without
spiritual self-activity ; that there is no self-activity at any one point
without a self-activity of the whole, without a universal life, without
the opening of a new world.

Man, as it were, hangs between these two worlds — between spirit
and nature. Both are real. Of this there can be no doubt.

Nature confronts us at every turn. A large portion of our life is
devoted to her. On the other hand, the world of spirit is with us also.
To deny its reality is equally absurd. And what is man to do with
these confronting realms ? Both cannot equally claim him. At the
start let us do away with the idea of an empty compromise. Nor can
he reduce the spiritual to the natural. This attempt, as seen in the
philosophy of our time, amounts simply to a denial of the reality of
the spiritual. For centuries the idea of the development of all reality
from the pure activity of spirit has exerted a fascinating power over
man. But if we follow the links of the chain from Plotinus to Hegel
we see that either life became a mere sum of abstractions, or that ex-
perience, which at the beginning had been so sharply pushed aside,
was unconsciously called in to complete the intuition, to give life to
the otherwise empty forms. Nor does the distinction between form
and matter aid us. For, on the one hand, the spiritual is far too self-
centered and real to stand merely as part of the whole. And on the
other, nature is far too cold and capricious when seen in contrast to the
spiritual to adapt itself as matter to form.

And yet the dualism is intolerable. The idea of the independent
existence of two coordinate but different worlds of reality in life is
more than can be borne. The opposition must somehow be overcome.
These two masters man cannot serve. And yet neither of them can
be denied.

If we would work our way out beyond this dilemma there is but
one course for us to take. Both of our worlds are real and yet differ-
ent. If we are to see them united in life we must see them both as
the product of a reality deeper than either.

Here, again, we stand at a great turning-point and once more great
possibilities open before us. We must grasp the world as the develop-
ment of a substantial spirituality, of an essential life. We must see
our own free activity as a part of a deeper life. We must see nature
as a product of profounder reality.

With the idea of a substantial spirituality, which brings forth a

98 A SPIRITUAL CONTENT OF LIFE.

new and peculiar being out of the depths of activity itself, there opens
a new view of our world and our life, an altogether new experience of
reality. Both of those worlds, each of which lived in its own right
and seemed to pretend to the whole of reality, are seen to be expres-
sions of an essential being. Our free activity must have a deeper life
behind itself.

If these two realms are one in their origin, the problem is to realize
that unity. It is ours to find in nature this primordial force, this sub-
stance ; to wrest it from her ; to appropriate it to ourselves. It is ours
to conquer nature. The act shall take being up into itself ; thus it
shall itself become real.

This substantial spirituality is not a part of us ; we are rather a
part of it. Through it we acquire freedom ; as a part of it man makes
his history ; we feel it stirring in us, and we go out to create. But this
primordial activity will tolerate no limits ; it will not be imprisoned ;
it will be hemmed in by no barrier. There is nothing in the world
which may oppose it; it will brook nothing foreign or alien to itself.
Therefore we, as stirred by it, must conquer the exterior world ; we
must transform it by our spirituality ; we must take it up into our own
activity. As the artist spiritualizes nature — as he, accomplishing the
impossible, transforms it with his own inner life — so must we all over-
come the outer world.

It is by this free act that the spiritual acquires character and deter-
mination. The inner world, hanging over things as the spirit hung
over the waters at the creation, lacks substantiality. As it broke loose
from nature and rested in its alienation from her, a certain indeter-
minateness possessed it. It saw nature as something hostile and for-
eign. But the spiritual life can acquire substance only as it, through
activity, takes nature up into itself — only as it spiritualizes the external
through free activity.

The first great struggle of mankind was for the existence of the
spiritual. It overcame nature in the battle for a spiritual life. But
the life lacked determination, and thus arose a second struggle. It
too was a fight against nature ; but the end of the struggle was not
her destruction, but her spiritualization — it was the strife for the char-
acter of the spiritual.

And man, in so far as this world-power rises up in him, becomes
world-power himself. Man as a part of nature is driven hither and
thither by forces exterior to him ; for he is but a mere point, a link in
an endless chain. But when he rises up into his primordial activity
he thereby becomes world-power. Through him, in him, by him, is

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS, 99

world-history brought forth. Hereby he transcends himself, he rises
above the punctuality of life, he becomes a part of the whole, his life
moves on in the world life. Thus the individual becomes micro-
cosmus, and the all a world of worlds. When doubt rises up in us,
doubt as to God, the world, men and life, it must at last lead back to
doubt of ourselves, the doubt as to the ideality of our nature, the
presence of a spiritual substance in our life.

In our descriptions up to this point we seem to have traced the
triumphal march of spirit, but in reality we have been following only
the progress of battle. And this struggle is one which never ends.
The strife continues in each plane of life. At first it was the struggle
of spirit to raise itself above the chaotic manifold of nature — the strug-
gle for existence ; then it was the struggle to lift experience up into
spirituality, that the latter might acquire determinateness — the struggle
for character ; and now we have to see this spirituality enter into a
new strife for the world-power of spirit. For as soon as the spiritual
life takes on concreteness and character, there arises a host of new con-
tradictions which threaten its destruction, which seem ready to shatter
the new life. The powers which seemed to have been conquered
spring up again with new force ; the old contradictions which seemed
to have been transcended appear in new forms. The very forces
which worked for good now seem to take on an evil nature. The
woe of the world, its contradictions, the thought of death, which
seemed to be the kindly spirits of man aiding him on, now turn against
him. The whole structure of spirit seems to have been founded on
sand and to be on the point of being shattered by the contradictions
which have grown up within itself. Doubt as to the reality of the
spiritual life arises ; we faint in the struggle against the evil ; the con-
tradictions seem insurmountable, and we are threatened with the loss
of that which we so hardly won and a return to naturalism appears
to await us.

The first attack on the new life arises out of our new relations to
nature. Here lies the first battle-ground in the struggle for the world-
power of the spiritual realm. For the better we have come to know
the exterior world, the more foreign it seems to be ; the more we have
to do with it, the colder and more alien it grows. The forces of nature
work in blind objectivity, without respect to the spirituality they hem
in and destroy. Fire, water, storm and earthquake annihilate; the
little forces of destruction do not sleep. Nature works without re-
spect to high or low, good or bad ; she operates without feeling, and

100 A SPIRITUAL CONTENT OF LIFE.

handles the individual, the masterwork of spirit, in perfect indiffer-
ence.

And as the knowledge of nature grows with the development of
spirit, there grows also the knowledge of the utter dependence of the
individual on nature. We have long known that the soul is, in gen-
eral, conditioned upon the body ; but we now see in oppressive clear-
ness how every spiritual activity is based upon the corporeal. And
then the thoughts of heredity and environment steal in and shed their
weird light over the world. And thus man, in his thought of himself,
becomes a mere episode in the world-processes. Is it any wonder that
he loses faith in the new world — in the spiritual substance ?

And so it is with the moral world.

The ethical life has always been the great refuge of man from the
bondage of nature. When all else topples and falls the eternal worth
of the pure heart and noble mind has stood fast. Here, if nowhere
else, man rises above the limitation of nature to the freedom and re-
ality of the spiritual ; in this realm, if in no other, the dark despot of
the punctual self of nature is overcome. But, even here, the spiritual
is threatened by the destroying might of contradiction. After this
world has been brought into being, we see for the first time its incon-
sistencies. For, instead of an all-embracing love and justice, there
arises a love and justice bounded and limited by the instincts and pas-
sions of the self of nature. Our morality is well and good only so
long as it favors ourselves, our party, our narrow circle or our race.
And thus the object of the moral world is a manifold of scattered
units instead of the totality of humanity — a collection of little centers
separated by a wide gulf, instead of the whole of mankind. Here we
see, in all clearness, the triumph of evil, the unconquerable nature of
sin, bound up as it is in all our spiritual activities. So we doubt the
reality of our ethical life.

And we fare no better when we turn to history, for here we find
the past to be only a great mass of actions done and gone. We are
unable to draw from it the fresh, active present for which we had
hoped. History should solve our problems for us — in the past of
human life should be seen a line of steady development making for
eternal truth. But instead of that, we find only a nexus of contradic-
tory intuitions and faiths. History should have solved our problems,
but instead of that it has travailed only to bring problems forth. And
we lose our faith in the past of human experience.

And so is it also when we consider the nature of society, fate and
the very spiritual power itself.

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS. IOI

The evil does not lie on the surface; it reaches down into the
fundamental conditions of our very existence. The spirituality which
does appear seems too weak to overcome the great attacks which are
made upon it unceasingly. In its own development it constitutes
rather an indifferent form to a content than a full world. History has
rather increased than diminished the complications. The new world
has been brought forth, but only cracked and broken by fundamental
contradictions. Once more we find ourselves in a great dilemma —
again we have reached a position where we must either turn back or
go on still further. No compromise is possible ; to stand still is in-
tolerable ; some solution to the problem of our relation to the evil in
the world must be found.

The history of world-thought contains many attempts to escape
this dilemma ; indeed, it has been largely occupied in endeavoring to
offer some solution to the problem. There have been in general
two great answers to the question. According to the first of these,
the evil in the world is mere appearance, the good alone is real ; ac-
cording to the second, the evil alone is real, the good is mere appear-
ance. The former is optimism; the latter, pessimism. Each comes
to its conclusion by denying the reality of one side of the dilemma.

The first great plea of optimism lies in the thought that if we could
but see the world from its center the evil would disappear. The bad
is in the last analysis good, for through the bad the good rises up and
grows. The second plea lies in the thought that if we would but do
the good the evil would cease to exist for us — if we would but center
our lives in the world of the pure and high the world of the impure
and low would be forced into non-existence. But whether the opti-
mism be that of consideration or of action, its falsity remains. For, no
matter what our point of view may be, no matter how our actions
may be directed, evil remains and must ever remain. It were as easy
to prove that the good serves the evil as the evil the good. If we
must write our theodicies why not also our satanodicies ?

The essence of pessimism lies first in the thought that the world
down to its very center is evil, and second in the act of giving up the
hope of attaining the good or the true. The theoretical view of the
world as bad and truth as an illusion must end practically in the giv-
ing up of the good and the true — the philosophy of evil must inevita-
bly result in the philosophy of self-denial.

But if there be neither happiness, virtue nor truth in the world,
what have we to give up? If the idea of the good be an illusion,

102 A SPIRITUAL CONTENT OF LIFE.

what is the meaning of self-denial ? The very fact that the turning
away from happiness costs us so much effort and gives us so much in-
spiration \sprima facie proof of the existence of happiness. And so
with truth and goodness. Truth and goodness remain in all their sub-
limity; pessimism is but the turning away from them.

Pessimism and optimism may annihilate each other in their struggle
for supremacy ; but the good remains good, evil does not cease to be
evil, and both are real. And the moralist still moralizes on the
* mixed character of human life.' Truly life is mixed, not merely
on its surface, but in its very depths. And after all the dilemma still
remains unsolved and still demands solution. But if there be any
power and courage left in life there is one way of escape open — we
can transcend the sphere of conflict, we can raise ourselves above the
contradictions into a new realm. The world of struggle is not the
only world ; its barriers shall not block our progress. There opens
a sphere of activity beyond the sphere of these contradictions ; in it
must we center our life.

This new order would appear as something transcendental, some-
thing which lies beyond the horizon of our world. But in truth it
should only expand the real ; it should command for itself the first
place in our world and force all else into a subordinate position ; but
still it should be within the real, our real. The ultimate and final it
must always be ; it must contain all absolute truth ; in it must be
builded the world-power. As such and as such alone can it transcend
all contradiction and overcome all opposition.

This is a hard saying — this last step in our spiritual life is the most
difficult of all to grasp in thought and to realize in action. But the
saying nevertheless is true. And that it is such we can see, if we can
see at all, from the workings of religion. For this struggle and this
realm are essentially the struggle and the realm of religion.

In religion the individual rises out of the contradictions of the
world. He does this because he lays hold of the absolute life. The
contradictions of the world do not disappear ; they are rather intensi-
fied; but in that something absolute is realized, they are transcended.
The barriers are not broken down ; we leap over them. For in re-
ligion we leave this world of struggle behind, we rise up into a realm
of absolute truth which knows no contradictions — the spirit reaches
the plane in which it becomes the world-power. For the struggle to
reach an ultimate point and to bind all life to it is essentially the
struggle of religion.

But this new life is not an abstraction — it is a personal activity, a

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS. 103

coming into relation to the absolute life. It is not something given,
but something to be gotten by a free and original act. It is to be
gotten because all that confounded us in the lower life is overcome in
something higher.

If this new and final realm is to be seen from the standpoint of
religion, it is now clear that the rest of spirituality is to be seen from
the standpoint of culture. First of all we have a struggle for the
creation and preservation of the spiritual in general ; then the struggle
to penetrate and overcome nature, and finally the struggle to rise to
an ultimate reality beyond the contradictions of the former stages.
The second of these steps belongs essentially to the world of culture,
the third to that of religion. And these two worlds must ever remain
distinct and separate spiritual experiences. They have often striven
with each other ; each has claimed its sole right to exist, but mankind
ever returns to them both. Neither can be omitted from the great
system of the spiritual.

In conclusion we may sum up the foregoing as follows :

We saw the world of the real open itself in three levels.

The first problem was that of the independence of the spiritual
life. This life cannot exist as a mere expression of a foreign activity.
It must be self -centered. That it arises in its purity was due to a
breaking away from turmoil and particularity of nature and the forma-
tion of a new and peculiar realm of ideal worths. With the develop-
ment of the independence of the spiritual there arose not a world of
particulars which left alone the rest of reality, but the soul of the real
itself. Through it came about a turning of being to its own truth, a
finding of itself, a delving into the depth of life. As such it is more
than a mere human phenomenon. Mankind is thereby taken up into
world movements which raise man above particular powers and inter-
ests ; which raise him above the mere average of life.

But necessary as this step was, by means of it alone the spritual at-
tained only general outlines. A second step was required to secure
it character. This was taken in order that the great opposition be-
tween the spiritual and non-spiritual external world be overcome.
Thus, there took place a return of the spiritual to mere existence.
Nature was grasped from the standpoint of the new life in order
to spiritualize her. But this struggle could not meet with success
without transcending of the work of the mere individual and the
formation of a unity of spiritual life. Thus there arose a life-
system, a totality of work, a spiritual substance, a struggle for

104 EXPERIENCE UNDER INFLUENCE OF ETHER.

the character of life. And thus the happy end of life and satis-
faction with the real seemed near at hand. But the struggle with
the content of our human experience developed unforeseen but funda-
mental contradictions. The new life was seen to be rent with
irreconcilable oppositions, the actuality with which it had to deal, cold
and indifferent. All attempts to reconcile or wipe out proved failures ;
the whole was lost but for the opening of a new world, the rising of
spirit to a new level.

Thus a third step was undertaken, and there came about a struggle
for the world-power of spirit. Life was raised above the contradic-
tions ; it was united to the absolute life.

But in so doing the old world was not to be given up. Its levels
were to be preserved in their distinction and integrity. In the rela-
tion of each to the life process was to be found the consummation of
spirituality.

From beginning to end this spirituality was to be conceived as a
noologic reality, something not based on the psyche, but on the nous.
It is a coming to itself of reality, being turning to its own truth.

We may not start with the world or with the soul, but with a life
which is over and beyond these ; which does not belong to man, but of
which man may become a part.

FRANCIS KENNEDY.

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO.

EXPERIENCE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ETHER.1

I have called this a description of my experience under the influence
of ether, although chloroform was used for a few moments at the start,
producing no noticeable effect, however, except a taste of sweetness.
The ether had a decidedly disagreeable taste.

After about two minutes the larger muscles of the leg began to be
affected, those of the calf first, closely followed by those of the upper
leg. The feeling was that of tiredness, with a prickling sensation
somewhat like that felt as the blood begins to course after one's limb
has been 4 asleep/ somewhat like that felt in an electric bath, but not
exactly like either. The ends of the nerves seemed to vibrate, as it
were, and I imagined the nerves contracting in length.2

1 An experience of I. B. communicated by Professor K. A. Kirkpatrick ;
suggested by the communication from Professor W. James, in the May number
of the REVIEW.

2 1 have always had a nervous feeling similar to this when hearing of one's
passing through excessive pain, and can quite readily reproduce it since my ex-
perience with ether.

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND REPORTS. 105

These sensations were soon followed by a feeling of inability to
get breath, like that produced by the pressure upon the chest of a
bather who is not accustomed to the water. The muscles of exhala-
tion, however, did not seem to be much affected. Later there was a
slight sense of suffocation, but I do not remember that breathing be-
came at any time very laborious.

The next muscles to be affected were those of the arms, the biceps
first. The sensations produced were much like those in the legs, but
milder.

By this time the prickling sensations in the leg muscles had been
gradually replaced by a weariness that was almost unendurable.
Every muscle seemed to be utterly exhausted. I would seek tem-
porary relief by crossing and recrossing the legs, until they finally
became so heavy and numb that I could not move them. I do not
remember any muscular relaxation, nor any internal feelings, as of
the heart or stomach.

The last sensation I remember was that of my weight upon the
stretcher. I have no remembrance of the time when the smaller mus-
cles became affected, nor of the bodily feelings just before entire in-
sensibility came on; it seemed to come upon all parts of the body at
once.

Following bodily insensibility began a horrible mental struggle even
more indescribable than the bodily sufferings. It was a life-and-death
struggle between existence and non-existence. I seemed to see myself
as in a dream, a space of light about four or five inches in diameter.
Surrounding this space was non-existence, a thick, heavy, material
darkness, which steadily encroached upon the limits of the light. The
awful part of it was that I seemed bound to resist to the last possible
moment and yet realized that darkness must finally triumph. I had
no sense of having or wishing weapons to use in the struggle with
darkness, nor any remembrance of ever having had bodily members.

For a short time there remained the idea, somewhat comforting,
that I should sometime awake from my condition and be free again.
Nearly to the last I retained an indistinct visual memory, and I saw
myself going through some former activities. The last thought I re-
member was : 4 Thou alone art able ; so, Lord, watch over me.'

This mental struggle seemed to last some ten to thirty minutes ;
for the most of which period of existence, this luminous space seemed
to be in the form of a funnel, and gradually to decrease in size until
it became a point of light, which vanished in about the direction of
the North Star. The struggle seemed to begin in an enclosure about

106 EXPERIENCE UNDER INFLUENCE OF ETHER.

the size of my head. This enlarged in all directions until its limits
became infinite.1

On awakening,2 my desire was to blow ; at first my efforts were
very feeble. I desired principally to blow the doctor out of existence.
I was in a general fighting state of mind, and as I went out upon the
street desired to shake my fist at show-bills and people, but refrained
for fear I should be thought crazy. It took a day or more for this ef-
fect of the ether fully to wear off. The ether made me quite sick for
nearly a week, and for several years afterward the smell or mention

of it produced a feeling of dread.

I. B.

1 1 have several times had this experience in the partial delirium of fever ;
with this difference, however, that in fever the sensation is a painful one, the
room in which I imagine myself enlarging until the thought of it gives pain ;
often, too, this enormous space will seem painfully empty, with perhaps two
or three voices in different parts or enormous animals tramping about.

2 My attendant informed me that while coming out of the sleep I would
raise one leg, then the other, striking my heels heavily on the couch.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

The Groundwork of Science. A Study of Epistemology. ST.
GEORGE MIVART. The Science Series. New York, G. P. Put-
nam's Sons; London, Bliss, Sands & Co. Pp. xviii+328.
The term science is used in this work with an ambiguous mean-
ing. At times the author employs it in the general etymological
sense to cover all forms of systematic knowledge and inquiry. For
the most part, however, he means by it the empirical sciences, divided
into two classes, those which relate to the physical world and those
which have to do with the inner, psychical life. The aim of the work
is to investigate the principles which lie at the basis of ' science ;' and
so the inquiry becomes an essay in general epistemology, with particu-
lar reference throughout to the noetics of science in its more narrow
and technical significance.

The psychological foundation of Professor Mivart's theory of
knowledge is a sharp distinction between the lower and higher
faculties of knowledge. The former belongs to animals as well as
man, and the harmonious working of its several subordinate processes
('consentience') enables the brute to manifest phenomena which re-
semble the results of man's higher psychical activities without in the
least being the same as these. The human infant, it is true, in many
respects is not unlike the animal, but the likeness is superficial, since,,
in reality, there is a great gulf fixed between the two orders of con-
sciousness. Latent in the mind of the child lie the germs of his future
thought ; but the animal is limited to his lower level, with no hope of
future development. Moreover, those who maintain that the higher
faculty in man has been reached by a process of natural selection are
in error ; for natural selection has no power in itself to bridge a gap
* in kind,' and the truths which are attained by means of the faculty
in question are in the great majority of cases such as * never could
have given their possessors an improved chance of survival ' (pp.
xiii., 272 ff.).

This higher faculty of knowledge is described in a variety of ways.
It is 4 intellectual,' in distinction from sensuous, 'perception;' it is the
source of 'intellectual conceptions;' it is intellectual intuition; it is

107

108 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE.

reflex self-consciousness ; it is the power of cognizing relations ; above
all, or rather in all, it is the source whence we derive the primary and self-
evident principles which form the ultimate premises of all ratiocination
and without the support of which science, like knowledge of every kind,
becomes an impossible dream. As these original intuitions are con-
sidered by Professor Mivart the foundation of all thinking, he is care-
ful to repeat his summary of them at various points in his work. The
briefest statement of the list is as follows :

" The existence of certainty; the existence of an external world;
our continuous substantial existence ; the validity of the process of
inference ; the self-evidence of some truths ; the principle of contra-
diction ; the evidence of axioms ; the principle of causation ; the uni-
formity of nature ; and the existence of necessity and contingency "
(p. 310).

Chief among these, at least in the amount of energy expended in
its defense, is the second, which is stated more in detail on page 106 :
" An external, objective world exists and is truly apprehended by
some of our intellectual acts, an absolutely certain knowledge of ob-
jectivity being afforded us through memory, which reveals to us real
existence external to all our present experience." The entire third
chapter of the book is devoted, in the spirit of this principle, to the
refutation of idealism. The argument is vehement and decided,
although it is not till a later stage in the inquiry that the Berkeleyan
is classed with the insane, for the author believes that physical
science is possible for those who accept idealistic views only because
a beneficent nature has endowed them with faculties that guide them
aright in spite of their speculative vagaries. Nevertheless, it would
be difficult to maintain that Professor Mivart's discussion furnishes
many new weapons with which to repel the idealistic attack. In fact,
it is doubtful whether he clearly distinguishes between empirical
idealism and metaphysical idealism ; and it is certain that, confident
in the a priori arguments, he fails to avail himself of the realistic im-
plications with which modern physical science abounds.

In the last two chapters of the work we come in sight of a theistic
capstone for the epistemological edifice ; while the last of all, with the
same title as the whole book, brings a short consideration of the
metaphysics of science (force, energy, time, space, etc., p. 297 ff.).

The type of philosophy thus presented is so familiar that no ex-
tended critique is demanded. The way in which it is presented, how-
ever, calls for rather more attention. The following quotation may
serve as an example of the care with which the argument is conducted,

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 1-09

for it is scarcely to be credited that it is a fair specimen of the author's
philosophical erudition :

" For the whole of the philosophy of Germany and Holland, from
Spinoza to Hartmann, has been a result of the mental seed first sown
in men's minds by Berkeley, who explicitly produced what was im-
plicitly contained in Locke" (pp. 40-41).

Here are two examples of accuracy in reasoning about the subtlest
epistemological questions :

" Though we are for the most part content to act on reasonable
probabilities, yet certainty attends us at every turn. * * * If we
find, on returning to our library, that a window which we had care-
fully closed before starting, is open, we are quite sure that some one
must have opened it " (p. 98).

" The first and most important of these " [self-evident] " principles
is the perception of the reality of existence — that which we perceive
to exist evidently does in truth so exist. This is often expressed by
the formula * A is A ' * * * " (p. 242) .

Finally, we may cite one or two instances of philosophical humor
such as rarely lighten the labors of the epistemological student :

" To the other idealistic extreme, that by Hume, we will sacrifice
no space, for, in spite of its author's acuteness and great ability, it
does not really admit of logical statement, so utterly incoherent is it,
and so confident are we that its ingenious author had no belief in it
himself, but was laughing in his sleeve at his inept admirers and dis-
ciples " (p. 83).

And this, in criticism of Mr. Spencer's assertion of our anthropo-
morphic interpretation of physical causation :

" Surely greater nonsense has rarely been written. Let us suppose
the partly- sawn- through tree to be not even touched by us, but that a
gale has sprung up which, after having swayed it to and fro, breaks it
off and prostrates it, just as we have supposed it prostrated by human
efforts. Are we not then to say that the wind has exerted as much
force as was ours ? Can we not say this confidently, without being
such idiots as to attribute ' feelings ' to the wind?" (p. 261).

These, it is true, are among the most striking illustrations of the
style of the work. But they are not isolated cases. And, in spite
of the learning and insight which are evidenced in this as well as
in the other products of this well-known author's pen, it is to be re-
gretted that the philosophical volume in a scientific series should itself
be so unscientific in character.

A. C. ARMSTRONG, JR.

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY.

HO AESTHETIC SENTIMENT.

IS Art et le Reel ; Essai de Metaphysik fondee sur VEsthetique.

Par JEAN PERES. Paris, Felix Alcan. 1898.

An attempt at developing the metaphysical implications of the
aesthetic sentiment, this work, though lacking somewhat of the system-
atic character of the masters (of a Schelling, for instance, under
whose influence, by the way, much of it seems to be conceived), is yet
true to the French traditions of good style and does justice to the more
important assthetic and sociological intuitions of the time.

Though mainly of metaphysical interest, it is full of keen psycho-
logical analyses, especially of the sentiments of the beautiful and the
real, upon the identity of which (as seen in the analysis) a striking
argument for a monistic doctrine of experience and existence is built.
The advantage of going out from the aesthetic side of experience, in a
metaphysical reconstruction of the real, lies in the fact that art is
double-faced, on the one side historical reality, and on the other, as
embodying the sentiment of beauty, it implies nature. Transcending
alike the abstract dualism of subject and object, which abstract thinking
entails, and the dualism which volition discovers between the self and
the world, sentiment alone can attain the absolute unity of intuition.
The method of this metaphysical analysis of sentiment is not, there-
fore, the abstract analysis of psychology — its beauty is not the beauty
of psychology, nor its real the real of science. It is the difference
between concept and sentiment. Now the sentiment of reality, as
distinguished from the notion of the real, is possible only when the
habitual of intellection or volition is transcended, for the conceptual
is the sphere of the possible ; the individual volitional, from the stand-
point of immediate experience, is the sphere of chance. The senti-
ment of the real is always an intuition of universality, of destiny,
brought about by the 4 choc' of a novel experience. This sentiment
of the real in contrast to the notion of the real has in it the inherent
power of grasping subject and object, nature and soul in a higher
unity, and is characterized as 4 une vivante analyse du reelj called
forth by states of high action and intense nervous energy. An anal-
ysis of the aesthetic sentiment shows it to be of the same character, in
so much that the author calls it the culmination of the sentiment of
the real. The highest form of the love of existence is the love of
beauty.

The concept of life, therefore, as a primal activity expressing itself
in its highest potencies in the sentiment of the beautiful real, is fund-
amental; " il semble in effet que 1'homne embrasse le reel par la
connaissance et la contemplation de toute 1'ardeur de toute l'intensit£

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. Ill

du sentiment par lequelle il comprend ce qui lui manque pour etre ce
qui est."

Upon this basis the book proceeds to show in detail the manner in
which art has been a progressive realization of elementary forces of
life by means of the emotions of reality which it affords. The chap-
ters upon the aestheticising of the categories of space and time, of
unity and infinity, upon the social necessity of reflection upon the real,
and the essentially aesthetic qualities of the past as compared with the
present and future are interesting, both as developments of M. Pores'
doctrine, and also as specimens of fine metaphysical analysis.

In conclusion we may call attention again to the originality of these
analyses of the sentiments of the Real and the Beautiful.

WILBUR MARSHALL URBAN.
URSINUS COLLEGE.

Studies of Good and Evil. JOSIAH ROYCE. New York, D. Apple-
ton & Co. 1898. Pp. xv+384-

In this collection of essays Professor Royce has presented the prin-
ciples of his idealistic philosophy in their application to the problems
of life. They show the author at his best in the sphere of concrete
thought. His idealism is here essentially a philosophy of reality. He
touches upon various themes, most of which bear upon the ethical as-
pects of life. His topics range from the problem of Job to modern
character studies in the essays on Meister Eckhart and Jean Marie

Guyau and such social problems as are suggested by The Squatter
Riot of 1850 in Sacramento. The several essays on consciousness and
also the one entitled The Case of John Bunyan, must prove of special
interest to the student of psychology ; those who are interested espe-
cially in the mental experiences of the abnormal type will appreciate
Professor Royce's exhaustive analysis of Bunyan's religious experience.

JOHN GRIER HIBBEN.

The Conception of God. A Philosophical Discussion Concerning the
Nature of the Divine Idea as a Demonstrable Reality. By JOSIAH
ROYCE, JOSEPH LE CONTE, G. H. HOWISON and SIDNEY ED-
WARD MEZES. New York, The MacmillanCo. 1897. Pp. xxxviii
+ 354. Price, $1.75.

These papers were originally presented in a discussion concerning
the being of God which was held under the auspices of the Philosoph-
ical Union of the University of California. To the main discussion
there is added a supplementary essay by Professor Royce outlining

112 THE CONCEPTION OF GOD.

his position more in detail. The main argument is by Professor
Royce, and is unfolded with his usual skill and dialectic subtlety. In
the implications of our ignorance he finds the intimation of an absolute
knowledge, and in the attribute of omniscience he discovers the germi-
nal concept of God, insisting, however, that absolute knowledge also
implies love, will, wisdom and the other divine attributes. His posi-
tion of monistic idealism is combated by Professor Howison, who
urges the impossibility of reconciling an immanent God with the free
activity of individuals. Professor Royce, in rebuttal, discusses at
length the principle of individuation which according to his view lies
in that exclusive interest which is characteristic of the individual will.
He, therefore, very stoutly maintains that the unity of the world in
terms of self-consciousness does not destroy individuality as Professor
Howison would insist, but, on the contrary, while transcending the
category of individuality, the unity of consciousness need not, however,
sunder the individuals which are embraced in it.

Professor Mezes' main criticism of Professor Royce's argument is
that the concept of God as given by Professor Royce seems to lack the
elements of spirituality. In defense, however, it is urged that the
idea of spirituality, so far as it is a valid idea, must be one of the ideas
which the Absolute finds fulfilled in his experience. In other words,
Professor Royce contends that the idea of spirituality is implied in his
concept of God, inasmuch as an absolute knowledge and experience
must be an absolute knowledge and experience of the spiritual as well
as of the purely intellectual elements of consciousness.

Professor Le Conte in this discussion urges that the concept of God
is illumined by a true interpretation of the phenomena of evolution. He
finds in the process of evolution a real progress from what he designates
a diffused form of Divine Energy to a personal form. Professor Royce
does not seem, however, to be in sympathy with Professor Le Conte's
metaphysical interpretation of the theory of natural evolution, and in-
sists, moreover, that along such lines of thought very little progress will
be made towards a solution of the vexed problems of evil, of immor-
tality, or of freedom.

This discussion is of special significance inasmuch as it has not
been a mere clashing of conflicting opinions, but, on the contrary, the
several participants seem to agree substantially "in recognizing," as
Professor Howison himself remarks, u in some form or other an or-
ganic correlation among the three main objects common to philosophy
and religion — God, Freedom, Immortality."

JOHN GRIER HIBBEN.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 113

The Problems of Philosophy. By JOHN GRIER HIBBEN. New
York, Charles Scribner's Sons. 1898. Pp. 203.
Professor Hibben has undertaken an important service for phi-
losophy in this country. It may be a little querulous to ask why not
write a philosophy itself instead of a mere description of its problems.
It is a philosophy that we need much more than a propaedeutic to its
problems. But there is a good excuse for doing the latter, and it is
that no one will permit another to make the undertaking with any
peace. There is too little belief in its possibility for any one to have
the necessary courage. But it is permissible to state what the insolu-
ble problems are. Professor Hibben thus labors under a disadvantage
in the restraints which a philosophical public imposes upon him, and
I judge from some observations in his book that he would be glad to
be free from them. But the task, whether grateful or ungrateful, has
been done in a very clear and concise manner. In mapping out the
lines of thought for the student the book will be found to have per-
formed an excellent service. I would criticise only the introductory
chapter, as too much of an attempt to purloin an interest for the sub-
ject from the field of literary ideals. Philosophy has taken on the
severer aspect of science, and does not well tolerate an appeal to senti-
ment. The other portions of the book, however, sustain a different
tone, and ought to accomplish the object for which it was written.

J. H. HYSLOP.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY.

I t testi mentali* per Vesame degli alienati. Note di psicopatologia
individuale dei dottori G. GUICCIARDI e G. C. FERRARI. Reggio-
Emilia, Calderini. 1896. (Riv. Sperim. di Freniat., 1896,
XXII.) Pp. 20.

Di alcune associazioni verbali. Ricerche di psicologia individuale
dei dottori G. GUICCIARDI e G. C. FERRARI. Reggio-Emilia,
Calderini. 1897. (Riv. Sperim. di Freniat., 1897, XXIII.)
Pp. 26.

// lettore del pensiero ''John Dalton.' Contributo allo psicologia
dellepiccole percezioni e dei movimenti minimi. G. GUICCIARDI
e G. C. FERRARI. Reggio-Emilia, Calderini. 1898. (Riv.
Sperim. di Freniat., XXIV.) Pp. 56.
In the first paper the authors describe a series of tests used in the

psychological laboratory of the Psychiatrical Institute at Reggio for

114 INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY.

determining the higher mental powers of patients. The tests were of
five classes: (i) Motor phenomena. As a study of more or less un-
conscious movements the subjects were told to write a set of 20 figures,
dictated at a uniform rate, then a similar set dictated at an irregular
rate, and finally to perform a simple operation in division. The
graphical errors, repetitions, delays, etc., which varied greatly among
different patients, were taken as measures of individual and type dif-
ferences. To test the conscious control of movements the Charriere
apparatus was employed. (2) Vaso-motor phenomena and emotional
states. The sphygmograph was used while the patient was asked
various questions, some of which he could answer, others not. The
record indicated the patient's emotional excitability. (3) Field of
apperception and attention. In a dark room a number of stimuli
were simultaneously illuminated by a spark from a Holtz machine ;
the stimuli used in different tests were figures, capital letters in chance
order, the same forming a word, and letters of different colors in
chance order. The object was to determine the number of stimuli
recognized in each case. (4) Reasoning, cesthetic emotion and as-
sociation. Reproductions (uncolored) of celebrated pictures, simple
in motive, such as the Angelus, were shown ; also a series of eighteen
photographs representing a celebrated French actor in various guises.
The subjects were to tell what each represented or sugggested. (5)
Organic memory ; sense of time and space. A dial was arranged
with a hand moving in one direction, slowly and uniformly. This
hand was first made to move over a determined space on the dial ;
the subject was then blindfolded and told to make the hand cover the
same space, starting and stopping it by an electric key.

The authors report typical results obtained from the patients for
each test, which they compare with results obtained on normal indi-
viduals. They do not attempt, however, to tabulate the entire series.
The third and fourth tests are mentioned as giving especially interesting
results, which differ greatly from the normal. In connection with the
fifth test, the authors note the distinction between spatial and temporal
types of individual, as well as a neutral type, the latter measuring the
rate equally well by either datum.

The second paper describes experiments performed on 54 normal
persons — 30 men and 24 women. Each subject was tested separately.
A paper was given him, on which were written the five combinations,
He, eno, ago, ondo and olle, and he was asked to set down as many
words ending in each of these as he could think of in ten minutes.
The experimenters noted the order in which the words were set down,

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 115

with special reference to the skipping about from one ending to an-
other ; they also noted the number set down during each successive
minute. From the tables given we find that the men's average was
much greater than the women's (39.2, as compared with 27.5) ; that
of persons 30 years of age or over greater than of those under 30
(for the men 41.8, as compared with 33.6), and the average number
found during the first five minutes from two to three times greater for
every class of individuals than during the last five minutes. A differ-
ence was observed in the procedure of men and women ; the former
generally endeavored to think of a number of words with one ending
before passing to another ; the latter usually attempted to find one
word under each head successively. The curve representing the num-
ber found each minute falls steadily for both men and women, except
during the seventh minute, when it makes a decided rise.

There are, unfortunately, several serious numerical errors in the
tables published — notably the division (three times!) in Table I. by
39, instead of 30, the number of males. These and other errors throw
doubt on the reckoning generally and tend to impair the value of the
conclusions.

In the third paper the authors describe their experiments on the
4 thought reader ' John Dalton — who is, by the way, a great-nephew
of the discoverer of Daltonism. Dalton lays no claim to any occult
powers, but simply to unusual acuteness of perception for small mus-
cular indications and other minute forms of expression. He sub-
mitted himself willingly to all the tests, and seemed eager to assist as
far as possible in elucidating the phenomena in question.

Cranial measurement showed nothing noteworthy. The visual
field was normal ; the visual acuteness slightly below the normal. A
number of mental tests made were similar to those described above
in the first paper. In the test of spatio-temporal memory Dalton
proved to be of the purely spatial type. The test of the apperceptive
field, with letters illuminated by a spark, showed him to be rather above
the normal. With the Charriere apparatus for testing motor ability he
proved to be extraordinarily expert in both hands. A series of mem-
ory tests with numbers, colors, etc., indicated a high degree of devel-
opment of the memory. The reaction times on sight, hearing and
touch were rather large. The association test showed a decided pre-
ponderance of visual images, with a large number of ideational asso-
ciations; purely verbal associations and images from other senses were
few in number. The subject was asked to describe, blindfolded, the
nature of objects placed in his hand ; the results showed great acute-
ness of tactual perception.

n6 INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY.

One of Dalton's professional ' specialties ' is the designation of an
object chosen among a set and thought of earnestly by the l wilier/
whose thoughts he 'reads.' He accomplishes this both with and
without direct contact with the ' wilier.' In the case of direct contact
the minute muscular expressions of the ' wilier ' furnish the general
clue, but here, as in the case without direct contact, he declares
that the ultimate indications are furnished by the latter's breathing.
Tests of this were made at the laboratory, with and without contact,
a pneumograph being used to record the * willer's ' breathing. Dalton
picked out the required object at once, but purposely passed it over
two or three times before finally indicating it. The breathing curve
showed a marked change whenever he approached the object. The
muscular indications proper were of course not open to direct experi-
ment. Dalton asserts that they enable him to discover at once whether
the subject is good or not. These indications are not always of the
same sort ; some subjects give l guiding,' some ' opposing ' indications ;
both classes of hints, however, are favorable. It is only when a sub-
ject, through lack of attention, fails to give any indications at all, or
through nervousness makes various movements besides those due to
the object in question, that he is unable to succeed. The indications
he interprets are minute in character, and must not be confused with
the more apparent muscular movements which the unpracticed ob-
server might regard as indications.

In the latter part of the paper the authors discuss at some length
the history and theory of ' thought reading.' Three distinct theories
have been advanced to account for the phenomenon: (i) The direct
passage of something from brain to brain — the spiritualistic interpre-
tation. (2) The transmission of nervous force from brain to brain by
some dynamic process not yet understood — by a sort of induction, or
by some species of transformation of energy. (3) The transmission
is only apparent ; it is really due to minute and unconscious expres-
sions on the one hand and an abnormally acute perception on the
other. The present tests, corroborating Dalton's own statements, in-
dicate that the third explanation will cover all cases where the l thought
reader ' and his subject are in close proximity. In accordance with
this view the authors ascribe the power to a partial dissociation of
subconscious personality, which gives rise to a species of partial autom-
atism. They believe that the study of telepathic phenomena proper
must start from this point and work up, proceeding by means of psy-
chological experimentation, and using, as far as possible, psychological
laws already established. HOWARD C. WARREN.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 117

VISION.

Untersuchungen zur Pathologic der Pupillenweite und der centrip-
etalen Pupittarfasern. O. SCHIRMER. Graefe's Archiv, Bd.

44> PP- 358-4°4-

Disturbances in the pupillar reflex may be due as well to anomalies
in the centripetal part of the reflex circuit as in the centrifugal, but
almost no instances of such anomalies are to be found in the books,
for the very simple reason that they are extremely difficult to diagnos-
ticate. The subject has, however, acquired great interest since it has
been affirmed by v. Gudden, and independently by Bechterew, that
there are special centripetal fibres in the optic nerve for the regulation
of the width of the pupil. These fibres are thicker than the visual
fibres ; they cross, in half, in the chiasma, like them ; they run by the
side of the visual fibres from the same point of the retina, and they
leave the visual fibres only in the region of the external geniculate
body. v. Gudden found in rabbits that the removal of one of the
corpora quadrigemina produced contralateral blindness without affect-
ing the movements of the pupil ; only after portions of the thalamus
were also disturbed did the pupil of the blind eye also remain widened.
Schirmer has been able, by an admirable series of observations on the
human eye, to make the following additions to our knowledge of this
subject. The pupillar fibres of the optic nerve do not reach so far as
the layer of rods and cones, but they start in an earlier layer of the
retina ; their terminal organs are in all probability the amacrine cells.
The macula and its region is abundantly supplied with pupillar fibres,
but they are not wanting in the periphery ; they are sufficiently numer-
ous there to keep the pupil more contracted than in the case of the
cutting of the optic nerve. The pupillar fibres resist mechanical com-
pression much better than the visual fibres do, but they are equally
subject to inflammatory processes, and hence the width of the pupil
may become an aid to diagnosis.

C. LADD FRANKLIN.

BALTIMORE.

Ii8 NEW BOOKS.

NEW BOOKS.

Beitrdge zur Akustik und Musikwissenschaft. Herausg. von C.
STUMPF. 2 Heft. Leipzig, Barth. 1898. Pp. 170.

Essai cTune Philosophic nouvelle suggeree par la Science. L.
RIBERT. Paris, Alcan. 1897. Pp. 562. Fr. 6.

System der Werttheorie. CHR. v. EHRENFELS. Leipzig, Reisland.
1897-8. Bd. i, pp. 277. Bd. 2, pp. 270.

Spirit Slate- Writing and Kindred Phenomena. W. E. ROBINSON.
New York, Munn & Co. 1898. Pp. 155. $i.

Destinee del'homme. C. PIATT. Paris, Alcan. 1898. Pp. 244.
Fr. 5.

Les Origines de la Psychologic contemporaine. D. MERCIER. Lou-
vain, Institut Super, de Philosophic. 1897. Pp. 686. Fr. 5.

The Psychology of Peoples. G. LE BON. New York, The Mac-

millan Co. 1898. Pp. xii+236. $1.50.
La Famille dans les differ ents Societes. C. N. STARKE. Paris,

Giard et Briere. 1898. Pp. 278. Fr. 5 and 7.
Sammlung der Abhandlungen aus Pddagogische Psychologic. Bd.

II., H. i. Arbeitshygiene der Schule. F. KEMSIES. Pp. 64.

Bd. II., H. 2. Psychologische Analyse der Thatsache der Selbst-

erzeihung. G. CORDES. Pp. 54. Berlin, Reuther u. Reichard.

1898.
Instinct and Reason. H. R. MARSHALL. New York and London.

1898. Pp. xiii + 574. $3.50.
Apercus de Taxinomie generale. J. P. DURAND (de Gros). Paris,

Alcan. 1899. Pp. 265. Fr. 5.
Psychophysiologische Erkenntnistheorie. TH. ZIEHEN. Jena,

Fischer. 1898. Pp. 105.
Le libre arbitre. ERNEST NAVILLE. 2me e"d. Paris, Alcan ; Bale

et Geneve, Georg. 1898. Pp. xiv+3ii. Fr. 5.
The Doctrine of Energy. B. L. L. London, Kegan Paul. 1898.

Pp. x+io8.
Anneebiologique. YVES DELAGE. 2me anne"e, 1896. Paris, Rein-

wald. 1898. Pp. xxxv-f 808. Fr. 20.
Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Tear ending

1896-7. W. T. HARRIS. Vol. I. Washington, Government

Printing Office. 1898. Pp. vii+H36.

NOTES. 119

Contains a section devoted to the recent literature of imitation
made up of articles by Miss A. Tolman Smith, W. T. Harris (Chair-
man), and E. H. Russell.
Psychologic der Veranderungsauffassung. L. WILLIAM STERN.

Breslau, Preuss & Jiinger. 1898. Pp. xiii -f 264.
L? Education des Sentiments. P. F. THOMAS. Paris, Alcan. 1899.

Pp. 287. Fr. 5.
Truth and Error, or the Science of Intellection. J. W. POWELL.

Chicago, Open Court Co. 1898. Pp. 428. $1.75.

NOTES.

THE Macmillan Co. announce the early appearance of an English
translation of M. Tarde's Les Lois Sociales, by Professor H. C.
Warren, of Princeton. We reserve our notice of this important and
timely resume of M. Tarde's larger works until the translation ap-
pears.

IN accordance with the request of the Government of Venezuela
and of the Committee on Organization, the III Pan-American Medical
Congress is postponed to meet in Caracas in December, 1900.

THE prospectus has been issued of * An American Journal of
Anthropology' (name not yet decided), conducted by an editorial
board of well-known anthropologists with F. W. Hodge as secretary
and managing editor. The journal is to be the organ of Section H of
the A. A. A. S., and it will replace the American Anthropologist.
Advance subscriptions should be sent to Dr. Franz Boas, Columbia
University, New York. Quarterly, $4.

WE have received also the prospectus of the Zeitschrift fur
Pddagogische Psychologic, to be issued first in January, 1899 (Ed.
Dr. F. Kemsies, Berlin ; publisher, H. Walther, Berlin). Bimonthly.
8M.

THE Archiv f. System. Philos., Bd. IX., Heft 4, contains its
annual Bibliography of Philosophical Literature for 1897 °^ 23°7
titles. The Revue Neo-Scholastique also continues its quarterly
Sommaire Ideologique, printed on one side of the paper onlv, for
pasting on cards.

120 NOTES.

AT a recent meeting of the Academy of Moral and Political Sci-
ences, the Gegner prize (3,800 fr.) was awarded to M. F. Pillon, the
Jean Reynaud prize (10,000 fr.) to M. Paul Janet, and half of the
Penanrtm prize (2,000 fr.) to l'Abb6 Piat for his book La Personne
humaine.

THE attention of psychologists may be called to a ' Critical Re-
view ' on c Modern Neurology ' by Dr. Adolf Meyer, beginning in the
Journ. of Comp. Neurology, November, 1898.

VOL. VI. No. 2. MARCH, 1899.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW.

ON CERTAIN HINDRANCES TO THE PROGRESS
OF PSYCHOLOGY IN AMERICA.1

BY PROFESSOR GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

Yale University.

The progress of any of the positive sciences is always de-
pendent upon the personal characteristics of the men devoted to
the special science, quite as much as upon any other condition.
The history of their development in the past would show this
statement to be true even in the case of those sciences which are
most independent of all subjective influences. A survey of all
the favorable and unfavorable conditions under which astronomy,
physics, chemistry and biology are developing at the present
time — in spite of the enormous recent increase in the impor-
tance of instrumentation and technique — does not, I believe,
throw discredit upon the value of personal characteristics. It
is, after all, the quality of its scientific men which largely or
chiefly determines whether the rate of scientific progress shall
be rapid or slow in any particular age.

If this dependence on the character of the mind which goes
into them is obvious for the physico-chemical sciences, it may be
taken for granted as the chief condition determining the rate of
the progress of psychological science. For psychology is the
science of mind — of the mental life and mental development of
the individual man ; it is, therefore, in its essential nature, more
influenced than are the physico-chemical sciences by the kind
of a mind that undertakes to deal scientifically with the things

1 Read before the American Psychological Association, New York, Decem-
ber, 1898.

122 GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

of the mind. Its method, moreover, is such as to lay emphasis,
in respect of content, upon a rich experience of knowledge,
sentiment and practical activities ; and, in respect of way of ap-
proach, upon training in introspective analytics and in herme-
neutical skill. Sympathy with all that is really human, and
experience which covers all which is essentially human ; these
are indispensable qualifications of the high-class psychologist.
In psychology, -personnel and materiel are most intimately
allied.

I am going to undertake an ungrateful task, and one which
cannot expect to appeal strongly to the sympathies of my au-
dience ; perhaps it cannot even get its conclusions accredited by
them as having a basis of accepted facts. For this reason the
undertaking may fitly begin with a few words of more or less ab-
ject apology. And, first, what will be said cannot be proved
true either by demonstration or by induction ; and to attempt its
proof by the method of illustration would be, of all ways, most
unfortunate. Its value can be, at most, only such as may be ac-
corded to the opinions of one who has been watching the course
of psychological science in this country, from an interior point
of view, during a score of years. The opinion you are respect-
fully asked to consider may be briefly summarized as follows :
As compared with the increase in number of trained teachers
and investigators, and in the amount and quality of laboratory
and other equipment, the science of psychology is not making
with us the progress which may rightfully be expected of it.
When inquiry is made, however, into the hindrances of progress,
and after due allowance for the intrinsic difficulties of the science
and for all the remaining deficiencies in equipment, it is found
that one of these hindrances consists in the limited and faulty
qualifications of psychologists.

The grounds for this state of my own belief I shall now pro-
ceed to make clear in several particulars. And though my
theme concern personal qualifications, I distinctly disclaim all
intentional personalities.

The first hindrance to the progress of psychology in America
to which I wish to call attention is an excessive aloofness from,
and a consequent ignorance of, the real mental life and mental

HINDRANCES TO PS YCHOLOG Y IN AMERICA. 1 23

development of the average human being. Now, we psycholo-
gists may define the subject matter of our science and limit its
special problems as we please ; and I have nothing to urge
against, but much to say in favor of, the high specialization
and careful experimental methods of modern psychology. At
the same time, where such specialization is not based upon, and
constantly united with, an ever widening and more sympathetic
acquaintance with many men of many kinds, its results are un-
satisfactory. This is likely to be true both from the scientific
and from the practical points of view. If I may be allowed an
old-fashioned term — which is, however, just as valuable and
significant now as it ever was — psychology is nothing but the
descriptive and explanatory study of the * souls ' of men. And
there is no way of knowing what souls are, and can do, which
does not involve the interpretation, in terms of one's own self-
consciousness, of the physical signs given of the conscious
state of other souls. The psychologist, then, who is a mere
experimentalist, or a mere scholastic student and teacher, or a
mere reader of books, does not know thoroughly his business.
For his business is human nature ; and human nature shows
itself, as it really is, only to the man who, having it all in
himself and having a trained self-knowledge, is fitted to observe,
and to interpret, and to theorize upon, the natures of his fellow-
men.

" Wills t du dick selber erkennen, so sieh ivie die Anderen es treiben;
Willst du die Anderen verstehn, blick in dein eigenes Herz."

Whatever may be said in depreciation of the so-called * old
psychology,' it cannot be denied that its more permanent and
rapid gains were largely due to the fact that the problems of the
human soul have enlisted the efforts of so many men widely
acquainted with, and sympathetically interested in, the whole
body of their fellow-men. The knowledge of human mental
life and development which is obtained by experience only with
certain classes of people, or with certain aspects of human
nature, is, indeed, usually prejudiced, narrow, and not entitled
to credit for its scientific character. But it all furnishes invalu-
able material for the scientific psychologist. The man of busi-
ness, the physician, the pastor, the police judge or keeper of

124 GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

the jail, and even the gambler, the tramp, the prostitute, knows
something that answers to fact and to reality about the soul of
man. This knowledge, too, has a bearing upon the problems
of the school.

In my judgment — to cite one or more examples — it is not
scientific, not to say ethically proper, without knowing what
observers of human nature in the large know, to establish de-
terminism on the basis of a few thousand reactions in the psy-
chological laboratory ; or to resolve the moral and religious
sentiments of humanity into modifications of the pleasure-pains ;
or to deny the rights of that instinctive metaphysics without
which the « man of the school ' is justly deemed by the ' man of
affairs ' to be lacking in ' common sense/

The soul of man is no simple equation to be stated in terms
of the * differentiation,' * aggregation,' ' redintegration,' of sensa-
tional factors. Its manifold beliefs, fears, hopes, aspirations,
and even cognitions, that take hold on what is forever hidden
from sense, and yet give support and value to sensation itself,
are integral 'moments 'in its own being. The scientific psy-
chologist, much more than the Latin poetizer, is committed to
the principle of not esteeming anything human foreign to him-
self. And while he must, of course, restrict his more special
investigations to comparatively narrow lines, if this is done in
the spirit of aloofness from, or in ignorance of, the actual human
nature of the multitude of men, he cannot claim to have the best
fitness for the pursuit of his chosen science. Above all other
hindrances will the genuine student of psychology dread the
limitations of academic narrowness and bigotry. For him the
worst of slaveries is to be confined by the bands of the scholastic
temper and habit of life. Better the ornithologist who knows
nothing of birds in the wild wood, or the geologist who has
studied only the collections of his college museum, or the anato-
mist who has dissected only the manikin of his medical school,
or the artist who knows only the artificial poses of his favorite
model, than the psychologist who has no wider acquaintance
with the souls of men than the laboratory, or the class-room, or
the book of his favorite author, can give him.

The teachers of psychology in the higher institutions of learn-

HINDRANCES TO PSYCHOLOGY IN AMERICA. 125

ing in this country are to-day, on the whole, much better trained
in scientific spirit and method, much better acquainted with the
technique and the literature of their science, than were the
teachers of twenty-five and fifty years ago. For this reason
they are more largely the younger men. These facts are on
the whole hopeful for the more satisfactory progress in the
future of psychology and the allied sciences. But unless at the
same time their interest in, and acquaintance with, human life
in a large way is correspondingly cultivated, these teachers will
not in some respects be the equals, much less the superiors, of
the teachers of the olden time. He cannot know, or understand
— whether to describe or to explain — what is ' in man,' who has
not somehow had it first in his own experience with himself.

It is perhaps partly in reaction against an excessive scho-
lastic spirit and method, that another and quite opposed hin-
drance to the progress of psychology has recently appeared.
I refer now to an absurd surplusage of attempts to render the
science popular, which has emanated chiefly from writers who
lack almost all the qualifications of the trained expert. It would
seem as though the secret meditations of not a few of these
popularizers of psychology might be expressed in somewhat the
following fashion. * 'These professors of psychology, these Fach-
Seelenforscher, are not up to their business ; for they are not
telling the people much that is new about human nature ; and
what they do tell is not intelligible to the people, neither is it ex-
pressed in an altogether taking way. Go to, 'now : I will show
them how to do it. Since I am a teacher of something, or at
least know what plain people want, I will be a teacher of psy-
chology to these same plain people. That is to say, I will write
a book which shall have all the science of the professor, and
shall also be easily intelligible and practical."

Perhaps such expressions as the foregoing misinterpret the
consciousness of this swarm of improvised teachers of psycho-
logical science in America to-day. But there is one fact which
seems to admit of only one conclusion : the multiplication of
books popularizing psychology, written by authors who have
never had any truly scientific training, is, on the whole, a dis-
tinct hindrance to the best progress of this science. And, in-

126 GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

deed, what valid reason is there for such an altogether dispro-
portionate affliction of this particular science in this particular
way ? Books on physics, chemistry, zoology, physiology, do
not proceed in rival numbers from the pens of men who have
never made any prolonged, well concentrated, and judiciously
guided study of the subjects treated by these positive sciences.
We are inclined to look somewhat too contemptuously upon the
' old psychology' and upon its teachers, because mere schooling
as a minister, when made up into a college president, was es-
teemed a sufficient test of fitness to exploit one's self as an author-
ity in psychological science. But what better is this modern
way of gathering from here and from there, concealing in whole
or in part the sources from which the information is gathered,
emphasizing the didactic calling as practiced from the platform
of the school rather than that of the church, and then issuing
a patchwork book into the already overcrowded shelves of the
publishers ?

Fortunately, however, these two opposite tendencies may be
expected in time to correct each other ; and if those authorities
who have scientific preeminence and scholastic opportunity
finally get their scientific knowledge popularized, the crude at-
tempt at popularization made by the multitude of tyros may
have prepared the way for them. In the meantime, the multi-
tude of books on psychology by those who have really never
made any serious, not to say sufficient, study of psychology
would seem to be a hindrance to the progress of the science.

Another hindrance to the more rapid advance of psychology
is to be found, I think, in the manner in which much of the
presentation and discussion of psychological problems is con-
ducted. This manner is by no means always or even generally
ill-meant : nevertheless, it seems to me inconsistent with the
higher and more noble purposes of psychological science. For,
in the first place, it excites suspicion, if it does not engender
distrust and scorn, on the part of the community looking on
from outside the inner circle of psychologists themselves. A
dead uniformity of opinion, or an enforced consensus of ex-
pression, is, of course, not the genuine scientific attitude toward
any subject of investigation ; nor does it further the progress of

HINDRANCES TO PSYCHOLOGY IN AMERICA. 127

any science to try to secure prematurely such opinion, such
consensus. At the same time, without some common basis of
knowledge and of method, it is foolish to speak of the * science '
of psychology at all, and idle to form an association of men
who are in the common pursuit of such science. For one, I
believe that there already exists a science of psychology. It is
not all a * natural science,' in the sense of being a physiological
or cerebral psychology : it is not all an experimental psychology,
or a psycho-physical psychology, or a speculative psychology.
It is simply the net result of human experience, gathered in
whatever way, as to the faithful description and satisfactory ex-
planation of the mental life of the individual man. These net
results constitute a very respectable body of established truths ;
they are the science of psychology. Whoever underestimates
and depreciates these commonly accepted truths, and over-
emphasizes his own peculiar conclusions or methods to the dis-
credit of these truths, is likely to hinder rather than to advance
the real interests of psychology. Before the layman he makes
the same impression which is made by the new recruit to the
missionary force when he proceeds at once to proclaim loudly
the differences of his sect or school from all others that bear the
common name of Christian.

One cannot for a moment believe that the psychologists of
this country are any less under the dominion of authority, or
any more exacting in the tests they apply to their hypotheses and
theories, than are the physicists, the chemists or the biologists.
Yet it is my impression that the latter are, when compared with
the former, more respectful toward matured opinions, more ap-
preciative of long-continued services, more accustomed to place
the emphasis — where it belongs — upon the growing body of ac-
credited conclusions, and more courteous in the discussion of
minor differences. It will be said that if such a difference
really exists, it is due to the difference in the character of the
subjects studied. For my part, I believe that this, too, is an
affair of personnel rather than of materiel.

In close connection with these differences, one is almost
forced to remark another difference that concerns the literary
style of that discussion of mooted points in which we psycholo-

128 GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

gists are apt to indulge. Am I wrong in believing that there is
a higher average of dignity and reserve in the polemics of our
colleagues of the physico-chemical and biological sciences?
Certainly * discussion ' is indispensable to progress in psychology
as in all the other positive forms of science ; and the place given
to it in the journalism or in the associations of psychologists is
not too large. Even lively polemics over scientific subjects is
not always undesirable : although it is probable that a careful
examination of the history of the development of the positive
sciences would show that polemics really counts for compara-
tively little as a contribution to such development. Most of the
work which really advances science is done by those who are
most diligent in research, patient in forming their own conclu-
sions, and least eager to play the part of the brilliant and de-
structive critic of other men's conclusions.

But one fails to see — at least in the first instance — why the
jaunty, snappy, newspaper style should be more appropriate to
the science of psychology than to any of the other natural sci-
ences. Is the soul of man itself such an inferior kind of reality
that the discussion of its attributes, activities and development,
should run the risks of the other worst improprieties, in order to
escape the charge of dullness ? Is not levity as inappropriate to
the scientific examination and exhibition of the facts of human
consciousness, as it is to the description and explanation of the
behavior of an amoeba or of the development of the egg from a
common barn-fowl? Or, again, why should voluminous and
prolonged descriptions of a certain species of micro-organisms
be welcomed as worth years of scientific research, and then
similar studies of mental development be subjected to jest or to
fault-finding for the same qualities of thoroughness — and this
by psychologists themselves?

On approaching the next, and fourth, kind of hindrances to
the best progress of psychological science in America, so far as
these hindrances are under the immediate control of psycholo-
gists themselves, I am well aware of treading on yet more
doubtful and dangerous ground. I must again, however, ask
a brief indulgence for the expression of somewhat vague beliefs
and fears rather than conclusions based on indisputable facts.

HINDRANCES TO PSYCHOLOGY IN AMERICA. 129

These beliefs and fears it is which lead me to say that the
growth of the commercial spirit within academical circles, and
as touching scholastic affairs, is becoming a real hindrance to
psychological science. Now the spirit of genuine science is
sincere and unselfish. The man who adopts as his profession
any form of science — to use a familiar expression — chiefly * for
what he can make out of it ' is really not tn, or inside of, that
science at all. But the mind that follows the science of man's
mental life, through feelings of personal ambition, or under the
influence of jealousy, prejudice or bigotry — either theological
or anti-theological — makes itself thereby less capable of dis-
cerning and appreciating its full content, functioning and de-
velopment.

That the 'commercial spirit' is, the world over, just now
increasingly dominant in social and political institutions and
relations, admits of no doubt. Hitherto the higher educational
circles and institutions of this country have had a large and
fortunate exemption from the influences of this spirit. They
are still in the enjoyment of a relative exemption from these
influences. The teachers of the sciences are still, I believe, less
dominated by merely personal considerations in the pursuit of
their ideals — the ideals of knowledge as related to the increase
of human well-being — than are any other class of men in the
country, clergymen not excepted. But there are signs that the
commercial spirit is to a certain extent displacing the truly
scientific spirit, even in these higher scholastic circles.

I find these signs of the intrusion of the commercial spirit
upon the domains of science in the following results : To this
spirit it is due, in part, that there is an increasing amount of
premature publication on the subject of psychology. I am not
one of those who believe that the student should withhold his
conclusions until he has made them absolutely unassailable in
respect of proof, and perfect in form. If this were the rule,
no wise man would ever publish anything. It is quite legitimate,
moreover, to subject one's own work, while immature — and
even on account of its confessed immaturity — to the criticism of
one's colleagues. For the metabolism of every body of a posi-
tive science consists in the appropriation of only a part of what

130 GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

is offered to it, and in the rejection of the remainder. But when
premature publication is largely encouraged by the ambition to
get one's self into notice, or to better one's financial condition,
rather than to advance the cause of science, its excess may
become a positive hindrance to science.

In part, also, to the growth of the commercial spirit is due
the practice of saying really commonplace things in strange
and unfamiliar ways; as though, indeed, mannerism in ex-
pression, or license in the invention of new terms, would be
mistaken for originality in research and for independence of
thinking. Doubtless, psychology has the same right as any
other science to develop a technical terminology. And if a new
mental factor, or faculty, or law of mental life, is discovered by
any student of psychology, and no appropriate term for the dis-
covery seems to be at hand, why — I, for one, am not going to
say that the discoverer is not entitled to signalize the triumph of
his insight by giving a new name to his discovery. At the same
time, the science of psychology may well be very conservative
in such matters. A time-honored truth is no better, a time-worn
fallacy is no more acceptable, because either is presented in
language calculated to deceive the laity into thinking that it is
the latest thing in modern psychology. Genuine science will
not increase its speed by exacerbating our characteristic Ameri-
can impatience. After all, even modern science goes pretty
slow ; not a few of its most loudly applauded recent results will
probably have to be carefully reconsidered and much modified
before they are adopted into the body of its assured results.

Hitherto the pursuit of the positive sciences in this country
has been remarkably free, as compared with European countries
generally, from hindrances growing out of personal and insti-
tutional jealousies. This freedom has been partly due to dif-
ference in the mode of making academic appointments, and in
the relations of supply and demand as touching the candidates
for these appointments. There are some signs that the growth
of the commercial as distinguished from the genuine scientific
spirit is beginning to breed and to foster personal and institu-
tional jealousies among us. If these signs tell the truth, then
the truth is to be deplored. But surely the remedy for this hin-

HINDRANCES TO PS YCHOLOGY IN AMERICA. 131

drance to the more rapid progress of psychology, if it exist, is
an affair of personnel rather than of materiel.

There is one other hindrance to psychology, as a claimant
to some established position among the positive sciences, which
I wish to note. This is a certain vacillating and insecure attitude
toward the other most closely allied sciences — an attitude some-
what similar to that of the nouveaux riches toward the recog-
nized aristocratic classes of society. I firmly believe that psy-
chology, in respect both of subject-matter and of method, and
also of available accumulations, might make itself entitled to
take a place of equality — equally independent and free-spirited,
equally docile and temperate — among the modern sciences.
The physico-chemical and biological sciences all have much
wealth of knowledge and of technique to share with psychol-
ogy ; I believe that psychology might have something approach-
ing an equal value to share with them. And the recent « affili-
ation ' to which every meeting of this Association bears witness
is one of the best signs of the * better-time-coming ' for psy-
chological science.

The older psychology was too much disposed to maintain an
attitude of exaggerated independence, of stiff and proud aloof-
ness, toward physics, chemistry and the biological sciences.
Its teachers knew that their souls were their own ; and they
often appeared to suppose that the scientific study of these souls
could be best conducted in complete disregard of the physical
conditions and environment in which all mental life and mental
development is set. The new psychology, in its proper reaction
from this attitude of unscientific isolation, is tempted to take
an attitude of equally unscientific servility. Its teachers are less
sure that their souls are their own, or even that there are any
souls, than were the teachers of the earlier days. Some of them
are less sure than is the average chemist, physicist or biologist,
who — however modern he may be in his own specialty — is
rather apt to be conservative with regard to the existence of his
own soul.

In the history of scientific development always, but perhaps
never more than of late, there has existed in the minds of some
— enthusiastic dreamers, for the most part, albeit often men of

132 GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

great eminence in the particular sciences — the captivating notion
of a ' universal* science. If we could only get at this one
science, in all its depth and height and length, then we should
have at least the key to all the mysteries of universal Nature.
She would, to be sure, still remain rather a complicated and
somewhat freakish and irregular creature ; but man would have
the science of her, in the large, as it were. Of late, the last-
century conception of the universal mechanism, under which all
selves and all things alike come, has been somewhat thoroughly
shaken up. But the demand, or the hortation, for another step
toward the ideal of unity, is generally issued at present by some
one of the particular sciences to those others which lie nearest
its own door. For example, physics may be willing to unify
chemistry — by absorbing it into itself. Chemistry may wish to
effect a complete harmony with physiology, in somewhat the
same way. Undoubtedly, in the minds of a multitude of bi-
ologists, psychology, as a science, is only a subdivision of bi-
ology, a dependent branch on the tree of universal life. All
this reminds one of the current practical proposals to effect a
unity of the Church, which, in the thought of each particular
denomination, take the form of an < embracement ' of all the
other denominations, by that particular one making itself the
universal.

On the other hand, I wish to testify out of my personal ex-
perience that I have found more of the truly scientific reserve and
caution, in the matter of premature and unverified extension of
their own principles, on the part of the most thoroughly culti-
vated men in the physico-chemical and biological sciences, than
on the part of a large number of psychologists when dealing
with these same physical and biological principles. Suppose,
for example, the question arises as to the bearing of the theory
of the conservation and correlation of energy upon the psycho-
logical problem of the will ; or that the accepted principles of
cerebral physiology — granted the very doubtful claim that such
principles can be found — be asked to contribute to the discussion
of the hypothesis of psycho-physical parallelism ; or what not
among hypotheses of this order. It is my experience that the
psychologist who has only a smattering of knowledge on these

HINDRANCES TO PS YCHOL OGY IN AMERICA. 1 33

physico-chemical subjects is much the likelier to take the un-
scientific and prematurely i cocksure ' position, with regard to
their application to psychological subjects — in the name of the
borrowed, but misunderstood and misapplied, authority of the
chemico-physical and biological sciences.

But however this may be, there is little doubt that any other
than an independent attitude, which is also respectful and docile,
toward allied sciences is distinctly disadvantageous to the
science of psychology. There is just as little doubt that the
vacillating and uncertain or servile attitude toward certain other
sciences, which not a few students of psychology assume, is a
convincing witness to a raw and immature and misinformed con-
dition of mind respecting their own science. Psychology, if it
wishes to get more respect from the other members of the great
brotherhood of science, must respect itself. In order to entitle
itself to more self-respect and to more of respect from others, it
must be, of course, respectful and teachable toward all truth ;
but it must also know its own peculiar rights of domain, must
maintain and defend them, and must cultivate this domain
by its own somewhat peculiar methods, with the free and inde-
pendent spirit which belongs to every worker in every field of
science. Psychology must remain < affiliated ;' it must enter
more intimately into the circle of affiliated science ; but it must
go there more and more richly laden, to teach and to learn, as
* one among many ' who are really all working toward the same
end. That end is the scientific conquest of all reality, to the
improvement of human society.

Well, brethren of the Association of Psychologists in Amer-
ica, I have expressed somewhat freely my private opinions.
They are mere opinions ; and you will, of course, take them
only for what they may seem to you worth. There is, of course,
another and brighter side ; abundant helps and signs of prog-
ress, as well as certain hindrances and indications of an unsat-
isfactory rate of progress. It is of the latter, so far as they be-
long more to personnel than to materiel, that I have ventured to
speak. And the practical lesson, if there be any, is obvious.

THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY.

BY HAVELOCK ELLIS.
Cornwall, England.

Modesty — which may be provisionally defined as an almost
instinctive fear, prompting to concealment, and usually centering
around the sexual nature — while common to both sexes is more
especially feminine, so that it may almost be regarded as the
chief secondary sexual character of women on the psychic side.
The woman who is lacking in this kind of fear is lacking also
in sexual attractiveness to the normal and average man. As
a psychic secondary sexual character of the first rank, is it
necessary, before any psychology of sex can be arranged in
order, to obtain a clear view of modesty.1

1 have not, however, been able to find that the subject of
modesty has been treated in any comprehensive way by psy-
chologists. Though valuable facts and suggestions bearing on
sexual emotions, on disgust, on the origin of tattooing, on orna-
ment and clothing, have been brought forward by physiologists,
psychologists and ethnographists, few or no attempts appear to
have been made to reach the general synthetic statement of these
facts and suggestions.2 The subject is indeed complicated by

1 1 may remark that the present paper is an abstract of a study to be pub-
lished in the second volume of my Studies in the Psychology of Sex.

2 It is true that many unreliable, slight or fragmentary attempts have been
made to ascertain the constitution or basis of this emotion. Herbert Spencer,
followed by Sergi and others, regarded modesty simply as the result of clothing.
This view is overturned by the well ascertained fact that many races which go
absolutely naked possess a highly developed sense of modesty. These writers
have not realized that psychological modesty is earlier in appearance, and more
fundamental, than anatomical modesty. A partial contribution to the analysis
of modesty has been made by Professor James, who with his usual insight and
lucidity has set forth certain of its characteristics, especially the element due to
* the application to ourselves of judgments primarily passed upon our mates.'
Westermarck, again, followed by Grosse, has very ably and convincingly set
forth certain factors in the origin of ornament and clothing, a subject which

THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY. 135

the difficulty of excluding closely allied emotions, — shame, shy-
ness, bashfulness, timidity, etc. — all of which, indeed, however
defined, adjoin and overlap modesty.1 It is not, however, im-
possible to isolate the main body of the emotion of modesty, on
account of its special connection, on the whole, with the con-
sciousness of sex. I here attempt, however imperfectly, to reach
my own analysis of its constitution and development.

That modesty is based on fear, one of the most primitive of
the emotions, seems to be fairly evident. It is, indeed, an ag-
glomeration of fears, especially, as I hope to show, of two im-
portant and distinct fears, one of much earlier than human origin
and supplied solely by the female, the other of more distinctly
human character and of social rather than sexual origin.

A child left to itself, though very bashful, is wholly devoid
of modesty. Every one is familiar with the shocking inconve-
nances of children in speech and act, with the charming ways in
which they innocently disregard the conventions of modesty
their elders thrust upon them, or, even when anxious to carry
them out, wholly miss the point at issue.

Under civilized conditions, moreover, the convention of
modesty long precedes its real development. It may fairly be
said that this takes place at the advent of puberty. We should
not, however, be justified in asserting that on this account
modesty is a purely sexual phenomenon. The social impulses
also develop about this time, and to that coincidence the corn-
many writers imagine to cover the whole field of modesty. More recently,
Ribot, in his work on the emotions, has vaguely outlined most of the factors of
modesty, but has not developed a coherent view of their origins and relation-
ships.

1 Timidity, as understood by Dugas in his interesting essay on that subject,
is probably most remote. Dr. H. Campbell's < Morbid Shyness ' (British Med-
ical Journal, 26 September, 1896) is in part identical with timidity, in part with
modesty. The matter is further complicated by the fact that ' modesty ' itself
has in English (like virtue) two distinct meanings. In its original form it has
no special connection with sex or with woman, but may rather be considered as
a masculine virtue. Cicero regards ' modestia ' as the equivalent of the Greek
cutypoavvrj. This is the ' modesty ' which Mary Wollstonecraft eulogized in the
last century, the outcome of knowledge and reflection, ' soberness of mind,'
1 the graceful calm virtue of maturity.' In French it is possible to avoid this con-
fusion, and ' modestie ' is entirely distinct from ' pudeur.' It is of course with
* pudeur' that I am here concerned.

136 HA VELOCK ELLIS.

pound nature of the emotion of modesty may well be largely
due.

The sexual factor is, however, the simplest and most prim-
itive element of modesty, and may, therefore, be mentioned first.

This fundamental animal factor of modesty,1 rooted in the
natural facts of the sexual life of the higher mammals, and
especially man, obviously will not explain the whole phenomena
of modesty ; it fails to account for ornaments and garments, and
it scarcely appears to present an adequate basis for modesty in
the male. For this we must, in large part at least, turn to the
other great primary element of modesty, the social factor.

We cannot doubt that one of the most primitive and universal
of the social characteristics of man is an aptitude for disgust,
founded as it is on a yet more primitive and animal aptitude for
disgust which has little or no social significance. In nearly all
races, even the most savage, we seem to find distinct traces of
this aptitude for disgust in the presence of certain actions of
others, an emotion naturally reflected in the individual's own
actions, and hence a guide to conduct. Notwithstanding our
gastric community of disgust with lower animals, it is only in
man that this disgust seems to become highly developed, to
possess a distinctly social character, and to serve as a guide to
social conduct. The objects of disgust vary infinitely accord-
ing to the circumstances and habits of particular races, but the
reaction of disgust is fundamental throughout.

The best study of the phenomena of disgust known to me is
without doubt Professor Richet's.2 Richet concludes that it is
the dangerous and the useless which evoke disgust. Certain
excretions and secretions, being either useless or, in accordance
with wide-spread primitive ideas, highly dangerous, the sacro-
pubic region became a concentrated focus of disgust. It is for
this reason, no doubt, that savage men exhibit modesty, not only
towards women, but towards their own sex, and that so many of

1 For the detailed treatment of which the forthcoming work may be con-
sulted.

2 C. Richet, ' Les causes du de'gout,' Uhomme et V intelligence, 1884. This
eminent physiologist's elaborate study of disgust was not written as a contribu-
tion to the psychology of modesty, but it forms an admirable introduction to the
investigation of the social factor of modesty.

THE E VOL UTION OF MODES TY. 137

the lowest savages take precautions to obtain seclusion for the
fulfilment of natural functions. The statement now so often
made that the primary object of clothing is to accentuate rather
than to conceal has in it — as I shall point out later — a large ele-
ment of truth, but it is by no means a complete account of the
matter. It seems very difficult not to admit that there is a
genuine impulse to concealment among the most primitive peo-
ples, and the invincible repugnance often felt by savages to re-
move the girdle or apron is scarcely accounted for by the theory
that it is a sexual lure.

In this connection it seems to me instructive to consider a
special form of modesty very strongly marked among savages
in some parts of the world. I refer to the feeling of immodesty
in eating. When this feeling exists, modesty is offended when
one eats in public ; the modest man retires to eat. Indecency,
said Cook, was utterly unknown among the Tahitians ; but they
would not eat together ; even brothers and sisters had their
separate baskets of provisions, and generally sat some yards
apart, with their backs to each other, when they ate.1 Karl von
den Steinen remarks, in his interesting book on Brazil, that,
though the Bakairi of Central Brazil have no feeling of shame
about nakedness, they are ashamed to eat in public : they retired
to eat, and hung their heads in shamefaced confusion when they
saw him innocently eat in public. Hrolf Vaughan Stevens
found that, when he gave an Orang Laut (Malay) woman any-
thing to eat, she not only would not eat if her husband were
present, but if any man were present she would go aside before
eating or giving her children to eat.2

It is quite easy to understand how this arises. Whenever
there is any pressure on the means of subsistence, as among

1 Crawley (Jour. Anthropological Inst., May, 1895) gives numerous similar
instances, even in Europe, with, however, special reference to sexual taboo. I
may remark that English people of lower classes, especially women, are often
modest about eating in the presence of people of higher class. This feeling is
no doubt due in part to the consciousness of defective etiquette, but that very
consciousness is a development of the fear of causing disgust which is a compo-
nent of modesty.

2 Stevens, 4 Mittheilungen aus dem Frauenleben der Orang Belendas," Zt.
fur Ethnologie, 1896, Heft IV., p. 167.

138 HA VEL O CK ELLIS.

savages at some time or another there nearly always is, it must
necessarily arouse a profound emotion of anger and disgust to
see another person putting into his stomach what one might as
well have put into one's own. The special secrecy sometimes
observed by women is probably due to the fact that women
would be more sensitive to the emotion of disgust that the act
of eating arouses in onlookers. As social feeling develops a
man desires not only to eat in safety, but also to avoid being an
object of disgust, and to spare his friends all unpleasant emo-
tions. Hence it becomes a requirement of ordinary decency to
eat in private. A man who eats in public becomes — like the
man who in our cities exposes his person in public — the object
of disgust and contempt.

Long ago, when a hospital student on midwifery duty in
London slums, I had occasion to observe that among the wo-
men of the poor, and more especially in those who had lost the
first bloom of youth, modesty consisted chiefly in the fear of
being disgusting. There was almost a pathetic anxiety, in the
face of pain and discomfort, not to be disgusting in the doctor's
eyes. This anxiety expressed itself in the ordinary symptoms of
modesty. But as soon as the woman realized that I found
nothing disgusting in whatever was proper and necessary to be
done under the circumstances, it almost invariably happened that
every sign of modesty at once disappeared. In the special and
elementary conditions of parturition, modesty is reduced to this
one fear of causing disgust, so that when that is negatived, the
emotion is non-existent and the subject becomes, without an
effort, as direct and natural as a little child. A fellow-student on
similar duty, who also discovered for himself the same character
of modesty, remarked on it to me with some sadness ; it seemed
to him derogatory to womanhood that what he had been accus-
tomed to consider its supreme grace should be so superficial that
he could at will set limits to it. I thought then, as I think still,
that that was rather a perversion of the matter, and that nothing
becomes degrading because we happen to have learnt something
about its operations. But I am more convinced than ever that
the fear of causing disgust — a fear quite distinct from that of
losing sexual lure or breaking a rule of social etiquette — plays

THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY. 139

a very large part in the modesty of the more modest sex and in
modesty generally. Whatever magnifies self-confidence and
lulls the fear of evoking disgust — whether it is the presence of
a beloved person in whose good opinion complete confidence is
felt, or whether it is merely the grosser narcotizing influence of
a slight degree of intoxication — always automatically lulls the
emotion of modesty. Together with the sexual factor, the social
fear of evoking disgust seems to me the most fundamental ele-
ment in modesty.

It is on this animal basis that the human and social fear of
arousing disgust has developed. Among civilized people, it
may be added, the fear of arousing disgust is the ultimate and
most fundamental element of modesty.

Another factor of modesty, which reaches a high develop-
ment even in savagery, and among more or less naked races,
is the idea of ceremonial uncleanness. It may be to some ex-
tent rooted in the elements already referred to, and it leads us
into a much wider field than that of modesty, so that it is only
necessary to mention it here. Ritual tends to crystallize around
any act of life on which men expend deliberate attention, and
the duties of modesty among savages are a sufficiently serious
part of life to constitute a nucleus for ritual. No doubt offences
against ritual may be regarded as more serious than offences
against modesty, but they are so obviously allied in early cul-
ture that the one reinforces the other, and they cannot be easily
disentangled. All savage and barbarous people who have at-
tained any high degree of ceremonialism have included cer-
tain animal functions more or less stringently within the bonds
of that ceremonialism. It is only necessary to refer to the
Jewish ritual books of the Old Testament, to Hesiod, or to the
customs prevalent among Mohammedan peoples.

So far it has only been necessary to refer incidentally to the
connection of modesty with clothing. I have sought to em-
phasize the unquestionable but often forgotten fact that modesty
is in its origin independent of clothing, that physiological modesty
takes precedence of anatomical modesty, and that the primary
factors of modesty were developed long before the discovery of
either ornament or garments. The rise of clothing probably

1 40 HA VttL O CK ELLIS.

had its first psychic basis on an emotion of modesty already
compositely formed of the elements we have traced. Both the
main elementary factors, it must be noted, must naturally tend
to develop and unite in a more complex, though, it may well
be, much less intense emotion. A very notable advance, I may
remark, is made when the primary attitude of defence against
the action of the male becomes merely a defence against his
eyes. We may thus explain the spread of modesty to various
parts of the body. We see the influence of this defence against
strange eyes in the special precautions in gesture or clothing
taken by the women in various parts of the world against the
more offensive eyes of civilized Europeans.

But in thus becoming directed merely against sight and not
against action, the gestures of modesty are at once free to be-
come merely those of coquetterie. When there is no real dan-
ger of offensive action, there is no need for more than playful
defence, and no serious anxiety should that defence be taken
as a further invitation. Thus the road is at once fully open to-
wards the most civilized manifestation of the comedy of court-
ship.

In the same way the social fear of arousing disgust combines
easily and perfectly with any new development in the invention
of ornament or clothing as sexual lures. Even among the most
civilized races it has often been noted that the fashion of feminine
garments (as also sometimes the use of scents) has the double
object of concealing and attracting. The heightening of attrac-
tion is indeed a logical outcome of the fear of evoking disgust.

The contention of Westermarck, that ornament and clothing
are in large part due to the desire to give not concealment
but greater prominence, may certainly be accepted, so long as
we realize that it is not the whole of the truth, and that it is
far from offering a complete explanation of the phenomena
of modesty. The great artistic elaboration often displayed by
such articles of ornament and clothing, even when very small,
and the fact — as shown by Karl van den Steinen regarding the
Brazilian uluri — that they may serve as common elements in
general decoration, sufficiently prove that such objects attract
rather than escape attention. And while there is an invincible

THE E VOL UTION OF MODE STY. 141

repugnance among some peoples to remove these articles, such
repugnance being often strongest when the adornment is most
minute, others have no such repugnance, or are quite indifferent
whether or not their aprons are accurately adjusted. The mere
presence or possession of the articles gives the required sense of
self-respect, of human dignity, of sexual desirability. But, on
the whole, all the motives already noted combine to concentrate
modesty on the garment.

When clothing is once established, another element, this
time a social-economic element, often comes in to emphasize its
importance and increase the anatomical modesty of women. I
mean the growth of the conception of women as property.
Waitz, followed by Schurtz and Letourneau, has insisted that
the jealousy of husbands is the primary origin of clothing and,
indirectly, of modesty. It is undoubtedly true that married
women are often only or chiefly clothed, while the unmar-
ried women, though full-grown, are not. In many parts of
the world, also, Mantegazza and others have shown, where the
women are covered and the men are not, clothing is regarded
as a sort of disgrace, and men can only with difficulty be per-
suaded to adopt it. Before marriage a woman was often free
and not bound to chastity, and at the same time was often un-
clothed ; after marriage she was clothed and no longer free. To
the husband's mind, the garment appears — illogically though
naturally — a moral and physical protection against any attack
on his property. Thus a new motive was furnished, this time
somewhat artificially, for making nakedness, in women at all
events, disgraceful. As the conception of property also extended
to the father's right over his daughters, and the appreciation of
female chastity developed, this motive spread to unmarried and
married women alike. It probably constitutes the chief element
furnished to the complex emotion of modesty by the barbar-
ous stages of human civilization.

The chief new feature — it is scarcely an original element —
added to modesty when an advanced civilization slowly emerges
from barbarism is the elaboration of its social ritual. Civiliza-
tion expands the range of modesty and renders it more capri-
cious and changeable. The French seventeenth century and

142 HA VELOCK ELLIS,

the English eighteenth represent early stages of modern Euro-
pean civilization, and they both devoted special attention to the
elaboration of the minute details of modesty. The frequenters
of the Hotel Rambouillet, the precteuses satirized by Moliere,
were primarily engaged in refining the language, but indirectly
also in refining feelings and ideas and in enlarging the bound-
aries of modesty. In England such famous and popular authors
as Swift and Sterne bear witness to a new ardor of modesty in
the sudden reticences, the dashes and the asterisks, which we
find throughout their works. The altogether new quality of liter-
ary prurience of which Sterne is still the classic example could
only have arisen on the basis of the new modesty which was
then overspreading society and literature. Idle people, mostly
the women in salons and drawing-rooms, people more familiar
with books than with the realities of life, now laid down the
rules of modesty, and were ever enlarging it, ever inventing
new subtleties of gesture and speech, which it would be im-
modest to neglect, and which were ever being rendered vulgar
by use and ever changing.

It would, however, be a mistake to suppose that this process
is an intensification of modesty. It is, on the contrary, an at-
tenuation of it. The observances of modesty become merely a
part of a vast body of rules of social etiquette, though a some-
what stringent department of these rules on account of the
vague sense still persisting of a deep-lying natural basis. The
whole emotion has been, in a certain sense, undermined, and
yields more readily than in its primitive state to any invasion
supported by a sufficiently strong motive. The savage Indian
woman of America, the barbarous woman of some Mohamme-
dan countries, can scarcely sacrifice their modesty even in the
pangs of childbirth. Fashion, again, in the more civilized
countries can easily inhibit anatomical modesty, and rapidly
exhibit in turn almost any portion of the body. In savage and
barbarous countries modesty often possesses the strength of a
genuine and irresistible instinct. In civilized countries any one
who places considerations of modesty before the claims of some
real human need excites ridicule and contempt.

It is, however, impossible to contemplate this series of phe-

THE EVOLUTION OF MODESTY. 143

nomena, so radically persistent, whatever its changes of form,
and so constant throughout every stage of civilization, without
feeling that, although modesty cannot properly be called an in-
stinct, there must be some physiological basis to support it.
Undoubtedly such a basis is formed by that vasomotor mechan-
ism of which the most obvious outward sign is in human beings
the blush.1 All the allied emotional forms of fear — shame,
bashfulness, timidity — are to some extent upheld by this mechan-
ism, but this is especially the case with the emotion we are now
concerned with. The blush is the sanction of modesty.

When the Brazilian offered Karl van den Steinen some food
which he ate immediately in public, the Brazilian hung his
head. Whether or not he blushed, he was certainly conscious
of that capillary turmoil of the face, of which the shock of
offended modesty is the cause and blushing the most visible
sign. It is scarcely an accident that, as has been often observed,
criminals or the anti-social element of the community — whether
by the habits of their lives or by congenital abnormality — blush
less easily than normal persons.2 The importance of the blush
and the emotional confusion behind it as the sources of modesty
is shown by the significant fact that by skillfully lulling emotional
confusion it is possible to inhibit the sense of modesty itself. In
other words, it may be said that we are here in the presence of
a fear — to a large extent a sex-fear — impelling to concealment,
and the emotion naturally disappears, even though its ostensible

*The blush is indeed only a part, almost perhaps an accidental part, of an
organic turmoil with which it is associated. Partridge, who has studied the
phenomena of blushing in 120 cases {Pedagogical Seminary, April, 1897), finds
that the following are the chief symptoms : tremors near the waist or passing
from the feet to the head, weakness in the limbs, pressure, trembling, warmth,
weight, a beating in chest, warm wave from feet upwards, quivering of heart,
stoppage and rapid beating of heart, coldness all over followed by heat, dizziness,
tingling of toes and fingers, numbness, something rising in throat, smarting of
eyes, ringing of ears, prickling sensation of face, pressure inside head.

2 Kroner (Das korperliche Gefuhl, 1887, p. 130) remarks: "The origin of
a specific connection between shame and blushing is the work of a social selection.
It is certainly an immediate advantage for a man not to blush ; indirectly, how-
ever, it is a disadvantage, because in other ways he will be known as shameless,
and on that account, as a rule, he will be discriminated against in marriage. This
social selection will be especially exercised on the female sex, and on this account
women blush to a greater extent and more readily than men.'*

144 HAVELOCK ELLIS.

cause remains, when it is apparent that there is no cause for
fear. Thus it is, to some extent at least, true that people are
modest because they blush, or because they feel the possibility
of blushing, rather than that they blush because they are modest.
In the same way we may explain the curious influence of dark-
ness in restraining the manifestations of modesty.1 This
mechanism of blushing thus runs parallel, on the physiological
side, with that fear of evoking disgust to which I have already
referred. It is to the blush also that we must attribute a curious
complementary relationship between the face and the sacro-pubic
region as centers of anatomical modesty. The women of some
African tribes who go naked, Ploss remarks, cover the face
with the hand under the influence of modesty. When, as among
many Mohammedan peoples, the face is the chief focus of
modesty, the exposure of the rest of the body, including even
the sacro-pubic region, becomes a matter of comparative indif-
ference. All such facts serve to show that, though the forms of
modesty may change, it is yet a very radical constituent of
human nature in all stages of civilization, and that it is to a large
extent maintained by the mechanism of blushing.

It may still be asked, finally, whether on the whole modesty
really becomes a more predominant emotion as civilization ad-
vances. I do not think this position can be maintained. It is
a great mistake, as we have seen, to suppose that in becoming
extended modesty also becomes intensified. On the contrary,
this very extension is a sign of weakness. Among savages
modesty is far more radical and invincible than among the civ-
ilized. Of the Araucanian women of Chili Treutler has re-
marked that they are distinctly more modest than the Christian
white population, and such observations might be indefinitely
extended. It is, as we have already noted, in a new and crude
civilization, anxious to mark its separation from a barbarism it
has yet scarcely escaped, that we find an extravagant and fan-
tastic anxiety to extend the limits of modesty in life and art and
literature. In older and more mature civilizations — in classic

1The influence of darkness in inhibiting modesty is a very ancient observa-
tion. Burton in the Anatomy of Melancholy quotes Dandinus : 'Nox facit im-
pudentes,' rightly connecting the influence with blushing.

THE E VOL UTION OF MODES TV. 1 45

antiquity, in old Japan, in France — modesty, while still a very
real influence, becomes a much less predominant and all-per-
vading influence. In life it becomes subservient to human
use, in art to beauty, in literature to expression. Among our-
selves we may note that modesty is a much more invincible motive
among the lower social classes than among the more cultivated
classes. Modesty is a part of self-respect, but in the fully de-
veloped human being self-respect itself holds in check any ex-
cessive modesty. We must remember, moreover, that there are
more definite grounds for the subordination of modesty with the
development of civilization. We have seen that the factors of
modesty are many, and that most of them are based on emotions
which make little urgent appeal save to races in a savage or bar-
barous condition. Thus disgust, as Richet has truly pointed
out, necessarily decreases as knowledge increases.1 As we an-
alyze and understand our experiences better, so they cause us less
disgust. As disgust becomes analyzed, and as self-respect tends
to increased physical purity, so the factor of disgust in modesty is
minimized. The factor of ceremonial uncleanness, again, which
plays so urgent a part in modesty at certain stages of culture,
is to-day without influence, except in so far as it survives in
etiquette. In the same way the social-economic factor of mod-
esty belongs to a stage of human development which is wholly
alien to an advanced civilization. Even the most fundamental
impulse of all, the gesture of sexual refusal, is normally only
imperative among animals and savages. Thus civilization tends
to subordinate if not to minimize modesty, to render it a grace
of life rather than a fundamental social law of life. But an
essential grace of life it still remains, and whatever delicate va-
riations it may assume we can scarcely conceive of its disappear-
ance.

1 Disgust is a sort of synthesis which attaches to the total form of objects, and
which must diminish and disappear as scientific analysis separates into parts
what as a whole is so repugnant.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTH ANNUAL MEET-
ING OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL
ASSOCIATION, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,
NEW YORK, DECEMBER, 1898.

REPORT OF THE SECRETARY FOR 1898.

The seventh annual meeting of the American Psychological
Association was held at Columbia University, New York, De-
cember 28, 29 and 30, 1898, the same time and place having
been chosen by the American Society of Naturalists and the
Affiliated Societies.

In point of numbers the meeting was the most successful in
the history of the Association, there being fifty-one members in
attendance at the various sessions. On the morning of Thurs-
day, a joint meeting with the American Physiological Society
was held, members of both societies contributing papers, and,
by invitation, Professor Ogden N. Rood, of the Department of
Physics of Columbia University, read a paper on, and exhibited
his Flicker Photometer. On Thursday afternoon the Associa-
tion adjourned for the discussion before the Naturalists on < Ad-
vances in Methods of Teaching,' Professor Miinsterberg repre-
senting the Psychologists.

The members of the Association, for the most part, attended the
addresses by Mr. Morris K. Jesup and Professor Henry F. Osborn,
at the American Museum of Natural History, on Wednesday
evening, and later the reception to the visiting societies, given by
Professor and Mrs. Osborn, at their residence. About thirty
members were present at the annual dinner of the Affiliated So-
cieties, held at the Hotel Savoy, on Thursday evening. Presi-
dent Hugo Miinsterberg presided at the meetings of the Asso-
ciation.

At the business meeting of the Association on Friday morn-
ing, the following was transacted : Election of officers for 1899 :

146

AMERICAN PS YCHOL O GICAL AS SO CIA TION. 1 47

President, Professor John Dewey, University of Chicago ; Sec-
retary and Treasurer, Dr. "Livingston Farrand, Columbia
University; Members of the Council, Professor J. McKeen
Cattell, Columbia University, and Professor H. N. Gardiner,
Smith College.

The following new members were elected : Dr. Raymond
Dodge, Wesleyan University; Dr. Eleanor A. McC. Gamble,
Wellesley College ; Dr. Gervase Green, Yale University ; Dr.
A. L. Jones, Columbia University ; Mr. James H. Leuba, Bryn
Mawr College ; Professor Ernest H. Lindley, University of
Indiana ; Dr. Walter T. Marvin, Columbia University ; Mr.
Will S. Monroe, State Normal School, Westfield, Mass. ; Miss
Ethel D. Puffer, Radcliffe College; Professor George Santa-
yana, Harvard University ; Professor Langdon C. Stewardson,
Lehigh University ; Dr. Edward L. Thorndike, Western Re-
serve University ; Dr. Gustavo Tosti, New York City.

The following amendment to the constitution proposed at the
meeting in Ithaca, in 1897, was taken up and passed, viz. : That
the Secretary be elected for a term of three years and be ex-
ojficio a member of the Council.

On motion of Professor Baldwin, a Standing Committee on
Psychological and Philosophical Terminology was appointed,
consisting of the following members : Professors Miinsterberg,
Cattell, Sanford, Creighton, Royce, Minot and Baldwin. The
duties of this Committee shall be : (i) To recommend, from time
to time, new terms in Psychology and Philosophy. (2) To
recommend choice of alternative terms in those fields. (3) To
recommend foreign equivalents for translating work both into
English and into foreign languages. (4) To keep the Associa-
tion informed as to the growth of terminology in other depart-
ments, especially in Neurology. The Committee shall have
power to get help from foreigners who are not members of the
Association, such individuals to be known as 'Associates' of the
Committee.

On motion of Professor Sanford, it was

Resolved: First, that the matter of the organization of the
Association with reference to a possible philosophical section be
referred to the Council, to be reported upon at the next meeting ;

1 48 S£ VENTH A NNUAL MEE TING.

Second, that the Secretary be instructed in arranging the pro-
gramme for the next meeting to gather philosophical papers as
far as practicable into the programme of one session ; Third,
that the Secretary be instructed to send out during the course of
the year a circular letter requesting, for the information of the
Council, the opinion of the individual members of the Associa-
tion on the above mentioned question of the organization of the
Association.

Professor Cattell, Chairman of the Committee on Physical
and Mental Tests, presented the report of that Committee upon
its work during the past year.

REPORT OF THE TREASURER FOR 1898.

Livingston Farrand in account with The American Psychological
Association.

DR.

To balance at last meeting $669 10

Dues of members 249 oo

Sale of Proceedings 25

$918 35
CR.
By expenditures for

Postage, telegrams, etc $n 20

Stationery 5 70

Printing, clerical work, etc 22 57

Expenses of meeting of Affiliated Societies 3 oo

Committee on Physical and Mental Tests 75 oo

117 47

Balance on hand $800 88

Audited by the Council and found correct.

LIVINGSTON FARRAND,
Secretary and Treasurer.

ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS.
Address of the President : Psychology and History. By HUGO

MUNSTERBERG.

The psychological view of human life and the really historical
view are necessarily in conflict ; for the one the personality is a
complex of elements and causally determined, for the other it is

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 149

a unity and free. The naturalistic tendencies of the last half cen-
tury have favored the analytic and explanatory treatment, but
our time shows a new revival of historical thinking. In this
conflict the belief in the rights and duties of the personality must
destroy psychology if it cannot be shown that both are partial
truths, and thus no conflict between them necessary, since the one
does not exclude the other. Recent writers have claimed, in-
deed, that psychology and history are two coordinated ways of
dealing with the reality of life in so far as psychology seeks
laws and tries thus to explain, while history deals merely with
the single facts as such. These arguments are untenable : first,
because every law implies also existential propositions and offers
thus descriptions together with the explanations ; secondly, be-
cause every description of single facts includes the laws, since
the conceptions by which we describe are the condensed results
of explanations ; thirdly, because the single object as such, really
isolated, is not object of any science but always object of art.
Every science connects the facts, and, therefore, the historical
sciences too must deal with general facts. There is thus no
methodological difference between history and psychology.
And yet a most important difference between the two does ex-
ist : it is an ontological difference. Both connect their material
by general facts, but the material of psychology consists of ob-
jects which as such can be described and explained, while the
material of history consists of subjective will acts which as such
can merely be interpreted and appreciated. Our interest in ob-
jects means merely our expectation as to what we have to await
from them ; if we consider mental life as object, we transform
it in the interest of causal connection and seek causal laws. The
subjective will acts on the other hand interest us in the first in-
stance with regard to their meaning ; we want to understand
with what other subjective acts they agree and disagree, and we
come thus to a teleological system in which every will act is
linked with every other will act as every molecule in the causal
world is dependent upon the whole universe. In such a teleo-
logical system the general fact is then not a causal law but a
will relation of inclusive character. As every willing person-
ality can be thought of as replaced by the psychophysical organ-

1 50 SE VENTH ANNUAL MEE TING.

ism, that is by an object, therefore every human experience can
be brought into the causal and into the teleological system. As
long as they are not mixed each is true, but each is a transforma-
tion of reality and not reality itself.

Discussion on the Relations of Will to Belief. PROFESSOR
JAMES and DR. MILLER, who were to have taken part in the
debate, being prevented from attending, the discussion was
carried on by PROFESSORS LADD, HIBBEN, CALDWELL and
ARMSTRONG, as follows :

By JOHN GRIER HIBBEN.

It will doubtless be conceded, by all who take part in this
discussion, that the will does either directly or indirectly factor
in those complex mental processes which lead to belief. A
question which naturally suggests itself from the standpoint of
logic is whether the presence of will in belief is a reflection
upon man's reasoning powers. Should all conclusions be
reached in the ' dry light of reason,' and when this is impossi-
ble should we withhold judgment altogether? This is an ideal
which, in certain situations, it is impossible to realize, for we
must distinguish between the area of exact knowledge and
that larger sphere of our experience which lies beyond this area
of light. In the former sphere our beliefs form a series of
judgments grounded upon knowledge, elements which comprise
a system of inter-related, coordinated parts. Here belief arises
from evidence mediated by experiment, and admitting of exact
verification. In such a sphere to allow the * passional nature '
to influence our judgments is to prove recreant to our sacred
obligation to follow the light of reason alone in the realm of
exact knowledge. Lying without this region, however, are
spheres in which the will may be consciously operative in
the formation of our judgments, without sacrificing the integrity
of our nature as rational animals. I would indicate three of
these spheres :

i. Where complete evidence is lacking, and yet some action,
which in itself is a decision, is imperative. A judge may with-
hold his decision for fuller evidence, but not so the actor in the
struggle of life. He must often make up his mind from an im-

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 151

plicit apprehension of the situation viewed as a whole, and
which resists all attempts to analyze it further.

2. Where our belief as to the result of our activity is itself a
factor in producing that result. This is the sphere in which
" hope creates out of its own wreck the thing it contemplates."

3. Where an initial interest in a proposition, or an investiga-
tion, is of such a nature as not to prejudge the result, but to
stimulate the attention in such a manner that all possible evi-
dence is duly considered. A will to attend is thus related inti-
mately to the resulting belief.

By WILLIAM CALDWELL.

I. The relation of will to belief can be discussed only under
the presuppositions of (a) the newer psychology of volition,
(6) the philosophy of volition inaugurated by Schopenhauer,
(c) the logical doctrine of different * universes of reality,' in re-
gard to which the expert or < believer ' in question is the first
court of appeal, (d) the fact that into the formation of belief
elements at first non-intellectual undoubtedly enter, (e) the fact
that theologians as well as psychologists are expounding beliefs
from the point of view of dynamo genesis.

II. Both will and belief have retrospective and -prospective
aspects, (a) Retrospectively considered, a man's will represents
the sum of tendencies to act, that his experience has led him to
regard as in conformity with the tendency of things ; while a
man's belief is his active sense of the realities with which his
experience has brought him into contact. (3) Prospectively
considered, a man's will or tendency-to-act (like an ' appercep-
tive system') is always slightly in advance of the matter of his
present or formulated knowledge. And as to belief \ a man has
the power of testing by conscious experience the action-value
or organization-value (i. £., the value so far as the systematizing
and developing of his own nature and tendencies are concerned)
of the highest religious or moral practices and ideals of his
time. Only, a man's adoption of this * social ' or * organization '
standpoint is far more matter of unconscious and inevitable vo-
lition than of conscious and arbitrary volition. We are prac-
tically necessitated (and not merely * free ') to believe in that
which furthers our development.

152 SE VENTH ANNUAL MEE TING.

III. We are still too close to Cartesianism and Hegelianism
and ' faculty-psychology ' and ' presentationism ' and to external
views of the realities of belief, to be able to accept the doctrine
that, in the individual and in the race, volition comes first and
knowledge and belief afterwards, without feeling that some kind
of injustice is done to knowledge. We really believe not in
things * beyond ' knowledge, but only in that which we know —
only in those things which we know to constitute the reality and
the conditions of our experience.

By A. C. ARMSTRONG, JR.

The historical consideration of this question demands a
broad interpretation of it. It concerns belief (a) as affected
not merely by * will ' in the technical sense but by the whole
* passional ' or * non-intellectual nature ' ; (b) as meaning assent
to propositions not demonstrably established. One root of the
' faith-philosophy' is found by Miller (International Journal
of Ethics, Jan., 1899, p. 169) in the egoistic and adventurous
spirit of the Revolution and the romantic movement. A second,
more widely spread and more important, source is the tendency
shown in periods of Aufklarung to appeal from the head to the
heart in support of the imperiled foundations of the ideal life.
Hence the positions of Pascal and Bayle in the seventeenth cen-
tury ; of Rousseau, Kant, Schleiermacher and others at the end of
the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth ; of Balfour,
Romanes, James, of the neo-Kantian and Ritschlian philoso-
phers of religion in the present age. But there is a counter-argu-
ment, also historical and recurrent, in behalf of pure reason : that
the faith-philosophy is obscurantism and unreason, even that it is
dishonest and unworthy (cf. Miller, of. cit.,pp. 172, 173). If
the defenders of the ' will to believe ' cite history, therefore, it
is competent to their opponents to demand consideration for the
historical elements in their own contention. The solution ap-
pears to be : (a) the faith-philosophy, moderately stated, oc-
cupies a defensible position ; (b) nevertheless, the criticism of
the ' rationalists ' shows the point where it is most open to attack
and where further development must begin. This is the slack-
ness in determining the grounds and, especially, the criteria of

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 153

belief. The task has been attempted, indeed, e. g., by Kant
(the faith of reason) ; by James (the mingled psychology,
noetics and ethics of 'genuine options' etc.); by those who
base belief on judgments of ideal worth. But the bearing of
the history is not to urge any one or any combination of these
as correct, but to evidence the necessity of some such develop-
ment of the doctrine in question.

Development of Voluntary Motion. By E. A. KIRKPATRICK.
(To appear in full in THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW.)
The case of a child of seventeen months that had never tried
to stand or walk alone, who, upon seeing some cuffs on a table,
crawled to it, pulled herself up, put on the cuffs, then walked and
ran all over the house, was reported. The claim was made that
movements, such as walking, that seem to be learned, are in re-
ality largely inherited, and that other nervous and muscular con-
nections are less a matter of experience than is usually thought.
It was shown that Professor Baldwin's principle of reproduction
of favorable stimuli by an organism must depend upon certain
physiological connections, and that chance is a less important
factor in the selection of movements for repetition than Baldwin
has indicated. It was claimed that there is a physiological
space relation between different tactual and visual stimulations
and the movements they call forth. In learning movements
the attention of the child is concentrated upon the stimulus and
the end to be gained, and there is little or no consciousness of
the movements themselves. Therefore, to analyze any manual
task to be learned into its elementary movements and requiring
each to be learned separately, then combined with others, and
finally all used for an end, is contrary to the natural order, and
a partial undoing of inherited connections that should simplv be
completed and perfected.

Refort on the Effects of Cannabis Indtca. By E. B. DELA-

BARRE.

The effects of Cannabis Indica as determined by eleven tests
on myself, in doses of 0.5 to 1.5 grains of the solid extract, may
all be attributed to an induced hyperexcitability of the nervous

1 54 SJS VENTH ANNUAL MEE TING.

system — sensory, associational and motor. The particular
effects are very variable, depending on a large number of fac-
tors. Many further tests are necessary. In general, a gradual
increase in sensory, intellectual, emotional and motor activity
occurs, lasting about half the total duration of the main influ-
ence ; followed by a gradual decrease to normal or below. The
increase is not continuous, but intermittent or rhythmical. The
duration is from five to nine hours or more, though the influence
is measurable for several days. No depressive reaction has
occurred.

In the first half there is a tendency to hyperaesthesia, to in-
crease in delicacy of discrimination, in rapidity of association
and intellectual work, in richness of imagery and thought, in rate
of pulse and breathing, with diminished depth of both ; to de-
crease in muscular strength and steadiness, in secretions, in ex-
pansive but not in contractive reactions. In the second half, in
case no fatigue occurs, there is a gradual intermittent return to-
ward normal ; if fatigue, a reversal beyond normal.

No noteworthy increase in illusions of suggestibility has oc-
curred. Introspection has been trustworthy and valuable, largely
increased in power. The state appears to be an exaggeration
of normal states, tendencies and rhythms. Hence its enormous
value in analysis. Besides the careful attention to gaining exact
experimental results, which covered a much wider field than can
be indicated here, interesting analyses were made of emotions,
of motor influences in emotion, in discrimination, in geometrical
illusions, of attention, association and expression, and of philo-
sophical concepts.

In larger doses, or on other persons, the results might in
some respects be different from those thus far obtained.

The Psychological Imagination. By DICKINSON S. MILLER.
(Read by title.)

Certain Hindrances to the Progress of Psychology in America.
By GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD. (Printed in full in THE PSY-
CHOLOGICAL REVIEW, March, 1899.)
Starting from the assumed truth that the progress of any

positive science depends largely upon the quality of the men

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 155

who chiefly cultivate it, the opinion was ventured that psychology
is not at present making in this country the progress which may
be reasonably expected. It would seem, then, that the hin-
drances are partly, at least, matters of -personnel rather than of
materiel.

If we inquire more carefully into the particular hindrances
of this order, the following seem to be among the more prom-
inent : First, a certain aloofness of psychologists from, and a
consequent ignorance of, the mental life and mental development
of the common people. Without depreciating the value of any
of the forms of specialization in laboratory or other allied work,
the nature of psychology is such as to make a wide acquaint-
ance with average human nature desirable, if not indispensa-
ble. In contrast with this hindrance, due to an excess of the
scholastic spirit and method, is, second, the excessive amount
of popular publications written by authors of insufficient scien-
tific training. Connected with this is, third, the injury done to
the science of psychology, in the estimate of the intelligent
laity, by mannerisms of discussion and of the expression of
tenets and discoveries, such as appear unfit for any body of men
that are penetrated with the genuine spirit of science. The
confession seems forced upon us that there is too little of re-
serve and dignity in controversy among psychologists as a class,
and too much concession to popular demands that tend to lower
our scientific standard.

But, in the fourth place, a certain invasion of the wide-
spreading ' commercial spirit ' seems likely to work harm to the
science of psychology. The fear is not wholly unfounded, that
this will cause an increase of personal and institutional rivalries
and jealousies, of premature publication, of a somewhat disin-
genuous way of seeking for personal reputation rather than for
the progress of science and for the welfare of mankind. On
the other hand, fifth, psychologists do not, on the whole, main-
tain a sufficiently independent, yet teachable and friendly atti-
tude to the other most closely allied positive sciences. An
increase of a courageous but modest self-respect, and a de-
termination to merit the respect of workmen in allied sciences,
will undoubtedly do much to remove this hindrance.

156 SE VENTH ANNUAL MEE TING.

The intention of this paper being only to speak of hin-
drances in so far as they belong to the personnel o>i psychology,
reference to favoring conditions and to encouragements is, of
course, omitted.

Reason a Mode of Instinct. By HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL.

Instinct is commonly opposed to Reason.

The objective mark of an Instinct is that it determines in an
organism typical reactions of biological significance to the or-
ganism. Subjectively we have « Instinct feelings ' when the re-
actions take place ; when they are inhibited we have < impulses.'
The physical and psychical aspects of Instinct are as wide as
life. Turning to the opposition to Instinct we find its objective
mark in variation from typical reactions ; this is indicated by
hesitancy and then choice. Subjectively choice is represented
by Will, and in our complex life the antecedent to choice is
reasoning. As variation is, so choice and will are conceded to
be, as wide as life; but so also, if analogy is any guide, must
be the physical process antecedent to choice, and Reason the
psychic coincident of this antecedent process.

Variation and reasoning both appear as reactions of a part
of a complex physical and psychical system, as though it were
an isolated entity out of relation to the whole system to which
it properly belongs.

Variation is thus statable in terms of Instinct; and hence
Reason itself must be looked upon as a mode of Instinct, the ob-
served opposition between the two being due to the fact that Rea-
son and Variation as we experience them are phenomena ap-
pearing in connection with psychical and physical activities of
very complex organisms formed of complex systems integrated
with still more complex systems.

Reason is thus referred back to Instinct. But Instinct, in
its turn, is referable to the simplest of all phenomena of life —
the reaction of a living cell to a stimulus. To this simplest of
all reactions we therefore finally trace back both Reason and In-
stinct. The problems connected with the difference between
Reason and Instinct are thus resolved into those connected with
the determination of the relations between parts of systems —

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 157

of the nature of what we call the integration of psychical and
physical systems.

Animal Intelligence and the Methods of Investigating it. By

WESLEY MILLS. (To appear in full in the PSYCHOLOGICAL

REVIEW.)

Comparative Psychology is advanced rather by systematic
observations and experiments than by anecdotes, nevertheless
the latter when strictly true are not valueless.

The study of the development of the animal mind (genetic
psychology) is of the highest importance.

Insufficient attention has been paid to distinguishing between
normal, subnormal and supernormal comparative psychology,
an objection, however, which applies with a certain degree of
force to human psychology. In making experiments on ani-
mals it is especially important that they be placed under con-
ditions as natural as possible.

The neglect of this is a fatal objection to the work of the
.author of * Animal Intelligence,' published as a monograph sup-
plement to the PSYCH. REVIEW, Vol. II., No. 8, June, 1898.

The portion of this research referring to chicks is the most
reliable, and the suggestions as to pedagogics, etc., valuable.

This investigator's experiments show that certain associa-
tions may be formed under highly unnatural conditions, which
associations, etc., however, bear about the same relations to the
normal psychic evolution of animals that the behavior of more
or less panic-stricken or otherwise abnormal human beings does
to their natural conduct.

It is not proven, as asserted in the publication in question,
that animals do not imitate, remember, have social conscious-
ness, imagination, association and perception ; nor that their con-
sciousness is only comparable to that of a human being during
swimming or when playing outdoor games as understood by
this writer. It is highly probable that animals, even the highest
below man, have only rarely and at the best but a feeble self-
consciousness, if it exists at all.

But on this point and on the question of inference, reason-
ing, etc., the time is not yet ripe for positive assertions.

158 SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING.

It seems more than probable that the mental processes of the
highest animals are not radically different from those of man so
far as they go, but that the human mind has capabilities in the
realms both of feeling and intellection to which animals cannot
attain. While it is desirable to push analysis as far as possible,
it is safer to remain in the region of the indefinite, and to re-
frain from making very precise and positive statements as to
whether the animal mind does or does not possess certain pow-
ers, till we are in possession of a larger storehouse of facts,
especially of the nature of exact and systematic observations
(or experiments). Festinate lente is a good rule in regard to
drawing conclusions in Comparative Psychology.

Psychological Classification. By MARY WHITON CALKINS.

(To appear in full in THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW.)

The traditional theory that sensations have the * attributes '
of quality, intensity, extent and duration is unjustifiable, if the
conception of sensations as unanalyzable and irreducible ele-
ments of consciousness is at the same time upheld, since the
possession of attributes is synonymous with complexity. The
admission of attributes is only possible on the theory that the
sensation is not abstractly unanalyzable, but that it is rather the
simplest possible concrete experience. But this hypothesis ig-
nores the fact that percepts, images, emotions or volitions — never
sensations, even in this looser conception of them — are the sim-
plest elements of actual experience. Only as an abstract and
hypothesized and unanalyzable element has the term * sensation '
any valid meaning in psychology ; and on this definition there
is no longer room for attributes of this irreducible datum, which,
rather, is itself an attribute.

Scrutinized, each for each, the so-called attributes are read-
ily classified on other principles. Duration distinguishes itself
from all the rest in that it is attribute of physical as well as psy-
chological phenomena, and, therefore, not attribute at all in a
psychological sense — not an elementary content of the fact of
consciousness, but a reflection about facts, physical and psychical.

Quality is identified with sensation-element by most writers,
even by those who teach the attribute-theory. Similarly, in the

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 159

opinion of the writer, intensities can be shown to be sensation-
elements, distinguishable and unanalyzable factors of conscious-
ness ; and extent, if not a sensational element, is a complex of
such elements.

Exhibition of Instruments for the Study of Movement and Fa-
tigue. By J. McKEEN CATTELL.

Apparatus devised for special research on movement and
fatigue in the Columbia Laboratory was shown and described.
Several of the instruments have been already published, but
these are now being used for experiments in new directions.
The instruments were as follows: (i) Apparatus for measur-
ing the time of discrimination and movement. In addition
to the arrangements for exact determination of a single reac-
tion, instruments and methods were shown by which a series
of processes can be measured by simple means. Experiments
by Mr. Germann on the formation of motor habits were men-
tioned. (2) An ordinary grindstone was arranged so that
reaction-times can be measured without chronoscope or chrono-
graph. (3) Instruments and methods for studying the ac-
curacy of movement, its force, time, extent and localization
were exhibited, and experiments in progress by Mr. Woodworth
were described. (4) An automatograph giving a continuous
curve for extensor and flexor movements. (5) A spring
ergometer intended to replace the Mosso ergograph. (6) A
dynamometer in which the pressures are continually added and
counted, making the study of muscular fatigue and the effect of
mental conditions on fatigue possible without elaborate appara-
tus. All the instruments were shown in working order, and at-
tention was called to the use in many cases of simple means in
place of more complicated apparatus, and to the improvement of
the latter in several ways, such as the avoidance of batteries,
mercury for contacts, and smoked paper.

The Physiological Basis of Mental Life. By HUGO MUN-

STERBERG.

The psychologist must demand that the physiological theory

of the brain processes shows a manifoldness of factors which cor-

\

1 60 SE VENTH ANNUAL MEE TING.

responds to the manifoldness of the psychical elements. The
theories of to-day are not satisfactory in that respect. Every
psychophysiological excitement is considered as variable with
regard to locality and amount of the centripetal stimulation. On
the psychical side the quality of the sensation corresponds to
the local variation of the sensory end station and the intensity
of the sensation to its quantity of excitement. But this is an ab-
stract scheme which makes the central process simpler than it
is, as it does not take account of the fact that every central sen-
sory process is at the same time the starting point of a centrifugal
process which depends upon the disposition of the whole centrif-
ugal system. This central discharge varies, of course, also in
quantity and locality, depending upon the openness of the chan-
nels. If we consider the sensation as the accompaniment of the
physiological process which transforms the centripetal stimula-
tion into a centrifugal discharge, we have then a fourfold mul-
tiplicity of the central process. This allows us to account for
two more factors of the sensation which cannot be reduced to
differences of quality and intensity : the different degrees of
vividness, down to the unconscious states, and the different sub-
jective values, as, for instance, the time values, the feeling tones,
the belief tone and many others. The vividness must be con-
sidered as dependent upon the quantitative amount of the dis-
charge and the values dependent upon the local character of the
discharging paths. Every sensation is thus by principle an in-
nervation feeling and its physiological basis is equally depen-
dent upon the processes in the sensory system and in the central
motor apparatus.

On the Confusion of Tastes and Odors. By G. T. W. PATRICK.
This was a preliminary report upon some experiments upon
taste and smell made at the Iowa Laboratory. The experi-
ments were made upon a subject having complete congenital
anosmia and upon normal subjects acting as controls. The sub-
ject was first tested with about one hundred odorous substances,
including those from all the nine classes of odors given by
Zwaardemaker. None of these gave any sensation or reaction
whatever. Two other classes of substances, however, gave

A M ERIC AN PS YCHOL O GICAL AS SO CIA TION. 1 6 1

reactions, the first being sensations of touch and the second
sensations of taste. As examples of the former, are menthol,
sulphurous oxide, acetic acid, ammonia and various ammonia
compounds. As examples of the latter are chloroform, ether
and pyridin.

The subject's sense of taste was then tested, and the sensi-
bility to simple tastes found to be about normal.

Then followed a series of experiments upon taste made upon
the anosmic subject and simultaneously upon two normal sub-
jects to determine so far as possible the part played by sensa-
tions of smell, touch, temperature and sight in so-called taste
sensations as given in ordinary foods and drinks. These ex-
periments extended over about ten weeks and included one hun-
dred and eighty-five such substances, sensations of sight and
temperature being eliminated as far as possible. About half a
teaspoonful of each substance was given to each subject, who
was allowed to smell it and taste it as much as she wished and
finally to swallow it. The substances were divided, according
to the results, into three classes. The first were those recognized
both by the anosmic and the normal subjects. These would be
presumably the foods and drinks recognized by the sense of
taste alone, but an examination of the list which included the
various spices, different kinds of syrups and molasses, cherry
juice, etc., offered some grounds for the conclusion that, with
the exception of typical simple tastes, such as sugar, tartaric
acid, quinine, etc., the recognition depended in every case upon
the senses of touch and temperature. The second class in-
cluded those substances recognized by the blindfolded normal
subjects but not by the anosmic. Presumably they would de-
pend upon their odor for their recognition. They were as fol-
lows : coffee, tea, normal alcohol, port wine, claret, vinegar,
spirits of almond, tincture of rhubarb, vanilla extract, absolute
alcohol, tincture of ginger, chocolate, cocoa, milk, milk and
water, sour milk, nearly all the common fruits, boiled turnip,
raw and boiled onion, yoke of boiled egg, white of raw egg,
oil of rose, and kerosene. A third list of substances included
those recognized by one of the normal subjects but not by the
other nor by the anosmic. A fourth list included the substances

1 62 SE VENTH ANNUAL MEE TING.

recognized by none of the blindfolded subjects. Among other
conclusions, the following was drawn : what commonly passes
for taste sensations, so far as their discriminative or intellectual
value is concerned, is the composite result of the mingling of
sensations of smell, touch, temperature, sight and taste, the
latter, however, playing little or no part in the discrimination of
our common foods and drinks. Taste sensations proper furnish
rather the emotional element in the total conscious effect.
Sweet things we call < good,' and bitter things we call * bad/
while salt and sour, if, indeed, they are simple taste sensations,
add a certain piquancy which is pleasing when they are not ex-
cessive.

Methods of Demonstrating the Physiology and Psychology of

Color. By E. W. SCRIPTURE.

The most complete and effective method of teaching color
is by means of the tricolor lantern. This is a special kind of
triple lantern which I now show you. The idea of color pro-
jection in this way originated, I believe, with Du Hauron ; this
special lantern is the invention of R. D. Gray. It is arranged
for lime-light, as the color work cannot be done with electric or
acetylene light. The three jets are packed closely into one
lantern-body. The three condensers are as close together as
possible. Three lenses exactly alike are mounted on the front
board. The jets have all adjustments for regulating the gas,
manipulating the lime, etc. Limes turned in the lathe are used
in order not to disturb the focus as they are rotated in the lan-
tern. Regulators are placed on the cylinders.

Three colored films, red, green and blue, are placed in the
triple lantern. I now show you a slide which gives on the
screen the elementary colors singly with their combinations in
pairs and in triple. Shades are shown by slowly turning the
light down. The various hues and the laws of combination are
illustrated by varying the intensities of the jets. The properties
of the color triangle and the color pyramid are thus illustrated.
Hues, tints, shades and complementaries are readily explained.
When the laws of color have been thoroughly impressed by
this method, slides of concrete objects are used for study. Thus,

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 163

a group of flowers affords an illustration of the automatic solu-
tion of color equations.

The phenomena of color blindness can also be represented
with the tricolor lantern. The usual theory of color blindness,
according to which the defect arose by the failure of one of the
three fundamental colors, can be illustrated by covering up one
of the lenses. For red blindness the red lens is covered, and
the resulting picture appears in combinations of green and blue ;
for green blindness the green lens is covered, and for the hy-
pothetical blue blindness the blue one is covered. To illustrate
the newer theory, the blue slide is left unchanged, but two slides
are made for red and two for green. For the dichromats of the
first class — the red-blue persons — the two slides taken through
the red ray filter are placed in the red and green lanterns.

The method also furnishes a remarkable analogy to the
decomposition of the colors by the eye into three fundamentals
and their mental recomposition into sensations of color. The
tricolor views are taken by a camera used three times in succes-
sion with a differently colored screen each time. The red rays
impress one of the plates, the green rays the second and the
blue rays the third. The three negatives differ in their shading.
Three positives are made which differ likewise. The three
positives produce views appropriately shaded when projected
on the screen by the colored lights. The result is a recomposi-
tion in natural colors. The approximation to the original colors
is close if the slides are properly made and manipulated.

Finally I will call your attention to the latest development of
lantern projection in color. Only one lantern is used. Several
methods have been tried ; this one — which is not original with
me — seems to be the only thoroughly successful one. It is here
shown publicly for the first time. Three views are taken of
the original object in the usual way through color screens.
The three negatives are then used to produce three positives at
the same place between two glass plates. These three positives
are separately colored in red, yellow and blue dyes. The light
transmitted through the slide then shows the original colors of
the object photographed. As these views can be used with an
electric lantern, the most brillian tand beautiful effects can be
produced.

1 64 S£ VENTH ANNUAL MEETING.

Rates of Breathing and Degree of Mental Activity. By J.

E. LOUGH.

The paper is a report of an experiment performed in the
Psychological Laboratory of Wellesley College upon thirty
women, students and teachers in the college. Visual stimuli,
consisting of water-colors, printed pages to be read silently, and
series of indicated simple mathematical operations to be carried
out silently, were given to the subjects, always under exactly
similar conditions, each stimulation lasting about forty seconds.
Records of the rate of breathing were taken during stimulation
and for the forty seconds preceding and for the forty seconds
following stimulation. The average rate for the forty seconds
preceding a given stimulation is taken as the basis of comparison
for that experiment, and the average rate during the stimulation
and following the stimulation is always reduced to a ratio of this
standard. By this method only changes of rate are shown
when such a change takes place within one of given periods,
thus eliminating all changes not produced by the one variation
of the subject — that of the presence or removal of the stimulus.
And since only the relative changes are shown, it is possible to
make direct comparisons of the effect of stimulation without re-
gard to the absolute rate of breathing.

The experiments show a rather wide range in the effect of a
given stimulus. But the average of the effect the stimulus has
had upon all subjects eliminates the individual differences and
shares its general influence. There is in every case an increase
in the rate during stimulation and a return to the standard after-
wards. But the amount of this increase, produced by a given
stimulus, corresponds in a general way to the degree of mental
activity produced.

Recent Investigations at the Harvard Laboratory. By ROBERT

MACDOUGALL.

Recent Investigations at the Tale Laboratory. By E. W.

SCRIPTURE.

(a) Investigations in the Psychology of Speech. Gramo-
phone plate records of prose, poetry or music are obtained in

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 165

such a way that time, stress, quality, etc. of the elements of
speech can be accurately measured. Results were reported in
brief.

(3) Cross Education. Experiments showing that training
of a digit on one side of body is followed by increase in ability of
all the others, even though not practiced. Hypothesis is, physi-
ologically speaking, that the development of the center govern-
ing a particular member causes at the same time the develop-
ment of higher centers connected with groups of members.
Psychologically speaking, development of will power in con-
nection with any activity is accompanied by a development of
will power as a whole.

(c) Investigations with Currents of High Frequency.
Sinusoidal alternating currents of varying frequencies were
produced by a Kennelley generator. The generator was run by
a motor, which was started at slow speed. The speed was grad-
ually increased, alternation becoming more frequent. Elec-
trodes were applied to the finger. The sensations were as fol-
lows : at low frequency there was no sensation ; as the frequency
was increased the threshold of sensation was reached. At a
higher frequency the threshold of disagreeableness appeared.
At a still higher frequency pain appeared. At a still higher
frequency the pain ceased and an agreeable numbness was per-
ceived ; at a still higher frequency there was a faint sensation
only. I was not able to run the generator high enough to
cause sensation to disappear totally, but it would undoubtedly
have done so, as we can infer from Tesla's experiments.

In the course of these experiments observation was made
that rapidly alternating currents could be used to produce an-
aesthesia and analgesia to touch and cold (though apparently not
to heat). We are now developing an apparatus to apply this
discovery practically. Our latest attempt — not yet completed —
consists in running a light arm with a contact around a rim con-
taining 1,000 saw cuts filled with hard rubber. The arm revolves
about 100 times per second, giving 100,000 interruptions per
second. The results will be announced shortly. The impor-
tance of such a convenient method of producing anaesthesia
without any of the dangers or inconveniences of ether, chloro-

1 66 SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING.

form, nitrous oxide gas or cocaine, makes us hope that the
method may soon be made practical.

Recent Investigations at the Illinois Laboratory. By J. P.
HYLAN.

I. The Division of Attention. The object of the following
experiments was to throw some light upon the problem as to
whether the attention can, as is generally believed, be divided.

A screen placed before a revolving kymograph drum has in
it a small opening so placed that a series of lines passes imme-
diately behind it. Without knowing the number of lines, the
subject is directed to fixate his gaze upon a fixation point half
a centimeter from the opening, and count the lines as rapidly as
possible, the drum first rotating rapidly and then being grad-
ually slowed down until the correct number can be given with
a fair degree of certainty. The time needed for counting a
single line was calculated. Besides the series with a single
screen opening, series with two, with three, and with four open-
ings respectively were tried, each opening having its series
of lines, and the fixation mark being used as at first. The
method of the experiment was also the same, except that with
more than one opening the subject was directed to divide his at-
tention if possible and count all the lines that appeared in the
several openings.

The problem was also approached by means of auditory sen-
sations. Single, double, triple and quadruple series of musical
clicks were used, and the time for counting a single click
in the different series was obtained, as in the last experiment.
In other than the single series the clicks came in succession and
each was of a distinctly different pitch.

Results were given which argue, in the main, against the
division of attention.

II. Effect of Amount of Motor Impulse on Motor Memory.
In this experiment Miinsterberg's muscle apparatus was used,
with one of the pans weighted with 200 grs., 500 grs., 1,000
grs. and 1,500 grs., in order to make the carriage move with
varying degrees of difficulty. Each series with a weight was
followed by a series without a weight to act as control. When

AMERICAN PS YCHOL O GICAL A SSOCIA TION. 1 67

each subject had gone through each series, the experiments were
repeated with the carriage pushed instead of pulled as at first,
to vary the effect of the joint sensations, and also repeated with
an interval of 10 and of 30 seconds between the first and the
repeated movement.

The results show that the repeated movements were dis-
tinctly more accurate in pushing than in pulling, and that this
difference was greater with the weights than without them. The
weights seem to have been a disturbing factor, but much less so
for pushing than for pulling. In pushing, the tendency was
constantly to underestimate the distance, but to do so by a fairly
constant amount.

Recognition under Objective Reversal. By GEORGE V. DEAR-
BORN. (To appear in full in THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW.)
This research, conducted in the Harvard Psychological Lab-
oratory during the first five months of 1898, is a study of the
relative recognizability of objects turned or reversed in each of
the four quadrants and in the mirror-reversal and always in a
plane at right angles to the line of sight. The essential appa-
ratus employed was a set of 368 chance blots of ink made on
white cards 4 cm. square, and arranged in series of ten with
three reversals in each series. These objects were exhibited to
each of the nine subjects, and their judgments as to recognition
recorded by means of precise electrical mechanism and a kymo-
graph. It was found that the repeated characters when one-quar-
ter reversed over toward the left were recognized 61.4% as often
as were those unturned ; inverted, 72.8 % ; three-quarter reversed,
47.1% ; erect mirror-reversed, 65.7% ; and inverted mirror-
reversed, 45.7%. In other words, it appears that an object is
recognized more readily when inverted then when in either of
the two intermediate positions, and more readily also than in the
erect mirror-reversal or in that position inverted.

It is suggested that these empirical results may be in part
explained respectively by the law of habit ; the optical condi-
tions of vision ; the fact that we habitually perceive the upper
left-hand corner of a flat object first ; and by our familiarity with
mirrors, natural and artificial.

1 68 SEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING.

Further Measurements of Pain. By ARTHUR MACDONALD.

Tables of measurements made by the writer were distributed^
and the conclusions reached were as follows :

1. In general the sensibility to pain decreases as age in-
creases. The left temple is more sensitive than the right. This
accords with former experiments that the left hand is more sen-
sitive to pain than the right hand. There is an increase of ob-
tuseness to pain from ages 10 to n ; then a decrease from n to
12; then an increase from 12 to 13. From 13 to 17, while the
right temple increases in obtuseness, the left temple increases in
acuteness. This is in the post-pubertal period. There is a
general variation, which experiments on larger numbers might
modify.

2. Girls in private schools, who are generally of wealthy pa-
rents, are much more sensitive to pain than girls in the public
schools. It would appear that refinements and luxuries tend to
increase sensitiveness to pain. The hardihood which the great
majority must experience seems advantageous. This also ac-
cords with our previous measurements that the non-laboring
classes are more sensitive to pain than the laboring classes.

3. University women are more sensitive than washerwomen,
but less sensitive than business women. There seems to be no
necessary relation between intellectual development and pain
sensitiveness. Obtuseness to pain seems to be due more to har-
dihood in early life.

4. Self-educated women, who are not trained in universities,
are more sensitive than business women. Giving, then, the
divisions in the order of their acuteness to the sense of pain,
they would stand as follows : ist, girls of the wealthy classes ;
2d, self-educated women ; 3d, business women : 4th, university
women; 5th, washerwomen. The greater sensitiveness of self-
educated women as compared with university women may be
due to the overtaxing of the nervous system of the former in
their unequal struggle after knowledge.

5. The girls in the public schools are more sensitive at all
ages than the boys. This agrees with the results of our previous
measurements that women are more sensitive to pain than men.

These measurements of least disagreeableness, or of thresh-

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 169

old of pain, are approximate measurements of the combination
of nerve, feeling and idea. The temple algometer designed by
the writer was also described and exhibited.

Theory of the Will in Aristotle's Ethics. By WM. A. HAM-
MOND.

The two component elements in the ethical will are the Prac-
tical Reason (vo5c 7T/>oxr«6c, Dean. 433*14, 16 ; 404*5 ; Eth. Nic.
1142° 23-30; dtdvoca TTpaxrcxij, De an. 433*18) and Desire
(iTriSufjtla, De an. 432*6 seq. ; 433" 2; o/>e&c, 433° *5 seqq.).
Desire, as Aristotle employs it, is not a purely pathic element
or a mere feeling of pleasure or pain. He describes it as an effort
after what is pleasant ; i. £., he includes in it an activity element
(433*24 seqq.). It is feeling with an added quality of impulse or
Trieb. It involves further an idea or presentative element. The
details of Aristotle's analysis of desire are, therefore, (i) Idea.
There can be no desire without an image (opzxrtxbv ds oux dvsu
ydyraffiac, 433*28). (2) Feeling. In every desire the element of
pleasure or pain constitutes the stimulating force to action (433°
21 ; i iii6i 7). (3) Effort or activity, the actual impulse to pur-
sue or avoid (433°9, 13 ; H39a22). Between the practical and
theoretical reason Aristotle draws a distinction. The theoret-
ical or speculative reason deals with necessary truths (432*24
seqq. ; 1139*10 seqq.), the practical reason operates in the sphere
of choice and of the variable ; the theoretical reason does not
command, is concerned with the true and false ; practical reason
is imperative, is concerned with good and bad, judges, weighs,
determines ; its sphere of activity is the sphere of conduct.
The characteristic virtue of the practical reason is prudence
(<pp6v7f<T«z) . While prudence describes the moral quality of the
practical reason, the method of its operation is described by
the practical syllogism (434*16-20; 1 147*1-7; 1144*31 seqq.).
The Practical Reason contains a jussive or epitactic force ;
the desire contains an active quality of impulse. Aristotle de-
fines the moral will, therefore, as reason stimulated by desire or
desire penetrated by reason (1139*4). The moral will, as this
complex of reason and desire, functions under the modes of (a)
deliberate choice and (b) freedom, and issues by means of par-

170 SE VENTH A NNUAL MEE TING .

ticular acts in (c) fixed habit or the persistent character. As
Aristotle regards the whole of psychical life as impulse or ac-
tivity tending towards the realization of a potentiality, one may
find in this doctrine of Iviffzia. the correspondent of the non-
moral or metaphysical will of the moderns. The will of Ethics,
however, the voluntas intellectivus of Aquinas, is conceived of
as feeling acting under the forms imposed by reason.

Psychology and Ethical Scepticism. By W. G. EVERETT.

Is a science of ethics possible? Ethical scepticism has de-
nied its possibility. Each individual, by virtue of a peculiar
nature, is a law unto himself. Moral laws are the rough com-
promise which convention effects to render some sort of social
life possible. They have no natural or rational sanctions. To
escape these difficulties appeal has been made to religion with
its supernatural sanctions. But this is fatal to a science of
ethics and is practically unsatisfactory, as large numbers are
untouched by supernatural sanctions. Like difficulties con-
front a metaphysical ethic. A metaphysic of ethics is valid and
necessary, but as a complement, not a substitute, for a science
of ethics. The existence of natural and rational sanctions is
presupposed by such a science. Many profoundly believe that
there are adequate sanctions in human experience. Can they
be reduced to scientific form? If so, we must have an ade-
quate psychology of moral experience. Ethics requires not
only a social psychology but also a psychology of the subtler
phases of individual moral experience. What then is the rela-
tion of the ethical elements of consciousness to the total con-
scious life of the individual ? What part do these elements play
in mental development? How do they stand related to mental
deficiencies and excellencies ? What are the results upon the
affective states of such vices as envy, jealousy and self-seeking?
In states of ennui, despair and pessimism are there elements
which result from ethical deficiencies? Is it true psycholog-
ically that lust and greed are the sure seeds of uneasiness and
dissatisfaction? To answer these and similar questions satis-
factorily would be to ground moral law and its sanctions in
man's own nature, and at the same time securely to establish
the science of ethics.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 171

Professor Baldwin's " Social and Ethical Interpretations in
Mental Development." By W. CALDWELL.
This paper was an attempt at a positive and appreciative
criticism of Professor Baldwin's second volume on Mental De-
velopment, the Social and Ethical Interpretations. Mr. Bald-
win's book achieves the object of its endeavor — the exhibition
of social organization and personal (mental and moral) organ-
ization under the same psychological principles. Its classical
recognition of epistemological principles is one of its merits,
and it confines itself, on the whole, to the genetic point of view.
The apparently ever-recurring circular process from the * self '
to * society ' and from society to the self and then back again,
instead of being, as some critics maintain, a drawback or de-
fect of the book, must be studied as part of its central lesson
and main contention. Mr. Baldwin does not exactly assume,
without any explanation, the self and society ; he assumes the
fact of mental development, and then, when studying its begin-
nings and its different phases, finds that it involves the concep-
tion and the reality of the self as a socius — as one term or
another in a related thought or action content. The concluding
sections of the volume, about the final and irreducible conflict
between the moral man and society, are proof positive that its
author believes in the reality of the human personality as some-
thing more than a mere phase of a ' social situation.' Nor is Mr.
Baldwin's use of the genetic point of view a mere arbitrary pro-
cedure ; he justifies his use of that method by letting us see
that consciousness and conscious process cannot be understood
apart from it.

The positive value of the work lies in the fullness of detail
with which the relations of the thought-process to the movement-
process are worked out. Its teaching about imitation as the
social method par excellence must be taken along with what is
taught in Mr. Baldwin's first volume upon that process. And
then, lastly, the genetic point of view fully justifies the conten-
tion that society is a psychological organization. The book has
a high general value at the present time, tracing, as it does,
many important scientific and philosophic tendencies to their
psychological roots.

172 SJS VENTH A NNUAL MEE TING .

The Genetic Determination of the Self. By J. MARK BALD-
WIN. (Read by title.)

Consists of sections added in the second edition of the
author's * Social and Ethical Interpretations,' in which some
of the applications of the theory of the * Dialectic of Personal
Growth ' are brought together more explicitly in view of criti-
cism. It is to appear in full, under the title ' The Social and the
Extra-Social,' in the Amer . Journal of Sociology, March, 1899.

Art in the Light of Modern Psychology. By G. TOSTI.
(Read by title.)

A Study of Geometrical Illusions. By CHAS. H. JUDD. (To

appear in full in THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, May, 1899.)

The main thesis of the paper is that the underestimation of

acute angles and overestimation of obtuse angles, which is a

common feature of many illusions, is not a fundamental fact,

but is to be explained as due to the false estimation of the length

of the sides of the angles.

Overestimation and underestimation of linear distances are
always accompanied by false judgments in the opposite direc-
tion in the surrounding field of vision. It is possible to find
illusions in the surrounding field even when the figure suffers
no internal illusion. These facts lead to the conclusion that such
illusions are in general due to the shifting of points in their spa-
tial relations.

The simplest form of the angle illusions, the Poggendorff
illusion, is due to underestimation of the distance between the
interrupted ends of the oblique lines, not to false estimation of
the angles. This is supported negatively by comparison of the
angles under a variety of conditions, under some of which the
illusion appears, and under others of which it does not. Posi-
tive evidence is produced in quantitative determinations of the
error in the estimation of the distance in question.

As in the case of the Poggendorff illusion, so in the estima-
tion of all angles, whether subject to illusion or not, the estimated
length of the sides is a most important factor. When the side
is overestimated the angle is underestimated and when the side
is underestimated the angle is overestimated.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 173

Subjective Colors and the After-Image. By MARGARET

FLOY WASHBURN.

This paper describes experiments designed to show the effect
on the series of colors produced in the * ringing off ' of an
after-image, by efforts to call up subjective color sensations of
red, green and blue. It was found that the color changes of
the image were very materially influenced by this process ;
traces of a given color in the image being intensified by central
excitation until the entire image was tinged with the visualized
color. Since the process thus investigated does not differ essen-
tially from the process of voluntary attention to a given color,
the experiments furnish evidence that attention has a positive,
intensifying function, and they suggest that the increase of in-
tensity on the part of the conscious state attended to comes not
from a single * attention center ' but from associated centers of
the same order as that which gives rise to the conscious state in
question.

Three New Cases of Total Color-Blindness. By CHRISTINE
LADD FRANKLIN. (Read by title.)

A New Color Illusion. By GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD.

A diagram on p. 50 of Fick's Lehrbuch der Augenheilkunde,
used by the author to illustrate < red-green blindness,' became
the point of starting for an investigation not yet completed.
The illusion, consisting of the complete disappearance of the
red-colored letter E and the substitution of the color of the
green background, was first noticed by Dr. George T. Stevens,
of New York City.

Investigation has shown that strips of red, blue and orange,
on a great variety of backgrounds, give the same illusion, al-
though the orange seems to have a different way of disappear-
ing from that followed by the other two colors. A marked dif-
ference was discovered between two classes of backgrounds.
Green of two different shades, dark violet, dark blue, and black
gave the illusion readily. But yellow, orange, gray, white, and
a lighter blue or green, and a reddish violet gave the illusion
with greatly increased difficulty or not at all. These colors

1 74 S£ VENTH A NNUA L MEE TING.

for the strips and backgrounds seem to retain their peculiarities
even when combined on the same general field of vision.

Explanations of this illusion are not yet clearly made out.
It may be partly due to the production of a temporary blind-
spot. It seems to be connected, also, with the rhythm of atten-
tion in fixation. And there is some evidence that the substituted
color is of a complicated cerebral origin. Further investiga-
tion will follow.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PHYSICAL AND MENTAL

TESTS.

Professor Cattell, the Chairman, stated that, owing to the ab-
sence abroad during a considerable portion of the year of four
of the five members of the committee, no regular meeting had
been held. In any case, the committee needed trials and re-
ports of the tests already recommended before further joint ac-
tion could be taken to advantage. Individually the members of
the committee had continued its work. In this regard each
must speak for himself ; at Columbia the tests had been regu-
larly made and extended to include students of Barnard Col-
lege, several new tests had been devised and tried, and a gym-
nasium examination had been arranged that added to the value
of the tests made in the Psychological Laboratory. The sum
of $100 appropriated at the Ithaca meeting had been in part
distributed as follows : $25 to Professor Jastrow toward the
cost of his card-sorting apparatus in order that it might be sold
at a lower rate ; $25 to Professor Cattell for record blanks, the
blanks to be distributed, at the cost of press-work, to members
of the Association wishing to use them ; and $25 to Professor
Warren for an investigation of individual differences in memory
and imagery.

Tests for Sense-Type. By HOWARD C. WARREN.

The following set of tests is proposed as a means of study
ing the comparative value of the several senses in the life of the
individual. The object of the series as a whole is to determine
the respective role of each sense in perception, association,
memory, imagination, etc. The different tests take these func-
tions up separately.

AMERICAN PS YCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIA TION. 1 75

I. PERCEPTION TEST. — A simple passage of 400 words,
containing 40 misprints, some of which appeal to the eye and
others to the ear. The subject is asked to read the passage and
mark the misprints. The proportion of misprints as a whole
and of each kind is noted.

II. PERCEPTION- ASSOCIATION TEST. — A list of 50 words,
chosen for their richness of sense-connotation, and so arranged
that those in immediate succession are not likely to suggest
images from the same senses. They are read to the subject,
who is requested to state the kind of sense imagery suggested
first, later, and most prominently, in each case.

III. MEMORY TEST. — Six series of nine figures each ; to be
dictated or shown to the subject, who is to repeat or write each
series from memory after it has been completed.

IV. MoTOR-Co-ORDiNATiONTEST. — i. Writing on the fore-
head ; the direction of the writing showing the relative impor-
tance of the visual and muscular factors in this function. 2.
Five separate tests in mirror-writing (i. <?., looking into the
mirror and writing so that the phrase shall read correctly in the
mirror) ; the hand and paper are not seen directly — merely
their reflection in the mirror ; the mirror is placed at the right
of the paper in two cases, and above it (i. e., in front) in the
rest.

V. MENTAL IMAGERY TEST. — The subject is asked to call
up a vivid image of a definite sensation described to him ; there
are n tests; the time consumed in the effort is noted, together
with the degree of success or failure.

VI. REACTION TEST. — Six series of ten reactions each ;
with natural, sensory and motor attention, and on sound and
light stimuli respectively.

VII. QUESTIONNAIRE. — A set of questions to bring out the
absolute and relative importance, for the subject, of various
senses (including muscular) in certain respects.

These tests are expected to yield some useful data in the
field of individual psychology. They should help in the final
determination of a certain number of the general tests that your
committee is seeking to formulate ; and it is on this ground that
the application is made for an appropriation from the fund
allotted to that object.

1 76 SE VENTH ANNUAL MEETING.

OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN PSY-
CHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, 1899.

President, Professor John Dewey, University of Chicago. Secre-
tary and Treasurer, Dr. Livingston Farrand, Columbia University.

Council, term expiring 1899, Professor Joseph Jastrow, University
of Wisconsin, Professor J. E. Creighton, Cornell University; term
expiring 1900, Dr. A. Kirschmann, University of Toronto, Professor
E. B. Delabarre, Brown University; term expiring 1901, Professor J.
McK. Cattell, Columbia University, Professor H. N. Gardiner, Smith
College.

LIST OF MEMBERS.

ABBOTT, MR. A. H., University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

AIKENS, PROFESSOR H. AUSTIN, Western Reserve University, Cleve-
land, Ohio.

ALBEE, DR. ERNEST, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.

ALEXANDER, PROFESSOR ARCHIBALD, 10 W. 54th Street, New York
City.

ANGELL, PROFESSOR J. R., University of Chicago, Chicago, 111.

ARMSTRONG, PROFESSOR A. C., JR., Wesleyan University, Middle-
town, Conn.

BAKEWELL, PROFESSOR C. M., Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr,
Pa.

BALDWIN, PROFESSOR J. MARK, Princeton University, Princeton, N. J.

BIGHAM, DR. JOHN, DePauw University, Greencastle, Ind.

BLISS, DR. C. B., New York University, New York City.

BOAS, DR. FRANZ, American Museum of Natural History, New York
City.

BRANDT, PROFESSOR F. B., Philadelphia High School, Philadelphia,
Pa.

BRYAN, PROFESSOR W. L., Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.

BUCHNER, DR. E. F., New York University, New York City.

BUCK, MR. A. F., Union College, Schenectady, N. Y.

BURNHAM, DR. W. H., Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

BUTLER, PROFESSOR N. M., Columbia University, New York City.

CALDWELL, PROFESSOR WILLIAM, Northwestern University, Evans-
ton, 111.

CALKINS, PROFESSOR MARY WHITON, Wellesley College, Wellesley,
Mass.

AMERICAN PS YCHOL O GICAL A SSOCIA TION. 1 77

CATTELL, PROFESSOR J. McKEEN, Columbia University, New York

City.
CHRYSOSTOM, BROTHER, Manhattan College, Grand Boulevard and

I3ist Street, New York City.

COWLES, DR. E., McLean Hospital, Somerville, Mass.
CRAWFORD, MR. J. F., 1060 N. Halstead Street, Chicago, 111.
CREIGHTON, PROFESSOR J. E., Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.
DANA, PROFESSOR CHARLES L., Cornell Medical School, New York

City.

DEGARMO, PROFESSOR CHARLES, Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.
DELABARRE, PROFESSOR E. B., Brown University, Providence, R. I.
DEWEY, PROFESSOR JOHN, University of Chicago, Chicago, 111.
DODGE, DR. RAYMOND, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.
DONALDSON, PROFESSOR H. H., University of Chicago, Chicago, 111.
DUNCAN, PROFESSOR G. M., Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
EVERETT, PROFESSOR W. G., Brown University, Providence, R. I.
FARRAND, DR. LIVINGSTON, Columbia University, New York City.
FITE, PROFESSOR WARNER, Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.
FRANKLIN, MRS. CHRISTINE LADD, 1507 Park Ave., Baltimore, Md.
FRANZ, MR. SHEPHERD IVORY, Columbia University, New York

City.

FRENCH, PROFESSOR F. C., Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N. Y.
FULLERTON, PROFESSOR G. S., University of Pennsylvania, Philadel-
phia, Pa.
GAMBLE, DR. ELEANOR A. McC., Wellesley College, Wellesley,

Mass.

GARDINER, PROFESSOR H. N., Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
GILMAN, DR. B. I., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass.
GREEN, DR. GERVASE, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
GRIFFIN, PROFESSOR E. H., Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,

Md.

HALL, PRESIDENT G. STANLEY, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.
HAMMOND, PROFESSOR WILLIAM A., Cornell University, Ithaca,

N. Y.

HIBBEN, PROFESSOR J. G., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J.
HINMAN, DR. ALICE HAMLIN, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb.
HODGE, DR. C. W., Princeton, N. J.

HUME, PROFESSOR J. G., University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
HYLAN, DR. JOHN P., University of Illinois, Champaign, 111.
HYSLOP, PROFESSOR J. H., Columbia University, New York City.
IRONS, DR. DAVID, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

178 S£ VENTH ANNUA L MEE TING.

JAMES, PROFESSOR W., 95 Irving Street, Cambridge, Mass.

JASTROW, PROFESSOR JOSEPH, University of Wisconsin, Madison,
Wis.

JOHNSON, PROFESSOR R. B., Miami University, Oxford, O.

JONES, DR. A. L., Columbia University, New York City.

JUDD, PROFESSOR C. H., New York University, New York City.

KIRKPATRICK, MR. E. A., Fitchburg, Mass.

KIRSCHMANN, DR. A., University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.

KROHN, PROFESSOR W. O., Hospital, 111.

LADD, PROFESSOR G. T., Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

LEIGHTON, DR. J. A., Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y.

LEUBA, MR. JAMES H., Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa.

LINDLEY, PROFESSOR ERNEST H., University of Indiana, Blooming-
ton, Ind.

LLOYD, PROFESSOR A. H., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.

LOUGH, DR. J. E., State Normal School, Oshkosh, Wis.

MACDONALD, DR. ARTHUR, Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C.

MACDOUGALL, DR. ROBERT, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

MARSHALL, MR. HENRY RUTGERS, 3 West 29th Street, New York
City.

MARVIN, DR. WALTER T., Columbia University, New York City.

MEAD, PROFESSOR GEORGE H., University of Chicago, Chicago, 111.

MEZES, PROFESSOR SIDNEY E., University of Texas, Austin, Texas.

MILLER, DR. DICKINSON S., 312 South Tenth Street, Philadelphia, Pa.

MILLS, PROFESSOR WESLEY, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

MINOT, PROFESSOR C. S., Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.

MONROE, MR. WILL S., State Normal School, Westfield, Mass.

MUNSTERBERG, PROFESSOR HUGO, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass.

NEWBOLD, PROFESSOR W. ROMAINE, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pa.

NICHOLS, DR. HERBERT, 3 Berkeley Street, Cambridge, Mass.

NOYES, DR. WM., Boston Insane Hospital, Pierce Farm, Mattapan,
Mass.

ORMOND, PROFESSOR A. T., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J.

PACE, PROFESSOR E., Catholic University, Washington, D. C.

PALMER, PROFESSOR G. H., Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

PATRICK, PROFESSOR G. T. W., University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.

PIERCE, MR. EDGAR, Cambridge, Mass.

PUFFER, Miss ETHEL D., Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass.

ROYCE, PROFESSOR JOSIAH, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION. 179

RUSSELL, PROFESSOR J. E., Teachers College, New York City.

SANFORD, PROFESSOR E. C., Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

SANTAYANA, PROFESSOR GEORGE, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Mass.

SCHINZ, DR. ALBERT, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

SCHURMAN, PRESIDENT J. G., Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.

SCRIPTURE, DR. E. W., Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

SHAW, MR. W. J., 30 Maitland Street, Toronto, Canada.

SHORE Y, PROFESSOR PAUL, University of Chicago, Chicago, 111.

SINGER, DR. E. A., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.

SMITH, PROFESSOR W. G., Smith College, Northampton, Mass.

SNEATH, PROFESSOR E. HERSHEY, Yale University, New Haven,
Conn.

STANLEY, PROFESSOR H. M., Lake Forest University, Lake Forest,
111.

STARR, PROFESSOR M. ALLEN, 22 West 48th Street, New York City.

STEWARDSON, PROFESSOR LANGDON C., Lehigh University, Bethle-
hem, Pa.

STRONG, PROFESSOR C. A., Columbia University, New York City.

TAWNEY, PROFESSOR G. A., Beloit College, Beloit, Wis.

THILLY, PROFESSOR FRANK, University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.

THORNDIKE, DR. EDWARD L., Western Reserve University, Cleve-
land, O.

TOSTI, DR. GUSTAVO, 35 East 5oth Street, New York City.

URBAN, DR. W. M., Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pa.

WARREN, PROFESSOR H. C., Princeton University, Princeton, N. J.

WASHBURN, PROFESSOR MARGARET FLOY, Wells College, Aurora,
N. Y.

WENLEY, PROFESSOR R. M., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
Mich.

WILDE, DR. NORMAN, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn.

WITMER, PROFESSOR LIGHTNER, University of Pennsylvania, Phila-
delphia, Pa.

WOLFE, PROFESSOR H. K., University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb.

Members will please notify the Secretary of any errors in names or
addresses as given in the above list.

DISCUSSIONS.

THE MATERIAL VERSUS THE DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY.

It is not a little remarkable that in this era of dynamism in phys-
ical science and of various attempts at the application of dynamic con-
cepts in psychology there have been so few really consistent presenta-
tions of the material of modern psychology from the dynamic standpoint.
In this respect -we recall hardly a recent book besides that of Jodl in
which the old garment has not suffered from the addition of the new
cloth. Titchener's text-book and, to a certain extent, that of Ebbing-
haus are exasperatingly inconsequent in this regard. The net result
of the experimental psychology, industriously cultivated during ten
years, is admittedly so small, so far as facts are concerned, that it is a
pity if it cannot at least give us a point of view.

The reason for this condition is not far to seek. It is because our
psychologists have been narrow in their preparation and are conse-
quently uninfluenced by the recent change of base on the part of molec-
ular physics and higher mathematical concepts. It may be asserted
that the student of psychology as well as of biology cannot hope to
take a comprehensive view of his own domain without at least follow-
ing the results of recent physical speculation.

A psychology which is so largely occupied with waves of air and
pulsations of ether may be forgiven for speaking of atoms and mole-
cules, but, inasmuch as a system of psychology is profoundly influ-
enced by the ontological notions underlying it, one should have a care
that the use of the convenient terms of conventional physics does not
interfere with a logical development of the science. Still more per-
nicious is the effect of the ' matter idea ' on current epistemology.

While it may seem incongruous for one who touches psychology
from the side of neurology to present the claims of an immaterial
psychology, it is hoped that it may not be without interest to psycholo-
gists by profession to receive the testimony of a worker in the so-called
material substrate. Proceeding from the statement that psychology is
the science of experience — of consciousness, in which all will agree,
for the purpose of this discussion at least, it is apparent that the ma-
terial presented to consciousness is in the form of activity. It does

1 80

DISCUSSIONS. 181

not matter much that we admit with Professor Caldwell that con-
sciousness is activity, for all we know of activity is based on its ex-
perience and on the result of inferences formed on such experience.
The condition of passive receptivity is one which the neurologist can-
not accept as in accord with anything we know regarding the nervous
mechanism of thought. The elements of experience are all acts.
Why is not psychology content to start with the actual dynamic units
of experience and to use them till they are found wanting or until
proof is forthcoming of the existence of material units in place of
them ? But, it is replied, it is one of the necessary laws of thought
that forces must reside in some substance, that forces, in fine, are
properties. We might be content to rejoin that this is an excursion
into other than psychological fields, but we were but now complaining
of the restricted range which psychology allows itself. The experi-
mental psychologist of all men should be distrustful of hard and fast
laws of thought. It is not long since he has had beautiful illustra-
tion of the possibility of living in a world where everything is wrong
side up and yet acquiring the power to adjust his habitual way of see-
ing things to the new conditions most completely. It is impossible to
say why it is any more necessary to the mind to conceive of forces as
properties of matter than it is to think of matter as a convenient in-
ferential classification form for force. Psychology would be more
logical, more i genetic,' if it would begin with the impersonal dy-
namic form of statement 4 it rains,' ' there is a noise,' ' it mews,' ' it
hurts,' etc., in describing experience. The fact that the various
forces of experience are combined into secondary units of apparently
simple experience does not impair the propriety of such usage. Excen-
tric projection does seem to place our sensation in the end of the
pointer, but we do not oppose this fact of experience to our knowledge
that the mechanism of sensation is in the several discrete points in the
fingers. We are reconciled to live in a world of illusions and realize
that, so far as materiality is concerned, the rainbow is as real an ob-
ject as the mountain over which its brilliant banner is unfurled.

A careful examination of the field will convince any one that the
greater number of difficulties at present perplexing psychology are
due directly or indirectly to the influence of the c matter idea.' What
reams of good paper have been spoiled in the attempt to explain or
explain away the doctrine of psychophysical parallelism. What
absurdities in the name of anatomy have been perpetrated in the effort
to find a seat for the soul. How incompatible has it not seemed that
there should be such a multiplicity of activities, but a single thread of
consciousness.

182 MATERIAL VERSUS DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY.

But it may be clearly shown that physical science, which formu-
lated the matter idea as a scientific postulate, has found it inadequate for
its own purposes and contradictory of the facts in the more recondite
applications in molecular physics. In support of this statement
the reader is referred to the literature of the vortex atom, especially
the mathematical physical discussions of Lord Kelvin, also to the
address of the President of the Mathematical Section of the Brit-
ish Association for 1895. Dr. Hicks suggests that, when all is
known, u it will be found that all phenomena are manifestations of
motion (energy) in one continuous medium." The postulate of ' one
continuous medium ' is a concession to the supposed necessity of
mediating between one form of activity and the next following, and
this necessity is felt to be due in turn to the idea that forces are prop-
erties of matter. Having gotten rid of the material units, it were
simpler to part with this idea of medium and accept the fact of inter-
action, which is quite as simple and intelligible as any machinery that
can be devised wherewithal to explain it.

Among those who have attacked this question from the side of
physicial science no one has more illuminated it than Professor
Wilhelm Ostwald, professor of chemistry at Leipzig. In his well-
known address before the naturalists, at Liibeck, he called attention
to the unjustifiable extension of the physical law of the conservation
of energy to form the metaphysical axiom of the conservation of
matter. He says: " It is important to notice that by this extension a
multitude of hypothetical elements have been introduced into the
notion which was at first quite free of hypotheses. Particularly, in the
light of this theory, chemical processes are construed in opposition to
appearance in such a way that in case of chemical combination, in-
stead of a new substance with new properties resulting from the
process, the old substances remain in the new. Thus, in the com-
bination of iron and oxygen to form ferrous oxide, although the
familiar properties disappear and new ones take their place, we are
yet to believe that the iron and the oxygen are somehow concealed
in the compound and simply have taken on new properties. We have
become so accustomed to this view that it is difficult for us to realize
its peculiarity or rather its absurdity. But when we reflect that all that
we know of any substance is the sum of its properties it appears that
the assumption that a given substance is indeed present, but no longer
possesses any of its properties, is not far removed from nonsense."

" As a matter of fact, this purely formal assumption serves merely
to combine the commonplace facts of chemical processes, particularly
stoichiometric laws, with the notion of an invariable matter."

DISCUSSIONS. 183

uThe assumption that all natural phenomena must be referable
ultimately to mechanical forms is not entitled even to be regarded as a
serviceable working hypothesis— it is a simple error."

"The most promising scientific legacy of the departing century is
the substitution for the old mechanical view of nature of the energetic
view." " If all that we know of the external world is in the form of
relations of energy, what reason have we to assume in this external
world something of which we have no experience? Yes, it is replied,
but energy is simply a product of thought — an abstraction, while
matter is the real. I reply, just the contrary. Matter is the theoretical
thing which we have constructed, and that very imperfectly, in order
to represent the permanent in the changeable of the phenomena.
Now that we begin to understand that the actual, i. e., that which acts
upon us, is simply energy, we have to determine what the relative
position of the two ideas is, and the outcome is not doubtful ; it is that
the predicate of reality can only apply to energy."

I have quoted these passages with the more pleasure because sim-
ilar ideas have been uttered in my own class room for many years
from the standpoint of biology and psychology. It may be permitted
to repeat words used years ago but printed again in the Denison Quar-
terly in 1896. " The separation of force as distinct from matter is a
secondary analysis — curious from its psychological side and wholly
illusory and connected with limited conceptions of volition — and
hence of causation. With all this sophistication we have forgotten or
neglected that primitive naive method of nature contemplation which
views phenomena as phenomena, i. e., as events, not as the apotheosis
of something else — say of matter. There is no reason why we should
discriminate against this view which involves the immediate accept-
ance of the data of consciousness as real." u The attempt to introduce
the element or idea of cause at this point is to misapprehend the
sphere of causation, which as limited and of subjective origin, has no
place in ontology. What then is * substance * which forms the ground
of the phenomenal ? We have seen that it is not necessarily matter.
It might be shown, to mention one difficulty out of many, that no ex-
planation of the molecular conditions of matter has been able to dis-
pense with the postulate of a non-material ether. Our own answer
to the question propounded is briefly : Substance is pure spontaneous
energy. Energy is used to imply a doing without the implication of
resistance, thus of effort. * * To speak of energy as residing" in some-
thing is to introduce an utterly incongruous concept, for it continues
our quest ad infinitum"

184 MATERIAL VERSUS DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY.

Now we venture to suggest that such a view of substance is of the
greatest service to the psychologist, even though it may seem to the
metaphysician to cut rather than to untie the Gordian knot. Accept-
ing the data of experience as the foundation, a dynamic psychology,
like a dynamic physics, seeks to construct its superstructure, not by
the introduction of metaphysically postulated matter, but by com-
bining the elements of experience. The organ of consciousness is
adapted to analyze the various forces impinging on it by recognizing
differences in the form and rate, in the kind and intensity of the
stimuli, and these differences are the material of consciousness. It is
idle to object that differences in mere form of vibration or mode of
action are insufficient to account for the diversity of the essences
making up the universe. That is exactly the question. Light waves
of one rate produce upon the mind an impression totally different in
kind from those vibrating at a slightly different rate, and the effect of
electrical waves in one phase is quite unlike that of similar waves in
another phase. In fact, the whole world of physics is a sphere in
which observed differences are reduced to variations in rate and form
of motions. It is this same idea that must make a permanent place
for itself in psychology before further progress toward the simplicity
of truth can be made. Nor should we feel that the dignity and worth
of the psychical are lost by the recognition that it is one in essence with
humbler activities. The sap that feeds the rough bark also nourishes
the blossom. From the above point of view one may approach the
vexed question of psychophysical parallelism with more confidence.
It is not true that the body and soul are disparate and wholly incapable
of interaction, for they are different expressions of the same force as-
sociated as parts of one system. It is not true that the two are identi-
cal, for they are different in form, and this difference is sufficient to
distinguish physical and psychical toto coelo. It is not true that one
is the outside and the other the inside of the same curve ; they are not
different aspects of identity, but they are parts of the same system and
so intimately related, but, being different in form, they are, in fact,
different in essence. It is to be expected that these ideas will seem
obscure to many by reason of their unfamiliarity, but we believe that
the method is that of unsophisticated experience and that the results
conform to the highest criteria of modern science. The application
of this theory to the search for an organ of consciousness has formed
the subject for a paragraph in an article in the Journal of Compara-
tive Anatomy for March of the present year.

From this article I may be permitted to quote :

DIS C US S IONS. 1 85

u The search for the organ of consciousness has remained unfruitful
by reason of the total disparity between the conscious and any con-
ceivable form of purely neural activity. Nevertheless it is plain that
some sort of neurosis does, in every case, form the immediate pre-
liminary to consciousness, and it is equally clear that not every sort of
nervous excitation is an adequate occasion for the emergence of con-
sciousness. The metaphysical nature as well as the peculiar unity
and continuity of consciousness has militated against the idea of local-
izing this power, and has disposed to a dynamic view, viz. : that the
condition of consciousness is not topographical but consists in the
form of activity.

" It is plain that, in the nature of the case, it is impossible to discover
a specific portion or a definite kind of matter in which consciousness
resides, for no complexity of the material unit could make intelligible
the diversity in consciousness, while any complexity destroys the ob-
jective grounds of unity. It is equally hard to discover any physi-
ological basis for the continuity of consciousness. The idea of con-
sciousness as a property is accordingly abandoned, and it remains to
conceive of it as a form of energy. Pure energy with the attribute
of spontaneity it could only be if it were in the mode of absolute
equilibrium, in which its activities should be wholly reflected into
themselves. This can only be predicated of infinite essence, and it is
necessary to substitute the conditions of relative equilibrium in a
sphere of interfering activities. The last few years have revealed in
the cerebrum a mechanism of neural equilibration of unsuspected
complexity, and all that we have recently learned of the physiology of
the nerve stimulus only emphasizes the belief that the whole of the
cortical complex is adapted to act as a unit though not as an invariable
unit."

Nor does the energetic point of view simplify alone the problems
of psychology. There has been a notable tendency in America of
late to return to a vitalistic hypothesis in biology. It is no answer to
those who advocate a vital force to state that such a force has not been
isolated. It seems, when stated, a self-evident proposition that the re-
ceptivity of man, which by the limitations necessitated by the condi-
tions of its development is adapted to admit certain segments of the
infinite sphere of energy and no others, could not be expected suddenly
to develop an ' organ ' by which vital forces could be apprehended in
other terms than those applied to physical forces. This is much the
same difficulty as that experienced by the chemist when required by
the biologist to afford him an analysis of living matter. The chemist

1 86 MATERIAL VERSUS DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY.

must first kill the protoplasm, and it will never be possible for him to
affirm that the formula he determines expresses the state of aggrega-
tion of the living organism. Biologists, accordingly, have become
modest, and admit that no forces have been found in living things not
also common to inanimate objects. It is added that the peculiarity of
living matter that distinguishes it from all inorganic substances is its
power of coordinating the physical forces for the perpetuation of the
individual existence or a chain of such lives. To say that the various
physical forces are coordinated might mean that there is some outside
force restraining them, or it might mean that by some means the sev-
eral forces concerned are brought into a state of relative equilibrium
by reason of interaction among themselves. Now, this state of equilib-
rium is simply a modified form of motion, and, as the differences
between the several forces are, as we have seen, simply matters of
form, we here have just what is necessary to constitute a new or differ-
ent force as a result of the fusion of its components. When this form
of action is disturbed, the force breaks up into the familiar modes of
ordinary experience, and ' vital force ' as such eludes our search. This
does not prove that there is no such thing as vital force. In fact, we
learn of vital force, as we do of any other of the forces for which we
have no special ' organ,' by inferential processes, and this fact does
not invalidate the inference. In view of the present tendency toward
vitalism, it is simply desired to show that a form of this idea is justi-
fied from the dynamic point of view. There is just as much evidence
for the existence of a vital force as there is of the existence of a force
called electricity. Electricity and vital force are both forms of ac-
tivity, and all activity has its roots in a common energy, the several so-
called forces being simply various forms of its expression. Very
much of what has been said of vital force applies, mutatis mutandis,
to the psychical manifestations.

To the student of metaphysics who knows his Schopenhauer
these conceptions are familiar. The author of ' The World as Will
and Idea' said: "Matter is nothing more than causation. Its true
being is its action." This is built upon a psychological foundation ; but
it must be admitted that the effect of metaphysics upon psychology has
apparently been wholly insignificant. In conclusion, it may be noted
that by the use of the term ' energy ' for the universal, and ' force ' for
the limited manifestation of action, we reverse the usage of German
writers, as may be seen, e. g., in the recent work of Adolf Wagner,
Grundprobleme der Naturwissenschaft, a work, by the way, that pre-
sents the metaphysical aspects of energetics in an attractive manner.

DISCUSSIONS. 187

The writer's apology for thus trespassing on this field is his desire to
promote a frank adoption of a dynamic method in psychology.

C. L. HERRICK.

UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO, September, 1898.

THE POSTULATES OF A STRUCTURAL PSYCHOLOGY.1

This article is a manifesto of importance to all students of psy-
chology and philosophy. Its question has become one of general im-
portance,2 and Professor Titchener, by virtue of his recognized achieve-
ments in his chosen field of psychology, and by virtue of his general
official prominence, is more than entitled to deal authoritatively with
conceptions about the scope and method and material results of ex-
perimental psychology.

I. The chief gains that accrue from this paper are due to what may
naturally be called its epistemological* point of view. I do not alto-
gether like to put the matter thus, for I do not wish to lose light of
the positive psychology that it contains, or of its author's statement of
its * main object.' And I also wish to do all I can to remove the
erroneous impression that, ' of course, philosophers never will make
any serious attempt to get really inside the psychological point of
view.' Mr. Titchener's epistemological point of view is defined in
the first third of his paper in regard to the scope and the divisions of
psychological science, and in the second two-thirds in regard to what he

*Cf. the article by E. B. Titchener. Philosophical Review, September,
1898, pp. 449-465.

2 Professor Titchener informs us in a note, occupying the half of his first
page, that his article 'contains a part' of his ' reply' to a criticism (published
in this REVIEW, July, 1898) of his ' view of the psychological self,' made by me
at the 1897 meeting of the American Psychological Association. His article has
a value independently of that criticism of mine, and I shall not in the main
speak of it as a reply to my criticism. My criticism was not so much of his
* psychological self,' as such, as of the fact that he did not seem to me to allow,
in his treatment of the ' psychological self,' for some admissions that he made in
certain general portions of the book. His present article opens up some impor-
tant epistemological considerations which at once generalize and dignify our
' discussion.' It is, at the present moment, idle to deplore or ignore methodo-
logical and plain statements regarding psychology and psychological facts.
There are not wanting signs, in a recent article (this REVIEW for November,
1898) by Professor Mtinsterberg, that he too has felt their necessity in dealing
with some of his ' English' and ' foreign ' co-workers and critics. The ' discus-
sion,' too, of Professors Baldwin and Dewey in the November number of the
Philosophical Review certainly turns upon epistemological considerations re-
garding psychology.

3 Professor Miinsterberg uses this word, loc. cit.

1 88 STRUCTURAL PSYCHOLOGY.

himself calls the nature and number of the structural elements of mind.
As an outcome of the first part we recognize how true were the words
of Mr. Stout, in his preface to his Analytic Psychology ', about the com-
ing of the time when no one man would any more think of writing a
book upon psychology in general than he would think of writing a
book upon mathematics in general. (A) Mr. Titchener distinguishes
for us, with the help of biological considerations, (i) the psychology
of structure or structural psychology, (2) the psychology of function
or functional (descriptive) psychology, (3) ontogenetic psychology,
(4) taxonomic psychology, (5) social psychology, (6) phylogenetic
psychology. A 'very large portion of experimental psychology' is
really structural or morphological psychology ; it is a 4 vivisection
which shall yield structural, not functional results.' This is Mr.
Titchener's chosen domain — the discovery of "what is there [in
' mind '] and in what quantity, not what it is there for." His own Out-
line, he would have us infer, deals with the first of the six different
brands of psychology.

(B) " There can be no doubt that much of the criticism passed upon
the new psychology depends upon the critic's failure to recognize its
morphological character." Surely, then, no one in the future will
criticise experimental psychology for not giving us what it does not
profess to give. Indeed, we shall not do so if the said experimental
psychology keep rigidly to its own point of view. (C) Mr. Titchener
again tells us that structural psychology has not yet come to an agree-
ment about more than the psychology of sensation and the constitu-
tion of the sensation element. He himself regards, as we know, the
affection process to be also an elemental process. A majority of psy-
chologists do this, he says, there being a minority who do not. "It is
natural, in view of the intrinsic difficulty of the subject, that the psy-
chology of feeling should be in a less settled state than the psychology
of sensation." Going up higher, the ' anatomy of functional com-
plexes,' i. e , the structural study of the 'higher [mental] process,'
the ' perceptions and emotions and actions handed down in popular
and psychological tradition,' is as yet * * * a ' mere plan of arrange-
ment.' (D) As to the second way in which the epistemological point
of view is applied: "The elements of the experimentalists, as they
themselves have been the first to acknowledge, are artifacts, abstrac-
tions, usefully isolated for scientific ends, but not found in experience
save as connected with their like." This is emphatic enough. Let
us not any more go to experimentalists and say : 4 Your sensations
and affections and volitions and emotions are very different things

DISCUSSIONS. 189

from what we actually experience, are just so many poor, thin, cari-
catures of the organic experiences we feel in daily life.' He can
reply to us that he is dealing with the structural phases of these pro-
cesses, and that for more than that we had better betake ourselves to
some of his colleagues. Now I think that I understand these four
points. Let me look at some of their consequences, for I must be
brief.

II. ( i ) As far as in him lies, should not a structural psychologist
observe that accuracy of confinement within his own proper sphere
that he request his critics to think about before attacking him? Mr.
Titchener says things about functional psychology that may be ques-
tioned, (a) "It cannot be said that this functional psychology, de-
spite what we may call its greater obviousness to investigation, has
been worked out with as much patient enthusiasm or with as much
scientific accuracy as has the psychology of mind structure." Far
be it from me to compare the zeal or the patience of a body of men
from the time of Aristotle to that of the English associationists with
that of the heroic pioneers and workers in the experimental psychology
of this century, but I shrug my shoulders and ask about the standard
of 'scientific accuracy' implied in the preceding and the following
sentence. " But it is also true that the methods of descriptive psy-
chology cannot, in the nature of the case, lead to results of scientific
finality." Finality on any one plane of investigation is a different
thing from finality along some other plane. Ai<poiro ftav IxavaJs, el
xard rrtv unozei/j.£v7)v ukqv oiaffayrjOsirj. Mr. Titchener's conception of
science in this article is, I think, to be inferred from his phrase about
the arrival of the 'time' for i the transformation [of psychology]
from philosophy to science.' He means experimental science, as that
is ordinarily understood, consequently he has no right to judge of
functional psychology merely from his standpoint. And if some of
his words in this article (to which I shall immediately refer) about
the last things of mind were true, some of his other four psycho-
logical disciplines would also be 'in the air,' — be absolutely unscientific.

(/3) Ought not a structural psychologist — and this point is even more
vital — to be able to adhere rigidly to his ' structural' point of view, at
least within the realm of his own observation and scientific disputa-
tion? I will adduce one or two reasons for saying that I do not find
Mr. Titchener to do this. (/) He uses the expressions 'elemental
processes ' (457), and ' elements ' (455, 462), and ' last things of mind *
— I will not say interchangeably, but at least in a manner that makes
it difficult for the reader to keep the ' structural ' view persistently in

190 STRUCTURAL PSYCHOLOGY.

sight. I am only too painfully aware of the imperfections of lan-
guage to press this point, although I cannot overlook it nor fail to see
its influence in wrecking his own argument. I will, therefore, sup-
plement it by saying that perhaps he ought to be held responsible (/5)
only for the use of the two 4 elements ' called with admirable precision
the sensation-element and the affection- element. These two things
bear the weight of his whole article. He is endeavoring to set forth
the structural ' elements ' (450, 453) in the elementary mental processes.
And his result is (462): " The affection-element is constituted of
quality, intensity and duration; the sense-element (sensation or idea)
of quality, intensity, duration, clearness, and (in some cases) extent."
But quality, intensity, duration, etc., are not elements; they are
characteristics or categories [of sensation and affection]. That
is, despite his words constituted (and constituents (p. 450) ), he
does not analyze the sensation-element or the affection-element into
simpler elements. Nor are the sensation-element and the affection-
element themselves elements; they are processes or phases of pro-
cesses. (Mr. Titchener uses the word processes again and again on pp.
457—8-9, and he compares his elementary processes to other alleged
'processes,' such as will-processes, etc.) Now are processes, or
phases of processes, facts of structure or facts of sequence ? I think that
they are facts of sequence. Indeed, the very fact of process is not a fact
of 4 structure,' but something more than this. In short, Mr. Titchener
does not succeed in maintaining the structural point of view through-
out the central sections of his article, (p) Terminology and state-
ment apart, Mr. Titchener does not, in disputation, keep to his own
confession that the 4 elements of the experimentalists are artifacts, ab-
stractions.' He uses them as if they were real things, and does bat-
tle with them against all other ' candidates ' for < elemental rank,' such
as alleged will-process. He uses them not merely 4 for scientific ends '
but for dogmatic and ontological purposes. " What (459) is our jus-
tification for looking upon them [' these different processes,' preceding
sentence] as last things of mind ?" How, I ask, can an 4 artifact ' be
a last thing of mind ? A last thing of mind might, e. g., be the con-
nection which Mr. Titchener tells us always exists between these ele-
ments, but not the element as an * artifact.' *

JI purposely overlook Mr. Titchener's ' anatomical' reasons for regarding
sensation and affection as last things of mind. The ' irreducibility' test and the
physiology test yield different results to different psychologists, and would yield
different results to Mr. Titchener's six psychologists. Mr. Baldwin, e. g., rep-
resenting Mr. Titchener' s/yM kind of psychology, claims that the mind cannot
think of itself save as one term of a social relation. The inability of mind, if

DIS C US S IONS. 1 9 1

III. What I do find in Mr. Titchener's article is a double point of
view about structural psychology, (i) The conception of structural
psychology as denoting the accredited results of a certain point of
view regarding mental process or processes, to wit, the point of view
characterized by the categories of quality, intensity, quantity, duration,
etc. (2) The conception of structural psychology as depending upon
certain peculiarities in its object-matter, to wit, that its object-matter
is mental ' elements,' irreducibles of some kind or other. I think that
the first point of view is successfully set forth by Mr. Titchener as the
point of view adopted by experimental psychology, and, in general,
it is my opinion that experimental psychology should seek to differen-
tiate itself from the other five psychologies, not by its subject-matter
(for surely its hope is to treat all mental processes experimentally) ,
but by its point of view — its ' categories.' And I think that the sec-
ond point of view breaks down in Mr. Titchener's own hands. This
is enough for my purpose. Of course, I believe that it will break
down in anybody's hands.

W. CALDWELL.

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY.

PSYCHOLOGICAL METHOD.1

These three articles of Mr. McDougall (read as papers before the
Aristotelian Society, London) seem to have an undoubted relevancy
and utility at the present time, when the subject of psychological
method is for various reasons being actively discussed. They accom-
plish their purpose, if by method we mean (with Mr. McDougall)
not so much ways and means of going to work in psychology, but the
method of conceiving the scope of psychology and of psychological
processes. By their contention that there can be ' no complete science
of conscious processes' as such, they will be welcome to the experi-
mentalists ; while, by their view of the dynamic function of conscious-
ness and of the efficient or active relation sustained by ' conscious ' to
4 neural ' process, they will gratify the opponents of what, in the re-
real, is a last thing about the mind, just as much as the perception of color. In
one regard it is a ' complex' fact ; in another it is a simple and irreducible fact.
The physiology test, again, yields the fact of function as a last thing about
mind. A physiological expert, e. g., Mr. J. S. Haldane, insists (Nin. Cent.,
Sept., '98) on the difference between physiological and mechanical process, by
holding that physiology studies vital functions. All this shows that no one
kind of psychology is entitled to talk about the last things of mind.

1 A Contribution towards an Improvement in Psychological Method. W-
McDougall. Mind, New Series, Nos. 25, 26, 27, January, April, July, 1898.

192 STRUCTURAL PSYCHOLOGY.

gion of mind, since the days of Leibnitz, has been called automatism.
They provide, in other words, for the unification of our conceptions
regarding the relation of ' conscious ' to ' neural ' process. Let me
outline the argument.

Leading psychologists of to-day (<?. g., Ward, James, Stout), of
course, recognize in their writings functions of the mind instead of
faculties of the soul, and they also allow of the existence of processes
not easily recognizable by direct introspection and, in fact, usually
discoverable only by inference. They do not, however, set forth
clearly the relation of the 'unconscious constituent' (Stout) to the
flow of mental activity or to the ordinary presentations (Ward) of
the mind. The doctrine of the simple concomitance of mental and
neural process as represented by various writers is objectionable for
two reasons: (i) it cannot be brought into relation with our general
conception of causal sequence; (2) the teleological reason that any
phenomenon (consciousness, in the present instance) that constantly ap-
pears in any group of animals has a part to play in the development
of the individual or the species. There are various forms of the con-
comitance or the parallelism doctrine, but they are all unsatisfactory.

What, then, to simplify matters, are the conditions of the occur-
rence of consciousness in terms of neural process? The answer is
that consciousness seems to occur wherever new experience has to be
acquired. Experience means the establishment of new relations
among nerve cells and their processes ; it is the establishment of new
relations among neurons. This view is tested by careful analysis and
illustration in Mr. McDougall's second article. The nervous system
of a mammal seems to consist of superposed systems of reflex paths,
together with a great mass of neurons (i. <?., nerve cells and their pro-
cesses) at the top of the systems, not yet or only imperfectly organized
into reflex paths. His biological and physiological theory of conscious
process is in agreement with Stout's doctrine of apperception as the
process by which a mental system appropriates a new element or
otherwise receives a fresh determination. In terms of neural process
apperception must be conceived as an extension and further complica-
tion of a mental system by the incorporation into it of other neurons
and systems of neurons, so that the complex path leads to a modified
efferent outflow.

The logical inference from the foregoing is that " all adaptation of
nervous reaction to environment has been accompanied by conscious-
ness," and that "the organization of the simple reflexes and instincts
of the lower animals was accompanied by a consciousness of a very

DISCUSSIONS. 193

low kind." In man the reflexes of the cord and lower part of the
brain were organized long ago, before man was man, and some low
form of consciousness accompanied their organization. The highest
organism is not the one whose nervous system is most completely
organized for reaction upon a limited environment, but the one whose
nervous system affords the greatest possibility of new adaptations, and
so of the most complex and intense consciousness. Consciousness,
then, is the force that makes mind, that makes of neural process ex-
periences.

All this is set forth in Mr. McDougall's articles with admirable
clearness and competency, on the basis, too, of much exact scientific
and philosophical scholarship. They are a kind of touchstone on
which the psychologist of ' structure ' or the psychologist of 4 func-
tion'or the philosophical psychologist may try the validity and the
actuality and the relevancy of his ideas on mental processes or on the
''positive science of mental process' (Stout). And there are a few
metaphysical thoughts, at the close of the third paper, on the relation
of consciousness to 'other existents' (Shadworth Hodgson). I should
much enjoy discussing these in another place. The upshot of the
exposition is that no psychologist should allow himself to think of any
line of absolute separation between psychical and neural process.
This is the simple outcome of the teaching of biology and physiology
— sciences from which, in my opinion (and it is obviously Mr. Mc-
Dougall's), both the psychologist of function and the psychologist of
structure have still much to learn. It is manifestly absurd to think of
neural process as a thing altogether complete in itself before the irrup-
tion of consciousness, for, as Mr. McDougall points out, we are war-
ranted in crediting the simplest organisms with a kind of conscious-
ness. From the genetic point of view in psychology (represented, for
example, in Professor Baldwin's recent work) we may see in our neu-
ral and automatic and instinctive and l unconscious ' processes the or-
ganization of experience that was slowly and consciously acquired in
the past. The whole difficulty in which psychologists find themselves
concerning the relation of conscious to * unconscious ' process is due,
I think, to the old tendency of thinking of consciousness in the Car-
tesian way as the representation of l representations,' altogether apart
from the fact of the activity or experience process of the organism,
or apart from the fact that our consciousness of the self is not static
but dynamic, and that our consciousness makes us aware only of the
thought relations of an experience process or content.1 All this has

1 1 have tried to show this in my ' Schopenhauer's System in its Philoso^h-

194 STRUCTURAL PSYCHOLOGY.

become most apparent from recent psychological discussion.1 But to
Mr. McDougall we must express our obligations for formulating the
question of the relation of conscious to neural process as one lying at
the threshold of our conception of the scope and province of. psy-
chology.

W. CALDWELL.
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY.

teal Significance* (Blackwood. Scribner's, 1896. Reviewed in this REVIEW
Nov. i, 1896).

*Even Stout, e. g. {Analytic Psychology}, argues for the idea that psy-
chology may be considered as ' the science of the development of mind.' Else-
where he says that the * individual's consciousness is but a fragment of the gen-
eral system of the world.' And Baldwin {Mental Development, p. 3) expresses
the same surprise that I have already referred to, that the * new psychology ha&
hitherto made so little use of the genetic (or biological) point of view.' James,
in his Principles of Psychology, talks of the ' efficiency of consciousness ' in
a way that is altogether in advance of Cartesianism or presentationism.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

PSYCHOPHYSICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL.

The Reaction Time of the Heart, of the Vaso-motor Nerves and of

the Blood Pressure.
Some Reflections and a Hypothesis upon the Form of the Capillary

Pulse. A. BINET. L'Annee Psychologique, 1898, pp. 316—

^ 336-

The Influence of Prolonged Intellectual Work upon the Rate of

the Pulse. N. VASCHIDE. Ibid., pp. 356.

The Application of the Graphic Method to the Study of the Inten-
sity of the Voice. B. BOURDON. Ibid., p. 369.
In his first article M. Binet reports some experiments made with
plethysmographic methods in the attempt to determine the time re-
quired for reaction by the various organs indicated in his title. Thus,
for example, with a plethysmograph attached to one hand, his subject
was required to press with the other upon a dynamometer. The point
at which the heart-beat accelerated was then determined, and the time
between this and the pressure of the dynamometer gives the duration
of the heart reaction. M. Binet discusses a number of sources of
error, which are numerous, and gives as an approximate figure for the
average of such reactions 1.5 seconds. The vaso-motor reaction aver-
ages 3.5 seconds. Other observers have shown that the small vessels
react much more slowly than the large ones, so this average is some-
what equivocal. The experiments in pressure were not successful.
The difficulty encountered [using Mosso's sphygmomanometer] rests on
the inter-relations of changes in pressure with changes in vaso-con-
striction. It is very difficult to isolate these factors from one another.
The second article is dedicated to showing the inadequacy of the
generally accepted statement that increase of pressure causes a de-
crease in the distinctness of the dicrotic. The vascular tonus, the
force of the heart-beat, the quantity of blood and the rate of blood-
flow all play a part in the determination of the form of the pulse. A
series of facts is cited to show the contradictions involved, if change
in pressure is alone invoked to explain the changes in the dicrotism.
Vascular tonicity and high pressure apparently are antithetic to one

196 PSYCHOPHYSICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL.

another, the former resulting in increase, the latter in decrease of the
dicrotic. M. Vaschide reports his observations, extending over a num-
ber of days, showing that intense intellectual labor, when continuous
throughout such a period (the most striking results occur in nine
consecutive days), produces relatively regular, progressive decrease in
the average rate of the heart-beat. This agrees with the observations
of previous investigators, but the periods concerned are longer than
those hitherto studied.

M. Bourdon's article is in large measure given over to a presenta-
tion of the difficulties involved in his problem of measuring the in-
tensity of the voice. Apparatus is described for determining the force
of the breath, both from the nose and the mouth, the vibrations of the
walls of the throat and the movement of the lips. A table shows
the results, measured by tambour tracings on a smoked drum, of com-
bining each of the consonants with the eleven chief vowel sounds in
French. Both methods and results are apparently still in the pioneer
stage, and the latter do not as yet lend themselves to any very sweeping
generalizations.

JAMES ROWLAND ANGELA.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory. Edited by E. W.
SCRIPTURE. Yale University, New Haven, Conn. 1898. Vol.
V. Pp. 105.

The major portion of the present number of the Yale Studies is
devoted to acoustic space. Mr. Matsumoto publishes his thesis on
this subject presented to the University of Tokyo for the doctorate.
The value of the paper lies not so much in the presentation of new
facts, as in the systematic and thorough treatment of the various fac-
tors involved.

The apparatus employed in most of the experiments consisted of
a spherical cage in which the subject was seated and upon which tele-
phones or small metallic hammers could be adjusted at certain points.
In part of the tests a cloth chamber was substituted for the cage, in
order to eliminate the effects of reflected sound. When desired, two
sounds could be given simultaneously from different directions and
with like or different intensities.

Like other observers, Mr. Matsumoto finds that the localization of
sound depends on the difference between the sensations arising from
the two ears. A sound is localized on the side of the ear from which
the most intense sensation is received. When both ears are stimu-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 197

lated with equal intensity the sound is localized in the median plane.
The great uncertainty attaching to the localization as front or back in
this plane is lessened by anything tending to afford differentiation for
sounds from the two directions: e. g., diminished intensity or modifi-
cation of overtones of sounds from the rear, owing to the effects of the
pinnae and the conformation of the external meatus. Two sounds at
different levels will, if of equal intensity, be localized at a point mid-
way between the two. When two such sounds move from a common
starting-point in different directions, the localizations will take a direc-
tion representing the resultant of the two movements. The confusion
of front and back leads to occasional exceptions to this rule. Judg-
ments of distance apparently conform to the relations involved in
Weber's law, z. £., geometrical increase of sound intensity is accom-
panied by arithmetical decrease of estimated distance.1 The judg-
ment of distance thus depends upon absolute sound intensity, whereas
direction depends upon the relative intensity of the component factors
from the two ears. The discrimination for change in the direction of
sound is most delicate when the point of departure is in the median
plane and the movement is away from this.

The concluding part of the paper is devoted to a very brief crit-
ical review of typical theories of acoustic space. The author adopts
what he calls a motor theory, in accordance with which acoustic space
seems to resolve itself into a series of motor impulses flowing from
auditory stimulations. These impulses develop according to the gen-
eral laws of association and natural selection. Space is primarily
visual, tactual and motor. The connection of this theoretical matter
with the experimental observations is the least successful portion of
the thesis, which gives evidence of a deal of painstaking labor. It is
to be hoped that Mr. Matsumoto will publish a fuller account of the
introspective observations of his subjects, and also some statement of
the method by which the localizations were indicated, e. g., whether
by pointing, and the errors thus involved.

Dr. Scripture, in a brief article on binaural space, proposes -a form-
ula for the general expression of the dependence of the localization
of a sound upon the intensities of the respective components from the
two ears. He supposes (i) that "the distance right or left of the
median plane is proportional to the difference between the intensi-
ties of the two components, i. e. , x = cd, when c is the factor of propor-
tionality " and d the difference in intensity between the right and left

1A similar.relation between intensity of light and judgments of distance has
just been observed. Cf. Ashley, PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, 1898.

198 PSYCHOPHYSICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL.

components; (2) * * * "the relation between the distance from
the median plane and the distance from the auditory axis is expressed

x*

by v = me , where m is the distance of the sound when x = o

J J am

(i. £., d = o) and a is a proportionality factor." A complete expres-
sion must provide for reference to a system of coordinates in which
the three principal planes of the body shall be represented, e. g., X,
Y, Z, so that a localization in any direction may be accounted for.

x* x1

Then x — cd, y = me . sin « , z = me - . cos a. A series

am am

of curves plotted in accordance with these expressions agree with Mr.
Matsumoto's observations, which do not, however, furnish a perfect
demonstration because of the lack of accurate measurements for the
intensities of sound employed.

Dr. Scripture also reprints from Science (1897) his note on ' cere-
bral light,' maintaining from several observations that the so-called
4 retinal light ' is of cortical origin. The field for such light is single,
not double ; the figures do not move when the position of the eyes is
changed, whether by ordinary rotation or by actual displacement
under pressure. The appearance of visual memory images with
these figures leads the author to ascribe their origin to some of the
higher brain centers.

W. C. Cooke and C. M. Warren join with Dr. Scripture in a
very brief report of some tests upon the memory for arm movements.
They find the constant error as related to the elapsed interval variable
for different individuals, for different absolute distances and for differ-
ent modes of experimentation.

Dr. Scripture contributes a longer article upon the principles of
laboratory economy, which contains a number of ingenious and use-
ful suggestions upon the arrangement of laboratory and lecture rooms
and upon general equipment. He also expresses his views as to the
organization of psychological work in the university and the ideals
which should be kept in view. Laboratory instruction, as distinct
from research work, he would employ simply for developing the
powers of observation and technical facility, reserving for lecture
courses the conveying of the facts of psychology. The whole article
reflects Dr. Scripture's well-known tendency to emphasize strongly
the mechanical, physical and mathematical sides of experimental psy-
chology, and it is no doubt well that we should have among us so able
a prophet of technique. The following sentence deserves to be
quoted in this connection [p. 95] : * * * * " If the other depart-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 199

merits, such as physics, can show better, brighter and more numerous
pieces of apparatus, the students are apt to draw disparaging conclu-
sions. The students are no longer a ' class ' to be taught ; they are
an audience that must be led." This is not the place to discuss the
merits of Dr. Scripture's attitude upon this question. It may, how-
ever, be safely asserted that many of his colleagues will feel that, with
all which is admirable in his own work and the work of his students,
there is constant danger, not always successfully avoided, of missing
the forest for the trees.

The size-weight illusion among the blind is the subject of a brief
report by J. A. Rice. The illusion is found to obtain among the
blind, and follows the same general laws as among the seeing, but for
touch and the muscle sense it is less marked than with normal per-
sons. A few notes offering blue-prints of Yale apparatus, explaining
the Yale color-tester and correcting misprints in the previous volume
of studies, conclude the number.

JAMES ROWLAND ANGELL.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

Subconscious Homicide and Suicide; their Physiological Psy-
chology. CHARLES P. BANCROFT. Am. Jnl. Insanity, Vol.
LV., No. 2, pp. 263-273.

Dr. Bancroft, Superintendent of the New Hampshire Asylum at
Concord, in this interesting though brief paper (read before the
American Medico-Psychologic Association in St. Louis, May, 1898),
has touched upon timely topics of interest both to medical juris-
prudence and to psychology. It offers theoretical explanations illus-
trated by two similar cases, one attempted suicide and the other homi-
cide, both committed in what the writer considers a condition of split-
off consciousness, induced most likely by mild toxic agencies, and
accompanied or followed by amnesia.

The writer recognizes the importance to psychiatry of admitting
the practical parallelism postulated to exist between consciousness and
neural function. It is suggested that the physiological neural dis-
sociation, which the work of Dr. Sidis has shown to be present in
hypnosis, may obtain at other times, as in these two instances,
through the agency of poisons, and, disintegrating the sum of ten-
dencies of which a personality is composed, cause just such an aberra-
tion of the real purpose of the self as suicide and homicide often
present. He considers that the action is conducted on precisely the
principle of reflex action, the normal inhibitory faculties of the indi-

200 PSYCHOPHYSICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL.

vidual being then in abeyance, like his judgment. In short, Dr. Ban-
croft aptly concludes, the organism has then for the time become an
automaton, uncontrolled, and actuated by suggestions more or less
subconsciously received in normal hours.

GEORGE V. DEARBORN.

On the Measurement of Mental Activity through Muscular Activity
and the Determination of a Constant of Attention. JEANNETTE
C. WELCH. Am. Jnl. of Physiology, Vol. I., No. 3, May,
1898, pp. 263-306.

This is an article, timely and concise, describing work done in the
Hull Physiological Laboratory of the University of Chicago. It is a
'continuation' of a research reported by Professor Loeb in a prelim-
inary communication published in 1886 (' Muskelthatigkeiten als Maass
Psychischer Thatigkeit,' ' Arch, f . d. ges. Physiol.,' XXXIX., p. 592) .
An important part of the report is that wherein the dynamograph
of Loeb, with which the work was done, is illustrated and described.
This piece of apparatus will doubtless become common in psycholog-
ical laboratories, it having some advantages over those now generally in
use. It consists of an axle to which is attached below a short flat bar
of spring-steel, which when in use impinges against an iron wedge,
adjustable in position by a screw. To the upper side of the axle is
attached a rod connected to the handle in which the subject's fingers
are placed, while the palm of the hand gets its purchase from a small
iron post. From the upper portion of the axle's surface a writing
lever projects to the surface of a kymograph record-drum.

Miss Welch found that, when various sorts of mental activity were
practiced simultaneously with the static maximum contraction of the
hand, the physical force decreased in proportion to the attention re-
quired upon the mental efforts. The mental work was various in
kind, and comprised such exertions as counting the conflicting rhythms
of pendulums, strained visual perception, reading, writing, adding,
multiplying, etc. By measuring the ordinates and abscissas of the
curves traced by the dynamograph the ' constant of attention ' was de-
termined in each case, and this afforded the means for determining the

concentration of attention required in the various sets of experiments.

p ^

This constant of attention was found according to the formula — D^^*

In this P represents the maximum pressure of the dynamograph, i. e.,
its records when the attention was wholly upon the muscular work ;
p represents the maximum of the muscular effort with concomitant
mental work.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 2OI

The determination of this constant was found to be no easy task,
but in case of some subjects quite satisfactory results were obtained.
The attention-constant in the case of one subject was found to range
from 0.22 during the ' registration of the vibration of a pendulum by
pressing one tube, the perception being visual,' to 0.585 obtained as a
mean while ' counting the register of the fifth vibration of a met-
ronome and the second vibration of a pendulum ' — the most difficult
of the mental tasks imposed.

It was found that the constant of attention for any activity increases
with (i) the effort of accommodation of the special sense-organs;
(2) the effort in coordination of the muscles; (3) the effort of the
memory, and (4) the number of simultaneous ; activities.' It seems
likely to the experimenter that all control of the body depends upon
inhibition-impulses. " After a certain amount of practice," says Miss
Welch, u and with care to have like conditions in every case, I believe
that the mean constant of attention for any mental activity can be de-
termined for every subject with as slight variation as the personal
equation in time-reaction."

GEORGE V. DEARBORN.

The Reinforcement of Voluntary Muscular Contractions. ALLEN

CLEGHORN, M.D. Am. Jnl. Physiology, Vol. I., No. 3, May,

1898, pp. 336-345.

This is a report of a research conducted in the Harvard Physiolog-
ical Laboratory to determine what effect sensory stimuli have upon
voluntary muscular movements. The stimuli employed were light
(from a 32 c.p. glow-lamp), a sudden sound (hammer falling on a
tin disk), and induction shocks on the skin (of the arm). These
were applied by electrical mechanism at the instigation of the move-
ments studied. A Mosso's ergograph was employed, the resistance
being two kilograms.

It was found that a sensory stimulus applied just as the muscles
began to contract caused an increase in the recorded contraction, as
other experimenters have reported. On the other hand, the relaxation
phase of the phenomenon is shortened by a sensory stimulus applied
at the beginning of the contraction.

The substance of the experimental portion of this report may be
given briefly thus : The average duration in seconds of a voluntary
muscular contraction with simultaneous sensory stimulation is with
light 0.49 ; with sound 0.47 ; and with induction shock 0.44, in con-
trast to 0.51, 0.43 and 0.38, respectively, without sensory stimulation.

202 PSYCHOPHYSICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL.

The average duration of the relaxation is with light 0.29; with sound
0.29; and with induction shock 0.33, as compared with 0.61, 0.49
and 0.51 in cases without stimulus — a decided and constant decrease
in the time.

As to the causes of these phenomena, Dr. Cleghorn suggests that
the ''acceleration of the relaxation is not due to augmentation of the
contraction of the antagonistic muscles, for the relaxation of the ex-
tensors does not visibly differ in rapidity and extent from the relaxation
of the flexors." And, again, "the acceleration of the relaxation can-
not be ascribed to the sensory stimulus inhibiting the discharge of
motor neurons and thus permitting the rapid passive extension of the
muscles by the load of the ergograph, for the acceleration does not in-
crease with an increase of the load." The experimenter concludes
that in the present state of knowledge the acceleration is best explained
as "an augmentation of an active relaxation-process by sensory
stimuli."

GEORGE V. DEARBORN.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

Inhibition. H. S. CURTIS. Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. VI., No. i,

October, 1898.

The author does not explain why, in his ' summary of the chief
theories and facts of inhibition,' with which he introduces the paper,
he confines himself to the psychologies of Herbart, Beneke, Taine
and Roux. Are these the only psychologists that have contributed
anything of value on inhibition ?

Four pages are given to Wundt's Mechanik der Nerven and the
physiology of the vagus nerve. Section II. is a discussion of the
effect of one activity upon another: Excessive mental work may
diminish the strength of the muscles and otherwise interfere with
physiological function. On the other hand, hard and long-continued
physical labor may be the cause of mental stupidity. One activity
may inhibit another, (i) by its waste material, (2) by decreasing the
blood supply, (3) by absorbing nutrition directly from resting tissue,
and (4) by draining energy from other brain areas.

The higher areas are connected with the motor areas by associa-
tional fibers, which are at first more or less impermeable. If mental
activity has lowered the energy in one of the higher centers, the en-
ergy of other centers tends to press in upon the area of low pressure,
and by overcoming the resistance make permeable inter-connecting
paths. Education has to do with the formation of these paths whereby
one area may use the energy of others.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 203

The explanation of restlessness in children is found in the theory
hat the lower brain areas of the child have not yet developed paths to
the < rational or associational ' areas. The energy of the motor cen-
ters has no chance to drain off into the higher centers, consequently it
discharges into the motor nerves. By means of pedometer records
taken from 34 persons of various ages, the writer finds that country
children are more active than city children, and that activity is greatest
below six years of age. It reaches its maximum on Saturday. Mon-
day and Tuesday are days of high activity, but on Wednesday, Thurs-
day and Friday it falls off abruptly and makes the minimum on
Sunday. By the questionnaire method an attempt is made to get some
data on such topics as ' Sitting Still,' ' Restlessness in Sleep,' the
physical and mental characteristics of the i Restless ' and the l Quiet
Child,' ' Sickness in its relation to activity ' and ; Excitement.' The
results are of little value.

The author closes with a section which he calls ' Pedagogical In-
ferences.' He thinks that, since the motor areas are to furnish so
much energy for intellectual activities, " physical health and develop-
ment must be the first interest of education." This section contains
much irrelevant matter.

A serious defect in the whole paper is that the theory, unprofitable
in itself, is unsupported by facts. What few experiments are given
are wholly unrelated to the theoretical part.

B. B. BREESE.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

FATIGUE.

1. Arbeitshygiene der Schule auf Grund von Ermiidungsmessen.
F. KEMSIES. Berlin, Reuther und Reichard. 1898.

2. Unterricht und Ermudung. L. WAGNER. Berlin, Reuther
und Reichard. 1898.

3. Zur Ueberbilrdungsfrage. DR. KRAEPELIN. Jena, Fischer.

Since Professor Mosso's work appeared, half a dozen years ago
(Die Ermudung, Leipzig, 1892), a mass of German monographs
upon the phenomena of fatigue have accumulated. Most of these
bear directly upon the practical question of school work and its ex-
haustive effect upon children, yet the work has been done chiefly by
physiologists, psychologists and alienists. After Mosso the names of
Griesbach in Miihlhausen, Ebbinghaus in Breslau, Burgerstein in
Vienna, Kraepelin in Heidelberg, and Schulze in Leipzig are most

204 • FATIGUE.

familiar to us as investigators along these lines. Little has been done
by practical school-teachers, who, with directors and school boards,
are in the end the persons to be reached if such experiments are to
have effect in the abolition of unhygienic conditions and reform in
methods of work.

Scientific interest in such matters has now spread to the school-
room, and busy masters make time for long series of observations
upon the pupils under their charge. During the past year two
numbers of Schiller and Ziehen's Abkandlungen aus dem Gebiete
der Pddagogischen Psychologic have been given up to reports of
such studies; the one (supra No. i) consisting of observations on
pupils of the third year in a Berlin grammar school, the other (supra
No. 2), of observations on the scholars in the gymnasium at Darm-
stadt. Next spring it is proposed to unite the scattered investigators
of Germany into an association for the study of children, in the work
of which the problems of fatigue will assume an important place.
The next years, therefore, are likely to see appreciable advances in
our application of the principles of hygiene to school work. Of the
above-mentioned brochures I have shortly to speak, together with the
recent work of Dr. Kraepelin, professor of psychiatry at Heidelberg
(supra No. 3), which is one of the most discerning and suggestive
among contributions to the study of fatigue in the school-room.

A sharp distinction must be drawn between objective and subjective
exhaustion, between fatigue (Ermiidung) and weariness (Miidigkeit).
The one is a constant factor and corresponds to the amount of work
done ; the other is fluctuating and depends upon the degree of interest
in the work. Weariness is a superficial fact of attention, which may
appear, disappear and reappear many times in a day ; fatigue is a
deep-seated phenomenon of nervous exhaustion, which steadily in-
creases with continuance of work, and its results cannot be averted,
though they may be obscured. Weariness can be induced in a fresh
subject by dull work, monotony, stale familiarity, while the capacity
for work, as expressed in the ergographic record, or by refinement of
skin sensibility, continues unabated. Change the topic of study, sub-
stitute another teacher, adopt a picturesque method, and the pupil's
weariness vanishes. No such easy recovery from fatigue is possible ;
it can be removed only by rest, food, sleep, and light exercise in the
open air. Weariness may abate as fatigue increases ; the subject
frequently appears fresher at the end of a piece of work than in the
middle, and his zest of accomplishment is manifested in a reduction
in the fatigue curve itself. But that it is not a permanent refreshment

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 205

is shown by the rapid and extensive increase in fatigue subsequent to
the completion of the work. Fatigue means a reduction in the total
effective force of the individual, which can be discriminated and
measured ; weariness is a fluctuating personal attitude which is scarcely
susceptible of record in any form. In the study of fatigue, therefore,
we have to seek for the phenomena of actual reduction in capacity for
productive work ; and from its effects we must discriminate the fac-
tors of interest and weariness.

This makes the question of method an important one. The phe-
nomenon to be measured is the reduction in central nervous tonicity
which marks successive periods of school work. There is no practi-
cal way of observing this directly ; indirect forms of measurement
must, therefore, be resorted to. These fall into two general groups,
depending upon the different ways in which central nervous activity is
expressed : first, mental, in fixation of the attention, with its complica-
tions in memory, judgment and the like ; and second, physical, in
muscular innervation. The physical method of measuring fatigue
was adopted by the pioneer in the study, Professor Mosso, whose
records were taken in the form of dynamometric tracings of the ergo-
graph. This test, while it is open to the objection that it involves too
cumbrous apparatus for wide use, yet continues to be one of the most
reliable methods which have yet been devised.

The mental test, on the other hand, has been extensively applied.
It is Kraepelin's method and the method of Burgerstein, Haser, Kem-
sies and many others. The form may vary widely : firstly, in the char-
acter of the work required, which may be either a long series of simple
examples (v. Laser, Holmes, Richter) , or a few pieces of more diffi-
cult work (v. Sikorsky, Friedrich, Kemsies ) ; and secondly, in the
method of measuring fatigue, which may be either by the decrease in
the rapidity with which the work is done or by the increase in the
number of errors which occur. A test which has been called the
combination method was devised by Ebbinghaus, who used para-
graphs of text from which here and there words had been erased.
The subjects were required to fill in all the blanks, within a given
time, with words which made sense with the context. Measurement
was by the number of errors occurring. The apparatus for all such
mental tests is simple ; it requires only the preparation of a set of
arithmetical problems or the mutilating of a printed page. Its method
of reading results is likewise easy, since it consists in a mere counting
and averaging of errors. The truth of its interpretations is, however,
by no means so certain. The test does not get at the phenomenon to be

206 FATIGUE.

studied at all directly or unequivocably, unless the distinction between
fatigue and weariness is to be overlooked altogether. The material
from which the results are read is the product of the total set of mental
conditions obtaining at the time of the investigation, and the number
of errors in any given case will as readily be affected by a feeling of
rivalry between the pupils or by a momentary distraction as by the
influence of fatigue itself. These influences cannot unconditionally be
set down as constant factors, which are, therefore, eliminable. The
anticipation of recess or the conclusion of work may very well be
potent in establishing a law of rhythmical increase and decrease in the
number of errors, which will well combine with the actual exhaustion
effects to produce a curve which does not at all truly represent the
rise in fatigue. The results of practice, likewise, interfere with the
purity of the fatigue curve when it is determined by the number of
errors occurring.

In view of such sources of error in the purely mental test Gries-
bach has employed an assthesiometer to determine the amount of
fatigue, a method which has been adopted by Wagner throughout his
experiments in the Darmstadt schools. An area was selected upon
the cheek and jaw of which the normal discrimination distance for
two touch impressions was taken before school work began. The
amount of fatigue was measured by the decline in discriminative acute-
ness which appeared after each successive hour of school work. This
form of test has apparently proved decidedly satisfactory ; it unites
the simplicity of a physical method with a direct psychological fatigue
factor.

I shall speak of the results of the various investigations in common.
The best work of the school day is done in the first two hours ; the last two
are the most unfavorable. Within the first two hours the majority of
pupils reach their maximum ; only on Monday do the third and fourth
hours show better work. If work of equal quality is to be* obtained
during these last two hours it must be done more slowly. For children
under twelve years the school day should not exceed four hours ; from
twelve to sixteen a maximum of five may be imposed.

The best work of the school week is done on Monday and Tues-
day ; the worst is met with on Saturday ; the intervening days show a
fairly steady decline from maximum to minimum. After every holi-
day a return to the initial freshness of Monday occurs. There is no
significant increase of fatigue during the course of the school term,
apart from the increase of pressure toward its close. There appears
thus an incomplete recovery as the week progresses, from the strain of

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 207

the preceding day, a grave item to be considered in the arrangement
of school curricula.

The employment of any given hour in work which taxes the pupil
heavily is marked by a falling off in quality of work during the hour
succeeding it. This holds true in spite of change of work, which is
designed to relieve the pupil by calling new powers into play. Change
of work is held to be rest ; but the fatigue persists, no matter what the
new subject of study may be. Change of work is recreation only
when the new occupation calls into activity a fresh set of powers, that
is, only in so far as it is rest. Such a method may easily be applied
to obtain relief from physical labor; it is to be doubted if it can be
successfully employed as a means of release from mental strain. The
facts cited point to the conclusion that mental work of every kind is
accompanied by general and not localized central fatigue, and it is
questionable if new faculties can be appealed to. The fact of clearly
defined fatigue, upon which Wagner lays especial stress, bears directly
against such a conclusion. All mental work involves fatigue of all
and every part of the pupil's faculties, and there appears no absolute
escape from it by variation of studies. Only rest will reach it, and to
this end both Wagner and Kemsies recommend the introduction of ten-
minute pauses at the conclusion of each hour's work.

Four types of subject are to be discriminated : (I.) What may be
called the normal, marked by a relatively brief rise in efficiency at-
tributable to elimination of initial distraction, which is followed by a
continuing depression, the curve falling away steadily through increas-
ing fatigue. In this type a second maximum sometimes occurs to-
wards the close of the forenoon's work.

(II.) In this type there is an initial maximum from which the
curve falls away rapidly and continuously throughout the day. Such
children are of weak resistance and must be carefully considered with
reference* to the problem of fatigue. They have little elasticity, and
rest is absolutely necessary to effective work.

(III.) The third type is characterized by a depression, often ex-
cessive, in the middle of the school period, the curve declining sharply
from the beginning till mid-forenoon, and there rising toward a sec-
ondary maximum during the following period. This type resembles
the preceding in its low resistance, but differs from it in its elasticity.
The recess almost restores its initial tonicity. Easily fatigued, it
readily recovers from depression, and the problem of fatigue is here
less grave than with those in whom the depression, more slowly mani-
fested, is much more permanent. In this type the second maximum

208 TIME-SENSE.

is usually reached before the close of a four-hour school session, and
the last working period is marked by a rapid increase of fatigue.

(IV.) This type, which Dr. Wagner calls the neuropathic group,
is marked by a uniform initial depression, from which the curve of effi-
ciency rises irregularly and rather slowly towards a maximum, which
in most cases is reached before the close of the forenoon's work. In
all four types the maximum is followed by a rapid increase in fatigue,
which reaches its extreme form in the neuropathic group. Here the
breaking strain comes swiftly, and if work be continued for any length
of time after the reaction sets in it is liable to issue in sudden extreme
exhaustion. This type is deceptive and needs the closest care.

The relation of individual studies to the problem of fatigue is of
minor importance. Every discipline in turn may be made refreshing or
fatiguing. The personality of the teacher counts for immensely more
than the nature of the material. Nevertheless, considered in themselves
a scale of values may be made out. Mathematics and Classics stand
high in all the lists ; singing, drawing and religion come far down, as
does also the study of German. That is, studies which demand close
application tax the pupil heavily, while those in which practice and
mechanical routine can play a part are marked by slight fatigue.
Gymnastic exercise, instead of being recuperative, ranks among the
most fatiguing forms of school work. Only light exercise is recreation.
Even the recess period is marked by deep fatigue in those who in-
dulge in violent exercise. Instead of the customary intervention, the
various investigators agree in recommending a shorter pause after
each hour's work, during which noisy games shall be discouraged
and the children taught to seek rest, fresh air and gentle movement.
In these lies the solution of the problem of fatigue in school.

R. MACDOUGALL.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

TIME-SENSE.

Zur Psychologic der Zcitanschauung. F. SCHUMANN. Zeitsch.
f. Psych, und Phys. d. Sinnesorgane, Vol. XVII., pp. 106-148.

Zur Schdtzung leerer, von einfachen Sc/ialleindruckeiz begreuzter
Zeiten. F. SCHUMANN. Zeitsch. f. Psych, und Phys. d. Sin-
nesorgane, Vol. XVIII., pp. 1-48.
The first article opens with six pages of quotation from Professor

G. E. Miiller's dictata on time-perception. A brief review of the

general theory there announced is as follows : All sensation qualities

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 209

are capable of certain modifications. For example, a given tonal
quality may undergo modifications in intensity and in clang-color. Some
of these modifications are of such a character that they cannot appear
at the same time in the same quality: for example, a high and a low
intensity. The result is that we form a complex idea of the quality,
which contains a series of possible modifications in intensity. In the
case of a second quality we form a similar complex idea, which also
contains a series of modifications in intensity which are the same as those
in the first case. We come in this way to isolate the notion of intensity.
It is in reality only a kind of modification of sensation quality ; it is not
independent in the mind. Time is analogous to intensity. The differ-
ence is that in the case of time we must deal not with a single sensa-
tion, but with a complex idea including two or more sensations, and
we have in this case not a uniform mode of modification, but a uniform
relation between qualities. The relation may be recognized because
more than one set of qualities appear in the same relation. But
the knowledge of temporal changes is not the result of a special relating
activity which is outside of the ideas themselves. The whole group
of sensations is held together by the mind in a certain relation, and
this relation is essential to the formation of the idea. Its recognition
is due to its recurrence with different groups of qualities.

This general theory of Miiller's, Schumann attempts to elaborate
and defend. First, time is not a special content distinct from the sen-
sation factors. In general, the discovery of differences between simple
ideas, as, for example, the difference between two shades of gray, is not
due to a separate content corresponding to the difference. The whole
process is made up of two sensations and the immediately resulting
judgment of difference. Introspection reveals nothing further. Even
the assumption of a comparing activity finds no justification through
introspection. The comparing activity is not something different from
the joint apprehension. In cases where the difference is difficult to
perceive and conscious effort is present, the apparent comparison is
merely a higher degree of attention, unless, indeed, the mind makes
use of secondary aids in the formation of the judgment.

Secondly, there is no need of assuming that for the formation of a
temporal judgment both sensational elements must be simultaneously
present in consciousness. Of course, the first impression must leave
its trace, but this is not a conscious idea ; it is much rather to be thought
of as a physiological trace. There is no other possibility of immediate
perception of duration, for if we require a conscious comparison then
the judgment becomes mediate. Thirdly, the psychical present is never

2 1 0 TIME-SENSE.

a point ; it is a line, and as a psychical process must be regarded as a
complex of greater or less duration.

The assumption of a form-quality or of a form-feeling is opposed,
on the ground that introspection shows no such factors and it is not
required. The remainder of this article and the whole of the second
are devoted to a defense of the author's earlier results and explanations
against the attacks of other investigators, particularly Meumann.

Estimation of intervals depends on the secondary data of expecta-
tion and surprise which arise when the given interval does not corre-
spond to that for which attention is i set.' This position is supported
by introspection, by the phenomena of contact, the underestimation of
intervals observed with lax attention, the overestimation of intervals
following a pause, and the parallelism between the rise and fall of ex-
pectation and bodily movements.

It has been reported that when the last of three stimuli marking off
two equal intervals of time is intensified the second interval is over-
estimated. Now, the intensification of a stimulus results in surprise,
and this should, according to Schumann's principle, have just the
opposite effect to that reported. In answer, the author reports ex-
periments in which he shows that the common, simple result is under-
estimation rather than overestimation. In the cases where the intensi-
fication led to a conscious introduction of rhythm the result was over-
estimation. The normal results are in agreement with the theory ;
the rhythmical complications explain the others.

The constant errors of judgment at intervals of different lengths
are not fundamental facts, but are all to be explained by one or more
of a variety of influences, such as contrast with previously given in-
tervals, accompanying sensations of strain, rhythmical apprehension,
and possibly others.

Meumann finds that, in a long series, sounds heard at a given rate
seem more rapid than only two or three sounds at the same rate.
Schumann finds that in all cases where this error in judgment ap-
pears it is based on a relaxing of the attention during the longer
series. Finally, in regard to Meumann's results that a series of strong
sounds which succeed each other at short intervals seems more rapid
than a series of weaker sounds given at the same rate, Schumann
finds that his subjects either perceive no difference at all or else ob-
serve the exact opposite of that reported by Meumann. The contradic-
tion may be due to subjective conditions or to the objective conditions
under which the experiments were tried.

The investigations of time-perception are among the most difficult

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 21 1

undertaken in experimental psychology. If one overlooks the earlier,
rather crude experiments, the number of valuable treatments of this
subject reduces to five or six. Unfortunately, the results thus far
obtained are frequently of such a conflicting character that one feels
that the whole ground must be gone over anew before any interpreta-
tion can be commenced. The articles have come to take on a polem-
ical and too often personal character that does not tend to stimulate
unqualified acceptance of the statements of either party. The per-
sonal equation doubtless plays a very large part in estimation of time
intervals, and perhaps it would be well for investigators to recognize
this fact once for all, and not to be too hasty in generalizing from their
own individual observations or from those of their own ' school.'

The theories, too, are hypothetical in the last degree, and must be
so regarded. It seems clear to the present reviewer that both space
and time must ultimately be explained as recognitions of relations and
not as contents. It is difficult, however, to give such a theory an in-
telligible statement, and the difficulty of finding a psychical process in
which a relation is apprehended is always difficult. This latter diffi-
culty can certainly not be disposed of by calling it an c immediate '
process or by referring it to some undefined physiological traces.
The close relation between the unanalyzed processes of immediate per-
ception and the more complex processes of mediate judgment furnishes
perhaps a clue that will aid in the solution. The simpler process
must be like the more complex in kind, if not in degree.

CHAS. H. JUDD.
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY,

SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY.

Zwei JBeitrage zur Psychologic des Rhythmus und des Tempo.

KURT EBHARDT. Zeitsch. fiir Psych, und Phys. der Sinnesorgane,

Bd. XVIII., Hf. 2.

The general result of this investigation may be briefly summarized
in the following principle : Whenever a subject who is producing a
series of sounds by means of movements of the hand is required to
increase in any way the effort necessary to produce the proper move-
ment, his attention will be in part absorbed by the increase in effort
and he will not perceive fully the lapse of time. The result will be
that he will judge to be equal intervals which are in reality different —
longer intervals with greater effort being judged as equal to shorter
intervals with less effort.

In the first group of experiments the subject produced series of

212 VISION.

movements at regular intervals. The interval was left to the subject's
choice and varied between 0.3 and 0.6 of a second. In a first series
all the movements were of equal intensity. In a second series every
second movement, in a third, every third movement, was emphasized.
The result was that all intervals following accented movements were
longer than those following unaccented movements.

In the second group of experiments it was found that a musical
composition played without its full accompaniment required more time
than one played with the accompaniment. Or a piece of music exe-
cuted on a set of keys not connected with strings, and thus producing
no sounds, required more time than one executed on the ordinary in-
strument. In both of these cases the subject is forced to supply the
part omitted by an increased effort of imagination. This increased
effort absorbs the attention and causes him to underestimate the duration.
Ebhardt holds that in all these cases we have to do with phenomena
of activity and \vith the sensations most directly associated with ac-
tivity rather than with the more passively received sensations. But
even from this point of view it is not easy to see how greater concen-
tration of attention on the sensations is to obscure the duration. The
duration can not be regarded as a separate content which can be pushed
out of consciousness by strong sensations of movement. Duration is
an attribute of sensations or complexes of sensations. That concen-
tration on these sensations is to obscure their temporal attributes cer-
tainly requires some explanation rather than mere dogmatic assertion.

CIIAS. H. JUDD.
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY.

VISION.

S. Ramon y Cajal's Neuere Beitrdge zur Histologie der Retina.

R. GREEF. Ztsch. f. Psych, u. Physiol. der Sinnesorgane, Vol.

XVI., 1898, pp. 161-187.

Dr. Greef gives an interesting summary of the most recent additions
made by Ramon y Cajal to our knowledge of the structure of the retina ;
the subject, up to the stage of its development here described, has been
made most accessible to the non-specialist reader in Die Retina der
Wirbelthiere (Wiesbaden, 1894) by Dr. Greef , who has also made
contributions of his own to the work of the Spanish author. The
most interesting points now made out (which may be added, for the
English reader, to the excellent account in the System of Diseases of
the Eye, by Norris and Oliver) are the following :

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 213

Most important of all, it can now be affirmed, without doubt, that
the cones are, quite simply, rods in a higher stage of development.
This fact is very much to the favor of those theories of the light sense
which regard the color function of the cones as a developed form of
the rod function, the latter affording no means of discriminating be-
tween lights of different periodicity. That the cones are intrusted with
the conveyance of some more complicated form of excitation (what-
ever the nature of the excitation may be) is indicated by the fact that
the knob-like basilar ending of the rods is replaced in them by numer-
ous thread-like expansions. If our subjectively acquired belief regard-
ing the different functions of the rods and cones had happened to be
the reverse of what it is (if we had been induced to attribute the
color sense to the rods and the undiscriminated light sense to the
cones) , knowledge on this subject would now be at a standing-still point
of contradiction ; as it is, it can go on its way rejoicing in one more
of those mutual confirmations of reasoning processes proceeding by
different routes which are, in general, the source of the confidence we
feel in our interpretation of the phenomena of the natural world.
Even the latest writers on the histogenesis of the retina have had little
to say on the early stages of the infra-limitant portion of the rods and
cones. It: has only now been made out, by the Golgi method, and
especially by means of the double impregnation and the rolling-up of
the retina, that the rods and cones pass through a period (in the new-
born cat, for instance) when they exhibit no difference in structure
(so far as structure is preserved in these methods), and can only be
distinguished from each other by the circumstance that the nucleus of
one is surrounded by a somewhat thicker layer of protoplasm than that
of the others, and so stains darker. (This is a stage in which the end
members are wholly undeveloped, and so can give no means of orien-
tation.) The question of their embryonal identity — a question which
Cajal himself was formerly obliged to give up — he has now, there-
fore, been able to solve in the affirmative sense.

Other points which may be noticed in this summary of results are
these : There have been many reasons for regarding the rods and
cones as differentiated epithelial cells and not as nerve cells or as
neuroglia cells — the epithelioid appearance of their outer members,
their position as limiting cells in the interior of the primitive optic
cup, etc. That they are, in fact, such is now established by the cir-
cumstance that in their development they pass through, like nerve
cells, a monopolar phase, but that, unlike the neuroblasts of His, the
cellulipetal process is first developed, and not the cellulifugal. If

214 vision.

R. y Cajal is right, we have now a criterion by which to distinguish
between the three classes of cells which are capable of conducting
nervous currents : (i) cells in which the cellulipetal process is formed
first (rods and cones, taste-cells, etc.) ; (2) those which begin their
development with the sending-out of a cellulifugal process (the great
majority of the multipolar cells of the nervous centers) ; (3) cells
which seem to form both processes at the same time (bipolar cells of
the retina, of Corti's organ, etc.). The difference between the bi-
polar cells intended for the rods and those intended for the cones is
much greater in mammals the fourth day after birth than it is later,
which confirms Cajal's discovery that these cells are distinctly differ-
ent.— Recent studies of the retina of the sparrow (in which this organ
has reached an extremely high development) disclose a new form of
cell (later detected also in the retinae of reptiles and of some mam-
mals) which resembles both in shape and in position the amacrine
cells, but which differs from them in having an immensely long (some-
times a millimeter long) axis-cylinder process. Their function seems
to be to act as association-fibres between distant amacrine cells. They
are extremely numerous, and it is very probable that the ramifications
of the centrifugal nervous fibres are spread out around these cells.
They may be called the amacrine-association cells. — The retinae of
birds offer the best field for the study of the centrifugal fibres ; for
the finch, sparrow, etc., the Golgi method is best; for the thicker
retina of the dove, that of Ehrlich. Cajal is now thoroughly con-
vinced that these fibres all terminate in close contiguity with amacrine
cells, and that the function of the latter is to form an important mem-
ber in a conducting chain between the brain and the junction of the
bipolar with the ganglion cells. — Among the regular cells of the
ganglion layer are certain others which are now made out to be true
amacrine cells, but not in their proper place — dislocated amacrine
cells. R. y Cajal has before laid down the rule that for the recogni-
tion of the nature of a nervous cell one should not attend so much to
the position of the cell-body, for that may vary greatly, but rather to
the position and the relations of the protoplasmic processes and the
axis-cylinder. By means of this principle Lenhossek has been able to
discover the bipolar cells of Cephalopods, although they are on top of,
instead of beneath the feet of, the rods and cones, and also their
amacrine cells, although the bodies of these cells are quite out of their
natural position. — It is more than ever certain that there are nowhere
in the retina either nervous reticulations or protoplasmic anastomoses.

C. LADD FRANKLIN.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 215

Ueber Raumwahrnehmung beim monDCularen Sehen. ROBERT

MULLER. Philosophische Studien, Vol. XIV., No. 3, pp. 402-

470.

This is another investigation of monocular depth-perception by
Hering's method of dropping marbles through the field of vision.
Only indirect vision was investigated, the aim being to find whether
empirical evidence could be educed in support of Kirschmann's theory
of the importance of parallax in indirect vision. The results are held to
indicate the presence of a means of judging vaguely monocular depth,
«ven when movements are excluded. The absolute localization is at-
tributed to binocular factors that can never be eliminated.

Like all investigations by this method, the results require a good
deal of interpreting before the conclusion can be put in its accepted
form. Interpretation and historical review make up the main part of
the article.

CHAS. H. JUDD.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY.

Die stroboskopischen Erscheinungen. KARL MARBE. Philoso-
phische Studien, Vol. XIV., No. 3, pp. 376-401.
The article opens with a summary of all the references to strobo-
scopic phenomena and a criticism of the results thus reviewed. Then
follows a restatement of Talbot's law on which it is held that these
phenomena depend. The only part of this section that is particularly
new is the description of an experiment suggested by the work of
Griinbaum in the Journal of Physiology, to show that the slower the
contours of surfaces which are to fuse, vary, the less will be the
fusion at a given slow rate of movement. A mirror is covered with
black paper in which there are two small openings. These openings
are so arranged that in one there will be seen the reflection of the
periphery of a rotating disk made of white and black sectors. The
other opening reflects a part of the same disk nearer the center. If
the rotation is just fast enough to produce fusion at the periphery,
there will not be fusion at the center.

The apparent movement of stroboscopic figures is due to a failure
of the subject to detect the omitted phases of the movement. These
omitted phases may be brought out by especially arranged conditions.
Such apparent movement is accordingly due to a central process.

CHAS. H. JUDD.
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY.

2l6 INSTINCT.

GENERAL.

The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct. ALEXANDER

SUTHERLAND, M. A. London and New York, Longmans. 1898.

2 vols. Pp. xiii -f- 797*

These two handsome volumes are well worth reading. The
language of the author is lucid and non-technical. His thought is
simply presented, although it has involved many years of thought and
labor. The author claims full half of the book to be a detailed ex-
pansion of the fourth and fifth chapters of Darwin's Descent of Man.
The whole work, however, is independent in its thought and execution.

Adam Smith and Darwin are the godfathers of the present child.
Adam Smith, it is claimed, needed only a suspicion of what Darwin
established to have revealed the true origin of our * moral instincts/ He
founded morality on sympathy, but knewnotwhence the sympathy arose.

Mr. Sutherland's position may be summed up somewhat as fol-
lows: The 4 moral instinct' is of an emotional nature. Intelligence
is a concomitant. A moral action is one which is founded on sym-
pathy. While philosophers, as Schiller says, are disputing about the
government of the world, Hunger and Love are performing the task.
These two great masses of reactions and tendencies, in the form of
self-preservation, selfishness, ambition, will-power, etc., on the one
hand, and sympathy, generosity, altruism, love, etc., on the other, are
present as potentialities in each human being. The latter sum of ten-
dencies Mr. Sutherland calls moral. In a far more inductive and
thorough spirit than that of Herbert Spencer or Drummond, he traces
the growth of the sympathetic or altruistic feelings, showing how
absolutely necessary they are biologically considered. Parental care
must have made its beneficent appearance as an agency essential to
the survival of the better fitted, of the higher gifted. Sympathy and al-
truism arose thus as advantageous variations, securing by their presence
longer play and developing periods (Karl Groos) so necessary in phy-
logenetic development. In the second volume the suggestive and in-
teresting experiments on the temperature of different animals during
hatching and incubation are given more fully than in the author's first
communications.

Many facts are adduced of the rise and growth of parental care,
first in the cold-blooded animals, then in the warm-blooded types, then
among mankind. This growth is also well described among the savages,
civilized and cultured races and classes. Conjugal tenderness and
fidelity begin only on the level of the warm-blooded animals. As the
sympathetic tendencies increase in the human races there dawn the

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 217

feelings of chastity, modesty, etc. He combats with right Wester-
marck's doctrine that fear and hatred of incest are instinctive. Parental
care, sympathy and solicitude extend gradually to the members of the
family and finally to the members of the community, guild and race.
Thus the stoic cosmopolite is, in some respects at least, the acme of civ-
ilization. This feeling of sympathy, so helpful and advantageous, bio-
logically speaking, is strongly evidenced in the multitudinous hospitals,
asylums and similar institutions of this century. (Parenthetically it
may be mentioned that Ohio in 1894 contributed $1,146,721 to feed
the paupers of the State and $4,175,915 for all charitable purposes;
the sum-total of the incomes of all the colleges and universities in the
State amounted to less than $1,000,000.)

The suggestive point is made that morality grows out of the family
(perihestic) , while public law springs out of the uniform usages out-
side the family (aphestic). Public law has its origin rather in the
hunger tendencies of the race, in feuds, retaliation, arbitration, police
necessities, etc. Thus public law never gave rise to any moral feeling,
but moral feeling gave rise to corresponding public laws.

Since sympathy is emotional, an examination is made of the nature
of the emotions and of their physical basis or concomitance. The
James-Lange theory is presented, though worked out independently of
them both. Mind is the continuous consciousness of sensations and
emotions, the former arising from variations in sense organs, the latter
from variations in the general vascular tone of the body. The biolog-
ical necessity of fear, joy, etc., and their connections with the action
of the vascular system are pointed out.

In criticism several points may with advantage be raised. In the
love and hunger series of tendencies the implication is that if one
(sympathy) is moral the other is either immoral or non-moral. The
judgment of the race affirms that both are necessary, useful, good and
moral when they are conducive to the race in general. That is the
biological test of the ages. The speculative theories of the past were
brilliant guesses. As a general rule they mixed up gloriously the
ought with the actual. The motive, for example, does not justify and
make an action moral unless it is conducive to the greatest good of
that particular species or of the race. Neither is the hedonistic doc-
trine any better. The test of the age is not is he happy or is he not.
That is not what history and science call the fittest in survival. The
fittest has been of various kinds and forms. At one time it is lying,
stealing, might, courage, at another their opposites. At one time it is
intellectual in its nature ( Kidd's Social Evolution ) , at another emo-

2l8 INSTINCT.

tional and at another volitional. Moral (human) conduct is that sum
of habitual human actions which are conducive to the general good.
This is no speculation, but the general test of the ages. Ethics as a
science deals with the ' oughts ' of history, their rise and fall, the causes
of their success and failure. It deals with uniformities in the actions
of men, their causes and probable continuance. As such it is a part
of psychology and rests ultimately upon biological principles.

The measure of morality is the measure of fitness and accuracy of
adaptation or attention. It is not a question as to whether a certain
action produces pain or pleasure — upon that subject the success and
progress of the world have not hinged — nor is it a question as to com-
plexity, coordination or apparent goodness in itself of an action — for
a jewelled watch is of no value or ' no good ' in sunless obscurity ; but
it is an important issue as to whether an action has been of some value
or of some advantage to the needs of the environment, present or future.
Appropriation of property may be painful or pleasurable ; it is in itself,
however, neither right nor wrong. When appropriated by the State,
whether from a willing or an unwilling subject, it is considered a good
act on this condition, that it is for the greatest good of the greatest
number. Appropriation of property for an evil purpose is theft.
Suum cuique is a false definition of justice.

4 ' Thou shalt not kill " either thy neighbor or thyself. But we
praise the action of a Winkelried or a Christ, who marched to volun-
tary deaths. The man whose voluntary death is of disadvantage to
his family and to the community at large we call a suicide. More-
over, that which was useful once may not be useful now. The tiger's
fierce passions may be hurtful possessions to-day. In short, morality is
measured and always has been measured in the great world's perspective
by the degree of advantageous adaptation. Ethics as a science leaves
the narrow anthropocentric attitude of Kant and the Hedonists and
assumes the wider view of an objective, biological standpoint.

The author has, I believe, failed to analyze this important point,
which has such a vital connection with his subject-matter. He says,
4 ' Right conduct arises from the moral instinct, after due allowance
has been made for the reasonable exercise of the self -preserving in-
stinct," p. 19. Again, " As a rule, moral conduct is right conduct;
in other words, our moral or sympathetic instincts in general impel us
to what is for the good of our race as a whole, but not always," p. 18.
That is to say, Mr. Sutherland does not fully identify moral conduct
with right conduct. Sympathy (his morality) does not constitute in
his opinion the highest and truest test of right conduct. This point

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 219

certainly needs more careful analysis. Furthermore, the hunger side
of our tendencies, or as Benjamin Kidd in his much and rightly abused
book would say, the rational or intellectual side of our nature, should
not be burdened with the evilly significant term ' selfish.' The modern
world of inventions and culture can ill afford to endure a speculative
philosopher's assertion that such are selfish, or are not conducive to the
good of the race.

Mr. Sutherland fails again to make a clear and firm analysis of the
terms mentioned in the following extracts : " that moral instinct which,
with its concomitant intelligence, forms the noblest feature as yet- visi-
ble on this ancient earth of ours" (p. i); " the moral instinct with
all its accompanying accessories, the sense of duty, the feeling of self-
respect, the enthusiasm of both the tender and the manly ideal of ethic
beauty" (p. 2). One of the clearest expositions the writer has seen
of these phenomena is that of Dr. J. H. Leuba's, 4 The Psycho-
Physiology of the Moral Imperative ' in the American Journal of
Psychology, Vol. VIII., No. 4.

In a word, the author has given us an excellent treatise on the rise
and growth of sympathetic reflex actions. The closing words of his
introductory remarks are significant : " Hence the moral instinct is not
an instinct of right conduct, a thing which has no existence, but an in-
stinct, mainly sympathetic, which we find it conducive to man's highest
good to encourage, by giving to the actions which it prompts the ap-
proving name of right conduct" (p. 19).

ARTHUR ALLIN.

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO.

The Instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps. GEORGE W.
PECKHAM and ELIZABETH G. PECKHAM. Madison, Wis., Pub-
lished by the State. 1898. Pp. 245. With Plates.
This work, as the record of careful and patient observation of
forty-five species of solitary wasps, is of considerable interest to the
comparative psychologist. The authors find these wasps to have large
variability, individuality and intelligence. "The social hymenoptera
are born into a community, and their mental processes may be modi-
fied and assisted by education and imitation, but the solitary wasp (with
rare exceptions) comes into the world absolutely alone. It has no
knowledge of its progenitors, which have perished long before, and no
relations with others of its kind. It must then depend entirely upon its
inherited instincts to determine the form of its activities, and although
these instincts are much more flexible than has been generally sup-

220 INSTINCT.

posed, and are often modified by individual judgment and experience,
they are still so complex and remarkable as to offer a wide field for
study and speculation." The remark about absence of imitation rather
conflicts with page 228, where the imitative acts are made a distinct
variety. The most striking observation on intelligence is that of one
Ammophila (p. 23) which picked up a pebble in her mandibles and
used it to hammer the earth smooth over her nest. This seemed a case
of improvising a tool and making an intelligent use of it. The account
is corroborated by a report from an independent observer. Another
remarkable instance of intelligence was the hanging of spiders in plants
to keep them out of the way of ants, which was noted in several
individuals. The comparative activity (pp. 150, 158) is also notable.
The luring (p. 115) may have been either self-deception or confusion.
The authors' studies do not uphold the idea as to the wonderful
stinging instinct by which the wasp is supposed always to hit the nerve
center of spiders, etc., in such a way as to produce permanent paraly-
sis, and so give fresh food to its future offspring. They show that the
results of stinging are extremely variable, and that larva? subsist
healthily upon dead material. The authors do not make it clear how
far the wasp consciously uses its sting as subjugating weapon, aiming
at large and vital parts, or whether it be mere imperfect instinct (cf.
pp. 203, 227, 232). The writers find no sense of direction in wasps,
but their numerous observations show that wasps carefully study
localities and note landmarks, and yet frequently lose their nests.
(Yet here again there is not complete consistency, cf. pp. 60 and 8.)
The psychological analysis is not as clear and thorough as we could
wish. There is too much careless writing of this sort: "Just here
must be told the story of one little wasp whose individuality stands out
in our minds more distinctly than that of any of the others. We
remember her as the most fastidious and perfect little worker of the
whole season, so nice was she in her adaptation of means to ends, so
busy and contented in her labor of love, and so pretty in her pride
over her contemplated work " (p. 22). Our general impression from
this work is that the solitary wasps, while obeying general instinctive
impulses, as stinging, nesting, etc., are far more largely than is gener-
ally supposed guided by intelligence in the specific applications. It
is to be hoped that the authors pursue their studies, especially in the
way of experiment, and extend their work to the social wasps on the
lines intimated on page 68. They might also tell us whether wasps
numerate, play, and what emotions they have.

HIRAM M. STANLEY.
LAKE FOREST, ILLINOIS.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 221

The Essence of Revenge. DR. E. WESTERMARCK. Mind, July,

1898.

Dr. E. Westermarck opens this article by a sharp criticism of Dr.
Steinmetz's theory that revenge is essentially a mode of enhancing the
self-feeling, and in its earliest form is undirected, falling upon any
convenient victim rather than the real aggressor. He points out that
the instances of undirected revenge adduced by Steinmetz are irrele-
vant or tend the other way, and he thinks that the so-called instance of
undirected revenge is merely either *' sudden anger or it is the outburst
of a wounded ' self -feeling/ which, when not directed against its proper
object, can afford only an inadequate consolation to a revengeful
man." We may observe on this matter that an oriental despot in mas-
sacring a host of non-aggressors merely to enhance his power and dig-
nity is plainly not moved by revenge. However, the running amuck
by a Malay, or the assassination of an innocent Empress by an anarch-
ist, may be generally directed revenge and misdirected, but not undi-
rected revenge. Certainly Dr. Westermarck's contention seems sound,
namely, that revenge is not at first undiscriminating, not a purely sub-
jective exaltation of selfhood which bears no definite action and feel-
ing toward aggressor as such. To our modern individualism much
savage revenge must appear undiscriminating when it really is di-
rected to what it judges collective responsibility.

After remarking on cases of revenge among animals which indi-
cate discrimination, and then touching on the close connection of anger
and revenge, Dr. Westermarck briefly indicates the function of re-
venge in self-conservation and self -furtherance. It would, of course,
require a volume to treat properly the natural history of revenge, its
culmination as life factor, and its decadence in its primitive forms in
the highest civilization. The duel is survival form, and I think the
admiration shown for a murderer by many women in civilization
probably is survival of the ancient savage feminine admiration of
the most successful head-hunter. On the other hand, Britain's venge-
fulness protects her citizens in all parts of the world, and fc Revenge
the Maine ! ' was lately the war-cry of a great nation. Dr. Wester-
marck agrees with Dr. Steinmetz that strict equivalence is not a gen-
eral law of revenge. He instances Hannibal slaying 3,000 captives
in revenge for the death of his grandfather, but I doubt that Hannibal
would acknowledge injustice. Revenge gets even from its own point
of view. Dr. Westermarck distinguishes equivalence as qualitative
and quantitative, and ascribes qualitative — c the paying back in his
own coin ' — mainly to l wounded pride,' but maintains that quantita-

222 LOGIC.

tive is determined by public opinion. "If the offender is one with
whose feelings men naturally sympathize this sympathy will keep the
desire to see him punished within certain limits, and if they sympa-
thize equally with the suffering of the offender and with that of his
victim they will demand a punishment only equal to the offense.
This demand, in combination with the rough ideas natural to an un-
cultured mind that offense and punishment are to be measured by
their external aspects, lies at the foundation of the strict rule of
equivalence, which is thus an expression, not of an unrestrained bar-
barism, but of advancement in humanity and civilization. If this
explanation be the correct one the rule in question must have been
originally restricted to offenses committed by fellow-tribesmen, as
public opinion could not otherwise have been an impartial judge."
However, is it not the natural tendency of revenge to hurt the other as
bad in the same kind? And does not the regulation of revenge pro-
ceed mainly from caution, both of the revenger, who fears counter re-
prisal, and of his kin and friends, who have to undertake any revenge
for him? No one but an absolute despot can afford to retaliate every
aggression with death. In savage life an individual who always sets
out on death-dealing revenge would get short shrift himself ; and thus
natural selection weeds out both the over-revengeful and the under-
revengeful, and establishes a tit-for-tat, which comes to be natural jus-
tice, as the simplest law of socialization. Dr. Westermarck inti
mates and asserts that sympathy of companions as regulating re-
venge moulds moral consciousness, but he does not develop with any
clearness or fullness a most interesting point which lies out of the
direct scope of his paper. Certainly, a simpler solution of the duty-
consciousness lies in the revenge become not merely impulsive, but
compulsive, at urging of wife, children and relatives, a duty to be
done.

With some remarks on intention in revenge and on the compara-
tive method of study, Dr. Westermarck closes a paper which certainly
advances our knowledge of the subject, but which on some points is
more suggestive than conclusive.

HIRAM M. STANLEY.

LAKE FOREST, ILLINOIS.

An Introductory Logic. JAMES EDWIN CREIGHTON. New York,
The Macmillan Company. 1898. Pp. vii+387-
In this volume Professor Creighton has presented very clearly the
essentials of the traditional logic, which at the same time he has sup-
plemented with an admirable statement of the salient features of the

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 223

modern logic. An introductory outline of his treatment of the subject
is followed by a brief historical sketch which serves to indicate the
several phases through which logic in its development has passed.
This gives to the student at the very beginning a point of view and a
general conception of the scope of the subject. It also tends to stimu-
late his interest in the following portions of the book. The author
divides the subject-matter into three parts : the first treats of the deduc-
tive logic ; the second, of the inductive ; and the third, of the general
theory of logic.

The first part begins with a general account of the syllogism, reserv-
ing, however, for a subsequent chapter the detailed discussion concern-
ing the specific rules of the syllogism and their application. This pro-
cedure seems to me to be a very happy one, as it opens up the subject
at that point which is most familiar to those who have never studied
logic, and yet who, in a vague way at least, have some notion of the
inferential processes which, to their minds, it may be, are almost, if not
altogether, synonymous with logic itself. Thus starting on somewhat
familiar ground, this much is gained, that the student is not at the
outset deterred by the array of definitions which in most text-books
on formal logic seem to block the way to the heart of the subject.
Though it may not be as strictly logical a procedure, yet for pedagogi-
cal reasons it is better to begin at the center with some idea of the
meaning of inference, and thence work towards the elementary
material which environs it. Throughout the treatment of the deduc-
tive logic there is a clearness of statement, and also a due sense of
proportion in passing over, with but a brief mention, such portions
as have historical rather than present interest either of a specula-
tive or of a practical nature, as, for instance, the subject of reduction.
Professor Creighton's illustrations and examples are not of the con-
ventional order, and, therefore, they do not leave the impression
which traditional examples in logic so often do leave, namely, that
syllogistic reasoning has no counterpart in the actual inferences of
everyday life.

In the author's exposition of the inductive logic we find that the
practical procedure in inductive investigation is kept prominently in
view, and the various methods of research are clearly explained in the
concrete by giving a number of appropriate examples of actual ex-
periments whose results have materially augmented the wealth of
scientific knowledge.

Professor Creighton's classification of the inductive methods
seems to me to be somewhat at fault. He divides the methods into

224 LOGIC.

those of observation and those of explanation ; the former embrace the
methods of enumeration, of statistics and of causal determination ; and
the latter, the methods of explanation, are chiefly the methods of
analogy and hypothesis. My criticism of this division is that causal
determination is in itself an explanation. It is true that the causal
relation is generally further analyzed or simplified by analogy or by
some hypothesis, but for the most part the hypothesis or analogy ex-
plains by referring to some underlying causal connection. It is due
to Professor Creighton to state that he himself acknowledges that in
this classification the difference between the two kinds of methods is
one of degree rather than of essential nature l and yet it perhaps would
have been better not to make a distinction which is not one of essen-
tial nature the basis for differentiating so prominently these methods
of research.

In the third section, which treats of the nature of thought, or the
general theory of logic, the author's point of view is in its essential
features quite in accord with that of Bosanquet. Professor Creighton
insists upon the conception of thought as a living, growing phenomenon,
and not a mere mechanical grouping of ready-made ideas, and also that
the growth of thought is to be regarded as a process of development
which proceeds ever from simpler to more complex states, according to
the manner of all evolutionary processes. He regards the judgment
as the unit of thought, and defines the concept as ' the series of judg-
ments which have already been made.' 2 By way of comment upon
this definition of concept, he adds that " to make the thought our own,
to gain the real concept, it is necessary to draw out or realize to our-
selves the actual set of judgments for which the word is but the short-
hand expression."3 The concept, however, is not merely a summa-
tion of a number of judgments. It is rather a blending of the various
elements which the several judgments have furnished in such a way
that these judgments which have been operative in the formation of
the concept are implicitly rather than explicitly apprehended. For
there is such a thing as an implicit apprehension of the significance of
a whole without a conscious analysis of its component parts, as Mr.
Stout has so admirably set forth in his Analytic Psychology. The
function of the concept is essentially « adjectival ' until it is subjected
to an analysis which discloses explicitly the parts which form the
4 actual set of judgments ' but which before such analysis were dis-
cerned implicity.

Professor Creighton has stoutly defended the necessity of a uni-
1P. 220. 2 p. 270- 3 p. 27I.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 225

versal element in some form or other as the ground of inference. In
this view he takes exception to Mill's contention that reasoning is from
particular to particular. The author very happily sums up the argu-
ment in support of his position in the following sentences, which
clearly indicate his general point of view as regards the theory of in-
ference : u Knowledge sees the universal in the particular, or reads the
particular as a case of the universal. And when thus interpreted the
particular ceases to be a bare particular and becomes an individual
with a permanent nature of its own. When one reasons from an indi-
vidual case, then it is the universal or typical nature, not the particular
or momentary existence, upon which the inference proceeds. If there
were any merely particular facts in knowledge we could never reason
from them. But the so-called particular facts, as elements of knowl-
edge, possess a universal or typical aspect in virtue of which alone in-
ference is possible." l

JOHN GRIER HIBBEN.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.

L? Education Rationelle de la Volonte: Son emploi therapeutique.

PAUL EMILE LEVY. Preface de M. le DR. BERNHEIM. Paris,

Alcan. 1898. Pp. v + 234.

Dr. Levy divides his monograph into two sections, a 4 Theoretical
Study ' and ; Practical Applications.'

From the theoretical point of view, psychotherapy is based upon
one fundamental principle : " Thought is in act in the nascent state;
it is a beginning of activity. * * * The transformation of the idea
into an act may take place in two distinct ways. Either the idea
becomes a positive act, i. £., feeling, volition, sensation, movement,
or it becomes a negative act — in other words, it neutralizes the act,
prevents the feeling, the volition, the sensation, the movement from
being realized (se produire). Dynamogeny, inhibition — these are,
briefly, two aspects of the same process." (Pp. 13, 14.)

Granting this principle, all that is needed to bring about any given
change is to awaken in the mind an idea of the change in question,
i. e., to give a suggestion. The suggestion may be administered by
another (81-97) (hetero-suggestion), or by the patient himself (auto-
suggestion) . It is with the latter only that Dr. Levy concerns him-
self. To make the auto-suggestion most effective it should be admin-
Jstered in a state of mental repose (49) (recueillement}, and should be
reinforced, when possible, by directing upon it any available emotion

'P- 344-

226 GENERAL.

(55), and by the deliberate adoption of such conduct as the suggestion
would itself, if realized, inspire (63-79) (entrainement actif). The
suggestion should not be in the form of an effort to will its realization ;
it should rather be put as a categorical statement (52), but voluntary
attention should be concentrated upon it to ensure its taking root (32)
(52, note) (128). :

The same principle may be applied to the realization of a highly
abstract ideal (Mental Hygiene, 99-120). By fixing the concept of
the ideal in mind as an auto-suggestion its influence will be felt at
unexpected moments, modifying the details of conduct.

By wz'//we mean nothing more than the resultant (125), as ex-
pressed in conduct, of all the active tendencies of simultaneously co-
existing ideas, but it must be remembered that a small part only of
these (126) are conscious, the larger part being subconscious. The
weakness of will which prevails in modern society (French society?)
is due to the fact that the intellectual, social and political upheavals of
the last century have undermined the definite convictions which ruled
the conduct of our ancestors and have given us nothing in their place
(121-125). It is obvious (127 ff.) that the theory of auto-suggestion ,,
supplemented by hetero-suggestion, is the only scientific method of
training the will and developing character.

Such is Dr. Levy's theory. It embraces much that is true — although
nothing new — but it suffers from a lack of what may be termed the
quantitative sense, and an indifference to the niceties of conceptional
discrimination. To take the last first, surely it is only by doing vio-
lence to the plain meaning of words that the tendency spontaneously
to adopt the beliefs of others, the tendency on the part of certain ideas
to give rise to the corresponding sensation, and on the part of other
ideas to give rise to a movement, are all subsumed under the concept
of * nascent act/ which is strictly applicable to the last only of the
three. There is an analogy between these three tendencies, but they
are far from identical.

The quantitative sense is the ability to discriminate tendencies
from necessary causal relations, possibilities from probabilities, and
this Dr. LeVy seems to lack. The facts now in hand go far towards
rendering plausible the hypothesis that every mental state possesses —
perhaps vicariously, as the representative of cortical process — certain
intrinsic tendencies, which, when the inhibition of other states is
removed, would result in such determinate events as the development
of an illusion, the suggestion of an associated idea, the production of a
movement, the modification of metabolism. But to base upon such a

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 22 7

doctrine the elaborate system of practice proposed by Dr. Levy and
to hold forth such confident hopes to those who stand in need of aid
is a very different matter. Such a leap should be taken only after the
practicability of the proposed method has been demonstrated. What
has Dr. L£vy done towards demonstrating it?

He has conducted experiments for four (218) months upon him-
self and six other persons. We are told nothing of the physical or
mental traits of these other persons, although it would appear (p. 185)
that one at least, ' C,' was an advanced hysteric. Such details are
quite irrelevant to the question, Dr. Levy thinks (217). Nor are we
told anything of their reliability as witnesses; merely that (145, note)
each one must have known whether the results he reports were due to
suggestion or to coincidence. We are, however, told that no one of
them received more than ten or fifteen minutes' instruction from Dr.
Levy (218) as to the method of experimenting and of recording ex-
periments. No record whatever is made of the negative results,
though we are told that two subjects, whether two of the above men-
tioned six or not is not stated, could get no positive results (219). Of
the positive results some are given. A few illustrations taken at ran-
dom will give an idea of their character.

" One of my subjects, a merchant, frequently, before going to see
his customers, gave himself the suggestion to succeed in the business
which he had to do with them. Often, he said, the suggestion was
followed by the desired result" (162). This is due, Dr. Levy thinks,
to the greater self-confidence and persuasiveness imparted by the sug-
gestion.

Or an observation of Coste de Lagrave's — UI sing badly; I re-
sort to the auto-suggestion that I should sing with taste, should give
pleasure to the audience ; I receive compliments for the first time in
my life" (162).

u I try to concentrate my mind upon my work alone, to the exclu-
sion of all else in life. I note at the end of the afternoon that my
time has been much better spent than usual" (160).

44 After having grippe, though a light attack, I used to lie thence-
forward quite a while before I could go to sleep, and woke two or
three times every night. These disturbances lasted about a week ; in
about the same time I succeeded in making them disappear by auto-
suggestion " (172).

u Trembling of the right hand had lasted about two months when
the patient thought of treating it by auto-suggestion. Was improved
after several attempts, then definitely cured in a period of time the
duration of which is not clearly marked" (189).

228 GENERAL.

" Very violent headache, only in temple and forehead, with throbs.
Cure very rapid by auto-suggestion " (190).

Severe itching in three middle fingers of right hand, lasting a
week, cured in four or five days by auto-suggestion (201).

"Being dyspeptic and having no appetite I give myself the sug-
gestion to be hungry. At the next meal I really eat with very good
appetite" (206).

A few of Dr. LeVy's cases are better than these, but the great ma-
jority are marked by the same disregard of essential details, and the
same reckless ascription of the result to the suggestion, when it might
obviously have been due to some totally different cause, which makes
these cases worthless.

WM. ROMAINE NEWBOLD.

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.

ISAbsolu et sa lot constitutive. CYRILLE BLONDEAU. Paris, Alcan.

1897. Pp. xxv -f 350.

The ' Absolute ' is the immutable universe in which things and
thoughts are alike confounded. * The higher law from which results
nature or life ' is formulated as follows : " The mutual relation of the
elements which constitute a body is in inverse ratio to the relation of
these elements to the environment which contains the body" (p. 344).
This is put forth, in all seriousness, as a revelation of the world's ' most
secret resources/

The only thing in the book of any special interest to the psy-
chologist is the author's conception of the relation of physiological
process to the facts of consciousness. He speaks of this as a discov-
ery of 'the passage from physiology to psychology' and regards it
as an achievement of cardinal importance in his discussion (p. xxi),
enabling the intelligence ' to radiate freely in the world without finding
any further obstacle to its infinite expansion' (p. 114). What then is
the fulfilment of this profession? First, a reassertion of a solution of
continuity between physiology and psychology; secondly, the assertion
of a similar abyss between consciousness made up of sensations and
images and the pure reflecting activity of the mind ; thirdly, as ex-
planatory theory, the assertion of relatively free forces at different
levels in the nervous system by virtue of which sensations are, on the
one hand, perceived and, on the other, reflected on. " The sensations
and images are perceived by the free force most directly related to the
force subject to the external and internal action; the parts more in-
directly related to the sense organs are now, in virtue of their saturation

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 229

and the law of equilibrium, able to exercise themselves on those which
furnish the sensations and images" (p. 129). " Thus the inner world
is broken up into two parts : one belongs provisionally to the thing
whence the action emanates, the other remains outside, and it is solely
by this part of the inner force not absorbed, free, therefore, relatively
to that particular connection, that it is permitted to perceive the sensa-
tion, which is thus, in principle, nothing but a relation of inner to
outer" (p. 132). As a purely physiological hypothesis much can be
said in favor of the conception of lower- and higher-level centers with
which related but relatively independent stores of disposable energy
are incorporated, corresponding respectively to lower and higher pro-
cesses of consciousness; but to see in such an hypothesis — which,
morever, is not new — * the passage from physiology to psychology '
requires surely more than ordinary clairvoyance.

The book abounds in apothegm and paradox (' consciousness con-
tradicts reason,' 4 the love of truth is not reasonable/ etc.), and is not
wholly free from contradiction ('one must be convinced of human
liberty relatively to the absolute/ p. 208 ; ' from the absolute point of
view there is no liberty,' p. 69; cf. p. 211, 4 conciousness is only free
relatively to things'). Its pretensions are preposterous (e. ^"., p.
xix), its style insipid, its construction loose, like the jottings of a
note-book. There is much by the way to stimulate reflection, but in
the end epigram on the absolute and its constitutive law through
nearly four hundred closely printed pages becomes not a little tedious.

H. N. GARDINER.
SMITH COLLEGE.

Ueber die Messung der Auffassungsfahigkeit. LUDWIG CRON und
EMIL KRAEPELIN. Separat Abdruck aus : Kraepelin, Psycholog.
Arbeiten. II. Bd. 2 Heft. Pp. 203-325. Leipzig, 1897.
This is an account of experiments conducted primarily to deter-
mine the influence which the peculiarities of the individual exert upon
the form of the apperceptive faculty and to discover the common fac-
tors involved in the act of apprehending. Subjects were kept at the
continuous apprehension of printed words and an attempt made to
estimate the precision and reliability of the performance. For this
purpose the region of the threshold was used, i. e., stimuli were pre-
sented to the eye only for so long a time that they could be perceived
in a number of cases but not always distinctly. The number of cor-
rectly read stimuli furnished a measure for the ability of apprehending,
while from the incorrect readings deductions could be made as to the

230 MEASURE OF THE ABILITY OF APPREHENDING.

action of error processes. The experiment consisted essentially of
three drums on which were pasted, in spiral form, (i) nonsense sylla-
bles, (2) one-syllable words, (3) two-syllable words. The drums re-
volved at a constant speed of 24 mm. per second, and were observed
through an opening or slit in a screen from a fixed distance. The
observation slit, 5 mm. in height, was regulated in width by means of a
micrometer screw, so that the time during which the stimulus was vis-
ible could be varied. Three different widths were used, 5, 4 and 3
mm. By means of a contact arrangement, which noted the entrance
of each letter into the field of vision and its disappearance, the dura-
tion of visibility could be exactly measured. Such measurements
gave for the three different slit widths, 290, 230 and 170 thousandths
of a second, respectively. Each subject endeavored to read aloud the
words as they passed the opening of the screen and the correct read-
ings, errors and omissions were noted down in shorthand by the ex-
perimenter. The same experiment was performed on three different
days. There were six subjects, three normal and three pathological
cases from a clinic.

The results show surprising differences in capacity to apprehend
the matter presented. Certain facts and principles, however, were
common to all.

Results of experiments with nonsense syllables show that the
greater part of the syllables were correctly read, the number decreas-
ing with the narrowing of the observation slit, yet more slowly than
the visibility. On shortening the time of exposure one-fifth, correct
readings showed only an insignificant decrease. In the normal sub-
jects at 4 mm. the limit was very nearly reached beyond which a wider
opening could effect little improvement. As the time of exposure
was shortened, omissions became -decidedly more numerous, while
errors showed only a moderate increase, omissions being evidently the
measure of the difficulty of apprehension. Errors in which only one
letter was misread predominated. The first letter was by far the most
frequently misread, the last next; the middle letter, least of all, indi-
cating that the attention was directed especially to the middle so that
the syllable was taken as a unity. The difference in apprehending
the first and the last letter is ascribed by the authors to incomplete
cessation of attention. The single syllables here follow one another
every i % sec., but 2 sec. is the most favorable space of time between
signal and stimulus for the complete cessation of attention. This
would hinder the apprehension of the first letter to a greater degree
than the last.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 231

One-syllable words. Results show a greater facility in apprehend-
ing than for nonsense syllables, notwithstanding the greater number
of letters to a word. The word-idea present in the process of appre-
hension is assigned as the cause. The number of correct readings
•sank 10% with the narrowing of the observation opening from 5 mm.
to 3 mm., a smaller diminution than resulted in the case of nonsense
syllable under like conditions. Single-letter errors are most numerous,
two-letter errors only slightly less. The initial letter is almost always
relatively well recognized here because a capital and so attracting the
attention. The second letter is generally indistinctly apprehended,
the third favored, the -fourth neglected, indicating a two-fold rhythm of
apprehension. The number of nonsense misreadings out of the total
misreadings varies in the different subjects from 6% to 31%. From
the number of nonsense misreadings deductions are made as to the
influence of word-ideas. Such influence is maintained to be greater
the smaller the number of nonsense misreadings. Two classes of
misreadings are made, namely, those which occur in the same word
again, and those which are repeated in different words. In the former
an error once committed becomes fixed, while in the latter an idea has
acquired such power that it moves the thoughts in a certain direction.
This is indicated by such errors as Heft for Kost, Heil and Geist ;
Stadt for Sold, Stoltz, Druck, Stift, Saar, Staub, Wohl and Stern,
where little connection is apparent between stimulus and error, but
evidently an impulse present to express an idea whose content is from
another source.

Two-syllable words. In apprehending two-syllable words two
subjects showed a better record than in the two previous experiments ;
in others, however, there was a falling-off showing itself in the num-
ber of omissions, the number of errors remaining about the same.
According to the view previously noted this would indicate greater diffi-
culty in recognizing words with less liability to error. The appre-
hension here, unlike that of shorter words, takes place by spelling,
giving little opportunity for conjecture and influence of ideas, hence
greater accuracy. The initial letter is again distinctly favored. The
rhythm of apprehension which was earlier expressed only in two sub-
jects appeared very distinctly in others. One subject appeared to
recognize best the first and fifth letters, indicating a grouping of greater
extensity. The same misreadings were not so frequently repeated in
different words as in the case of one-syllable words.

As a rule the number of correct readings increased from day to
day. The improvement from the first to the second day is much more

232 MIND AND BODY.

pronounced than for the second to the third day. This the authors
attribute to the influence of habit rather than to facility gained by
practice, for the former exerted in the control of disturbing processes
reaches its height under such conditions quicker than the latter. Prac-
tice quite generally in the experiments shortens the time of perception
and, according as the inclination is to misreadings or omission, causes
a decrease of the former or latter. Fatigue, which appears to stand in
close relation to practice, develops the opposite effects, yet, on account
of the changing conditions of work and the short time of the experi-
ment, its effect was limited.

From the results obtained conclusions are drawn as to the differ-
ent influences which determine the formation of the process of appre-
hension. Such influences are: (i) quickness of perception, which
determines the distinctness of the impressions; (2) articulation of ap-
prehension, which determines the clearness of the constituent parts of
the impression ; (3) sensuous precision of perception and influence of
ideas, which affect the reliableness of apprehension ; (4) the more or less
striving or effort to make the best possible record, which leads to the
suppression of readings felt to be erroneous ; (5 ) practice and fatigue ;
(6) memory, noticeable in the frequent return of the same misreading
in the same word.

The combined effect of these conditions occurring with different
strength in the individual observers determines the aptness of appre-
hension. In closing, a characterization of the different subjects is
made on the basis of the proportion and combination of those influ-
ences appearing in the investigation. ~

_L<. \-s • JONKS.

YALE UNIVERSITY.

Aussenwelt und Innenwelt, Leib und Seele. JOHANNES REHMKE.
Rektorats rede Univ., Greifswald. Greifswald, 1898. Pp. 48.
Zur Par allelismusf rage. G. HEYMANS. Zeitschrift fur Psychol-
ogic, Bd. XVII., Heft, I.-IL, S. 62.

Die erkenntnisstheoretische Stellung des Psychologen. RUD.
WEINMANN. Zeitschrift fiir Psychologic, Bd. XVII. , Heft 3,
4, S. 215.

Professor Rehmke has given us, in his inaugural address of last
spring, what is designed as an exhaustive statement of the possibilities
of general theory touching the relation of mind and body, and a de-
cision on logical grounds in favor of interaction. In a preliminary
historical sketch his aim is to show in their simplicity the logical mo-
tives that have forced the development of theory. In his direct treat-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 233

ment of the problem the distinction between the thing or (more gen-
erally) the existence, and its properties, furnishes the basis. Ancient
materialism regarded the mind as a thing, modern materialism as the
property or peculiarity of a thing — the body or brain. The Platonic
teaching and the author regard it not as a thing but as a separate
immaterial existence. Solipsism regards the body as a property or
peculiarity of the mind. Spinozism (a name that Dr. Rehmke gives
to modern parallelism in general) accounts mind and body as equally
properties or peculiarities of a substance which manifests itself in
them. Experience tells us that mind and body are connected. Ex-
perience tells us also that the connection of ' things' is causal. If
mind and body are both * things,' they interact. But the mind is not a
thing ; the grounds need not be here repeated. In that case, it is held,
it cannot be a party to interaction, for only natures alike in kind can
interact. How then shall we understand the evident connection?
Shall we say with modern materialism that the body (or brain) is the
thing and the mind the property ? But in no case, as here, can a thing
be to all appearance fully conceived without its property, and its prop-
erty without the thing, and against this as against the view that the
body is a mere property of the mind the testimony of experience to
the distinctness of mind and body in our world of reality is final. Are
the two connected then as properties of a third somewhat ? The Spin-
ozistic doctrine merely repeats the fallacy of Occasionalism ; it resorts
to an alien substance to do what it has pronounced impossible. Ex-
perience does not show us a quality changing punctually of itself
whenever another quality of the same existence changes. The con-
nection of quality with quality must then on this view be causal. But
two qualities of the same existence do not stand in causal relation to
each other, nor an existence in causal relation to its qualities. We
must recognize the following pair of first principles : (i) Only a sep-
arate existence suffers change ; qualities cannot suffer it. (2) An ex-
istence suffers change only when there is another existence involved
as the active condition of the change. (Reference to author's Lehr-
buch d. Psych., S. 41-45, andZeits.f. imm.Phil., Bd. II., S. 349 ff.).
Mind and body are accordingly separate existences interacting. The
rule that all interacting existences must be alike in kind is a hasty gen-
eralization from the fact that interacting things are alike in kind. But
is not the quantity of motion (Dr. Rehmke rejects the term 4 energy'
as vague) unalterable ? How then can non-physical things produce
it? The answer is that the law, which is universal, applies only
where thing moves thing, not where a non-physical existence causes a

234 MIND AND BODY.

thing to gain or lose motion. How far, if at all, the brain loses mo-
tion when the mind is affected, and the mind parts with power (in
any sense) when the brain is affected, we are not yet in a position to
determine.

Dr. Rehmke's subtle and dexterous treatment of this much agi-
tated question may be described as scholastic, if relentless logical an-
alysis entirely without psychological analysis of the terms is the
typical scholastic tendency. The argument seems to depend wholly
on the finality and exhaustiveness of the distinction, as applied for
instance to the mind, between a 4 separate existence' and its t properties.'
It is curious to see so assured an idealist as Dr. Rehmke so confident
of this. His remarks on parallelism, in part fruitfully suggestive, are
vitiated by his confounding the modern theory in all its forms with
Spinozism. Were Clifford and Fechner (themselves far enough
apart) believers in a * substance ' of which mind and body were the
4 properties ' ? Moreover, when the author speaks of the hypothesis
that when a pin produces a wound, and through it a cerebral discharge,
the pin's psychic counterpart produces the psychic counterpart of the
bodily disturbances and then the pain accompanying the cerebral dis-
charge, as a fancy too mystical to be entertained by the modern paral-
lelist, he is tossing aside what many regard as of the essence of their
principle. To substitute < the conservation of motion ' for that of en-
ergy, as though the former would be acknowledged tantamount to the
latter, or more generally regarded as true, is a serious error. It should
be remarked, too, that an author who uses the term ; the solipsists ' to
designate one of the schools of philosophical opinion should inform
us who these thinkers may be and where they are to be found.

The best comment on the artificial method of Dr. Rehmke's essay
is furnished by the second on our list ; the article of a fellow-idealist
defending 4 monastic ' parallelism from the attacks of Professor Stumpf
and more recent writers. Dr. Heymans calls attention to many mis-
understandings of the theory, rejects Spinoza's substance, and in a
lengthened exposition explains that it is only from the convenient
point of view of the human mind, which makes an independent endur-
ing world of its own perceptions, instead of conceiving the world in
the true terms of outer mind-stuff, and so doubles the facts, that there
is any parallelism at all. The remainder of his article consists of
acute replies to the recent assailants of the theory. The objections
to it on the score of evidence he does not fully face. This essay is the
most closely and carefully reasoned of the three before us.

The article on the epistemological position of the psychologist is

NEW BOOKS. 235

a vigorous defence of realism by psychological arguments. The author
advances to battle with a light heart, and lays about him with boyish
confidence against the whole host of contemporary German phenom-
enists, Schuppe, Schubert- Soldern, Kaufmann, Mach, Rehmke, Le-
clair, Laas, Cornelius, Avenarius ; that is to say, the school of i im-
manente Philosophic,' the strict sect of Avenarius, and certain detached
kinsfolk of these. " The psychological compulsion which drives us to
apprehend that which we are conscious of, which we experience, as
objective, is no mere jest which our Psyche perpetrates, but an in-
stinctive indication of the view to which the purely philosophical and
logical consideration of the matter of experience by rightful conse-
quence leads." Various departments of psychology are drawn upon
to show the underlying realistic assumption of the science. Much is
made of the argument that idealism does away with the distinction be
tween psychology and other sciences. It can hardly be said that the
article exhibits a delicate sense of the besetting difficulties of the
long-vexed problem or a complete grasp of the opinions it condemns.
It is a philosophical instance of the illusion of simplicity.

D. A. MILLER.
PHILADELPHIA.

NEW BOOKS.

Social Elements. C.R.HENDERSON. New York, Scribners. 1898.
Pp. ix -f 405.

Le Role Social de la Femme. Mme. A. LAMPERIERE. Paris,

Alcan. 1898. Pp. 175. Fr. 2.75.
La Psicologia contemporanea. GUIDO VILLA. Bibliot. di Scienze

Moderne. Turin, Bocca. 1899. Pp. 660. Lire 14.
Report of U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1896-7. W. F.

HARRIS, Vol. 2. Washington, Govt. Press. 1898. Pp. vii and

"37-239°-
L* Instabitite mentale. G. L. DUPRAT. Paris, Alcan. 1898. Pp.

310.
Wild Animals I have Known. E. S. THOMPSON. New York,

Scribners. 1898. Pp. 358. $2.50.

A delightful series of chapters on animal genius-heroes. Mr.
Thompson ought to tell us more explicitly, however, just what inci-
dents the psychologist may quote on his authority as a naturalist !

J. M. B.

236 NEW BOOKS.

Democracy. A Study of Government. J. H. HYSLOP. New

York, Scribners. 1899. ^P' x*v + 3°°*
The First Philosophers of Greece. A. FAIRBANKS. New York,

Scribners. 1898. Pp. vii -f- 300. $2.00.

Footnotes to Evolution. D. S. JORDAN and others. New York,
Appletons. 1898. Pp. viii + 392.

Leibnitz, The Monadology and other Philosophical Writings. R.
LATTA. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1898. Pp. 437.

Principles of Biology. HERBERT SPENCER. Revised and enlarged
edition. Vol.1. New York, Appletons. 1898. Pp. xii -f- 706.

Die Spiele der Menschen. KARL GROOS. Jena, Fischer. 1899.
Pp. viii -f 538.

Christian Science. A Sociological Study. C. A. L. REID. Cin-
cinnati, McClelland. 1898. Pp. 32.

A spirited negative examination of Christian Science by a physi-
cian. His paper is printed by request of the Northwestern Ohio

Medical Association, before which it was read.

Double Personality. J^enten Hysteria. W. L. HOWARD. Two
papers reprinted from the Maryland Medical Journal. Pp. 4 and

4-
Intensitatsschwankungen eben mekliche optischer und akustischer

Eindriicke. W. H. HEINRICH. Se;. Abd. aus Anz. d. Akac. d.

Wiss. in Krakau. Nov., 1898. Pp. 365-381.
The Scottish Contribution to Moral Philosophy. J. SETH. Inaug.

Lect. Univ. of Edinburgh. Edinburgh and London, Blackwood.

1898. Pp. 43. 6d.

Ueber unsere gegeniuartige Kenntnissvom Ur sprung des Menschen.
By E. HAECKEL. Bonn, Strauss. 1898.

Ueber die Grundvoraussetzungen der individualist is chen Weltan-
schauung. By W. LUTOSLAWSKI. Helsingfors, J. Simelii Erben.
1898. Pp. 88.

The Message of the World's Religions. Reprinted from The Out-
look. New York, Longmans. 1898. Pp. 125.
A series of chapters giving the point of view of each of the great
religions, i. e., Judaism (Rabbi Gottheil), Buddhism (Ruys Davids),
Confucianism (A. H. Smith), Mohammedanism (G. Washburn),
Brahmanism (Professor Lanman), Christianity (Lyman Abbott). A
remarkably interesting little book. J. M. B.

CORRESPONDENCE AND NOTES. 237

The Beginnings of Art. E. GROSSE. New York, Appletons.

1897. Pp. xiv+327.

The German edition of this already well-known book was noticed
at length in this REVIEW (III., 1896, p. 560). We need, therefore,
only repeat our commendation of it, and strongly recommend the Eng-
lish version to psychologists. J. M. B.

CORRESPONDENCE AND NOTES.

PROPOSED CHANGES IN THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION.

At the recent meeting of the Association in New York, certain
members proposed the formation of a separate section to be devoted
to the reading and discussion of philosophical papers. On account of
the small number present when the matter was brought up, decision
was postponed until the next meeting, and the Secretary was requested
to send out cards to all members asking for a general expression of
opinion on the point.

Certainly, every member should have an opportunity to be heard
with reference to a proposition which logically involves changes in the
name and constitution of the Association, but a vote taken without
discussion will fail to express the thoughtful wishes of the members.
I venture to suggest that questions of sufficient importance to be re-
ferred to a vote of the whole Association ought to receive some atten-
tion in the pages of the REVIEW, and beg leave to restate some of the
reasons why, in the interests of philosophy, as well as psychology, the
proposed action seems unwise at the present time. Most of these
reasons were mentioned in the discussion at the meeting.

First, judging from the experience of the programme committee,
it would be difficult to arrange a programme for such a section without
interfering with the regular meetings.

Second, our best psychologists are among our best philosophers,
and their withdrawal from even a part of the meetings of the Asso-
ciation would be a serious loss. At the same time the greatest need
of psychology at present is more of sound philosophy, and the great-
est need of philosophy more of sound psychology. Closer union is
more to be desired than further separation.

Third, philosophical papers are already welcome whenever they
offer contributions to psychology or show the bearing of psychology

238 CORRESPONDENCE AND NOTES.

on problems of philosophy. This offers a wide range of subjects
for those who are interested in any branch of philosophy, and such
papers always form a part of our programme. So far as possible,
they are grouped together in the same sessions.

Fourth, when it comes to the making of interesting programmes,
philosophical subjects are by no means equal to scientific subjects.
As a rule the papers are too long. Scientific theories and results can
be stated briefly, but it takes time to set forth philosophical opinions.
Such are not suitable subjects for general discussion, and discussion
ought to be the most important feature of these meetings. There is
no object in coming together to listen to papers which can be read at
home. As a matter of fact, at our own meetings philosophical papers
never called forth as much interest as the scientific, while attempts
in other places to hold meetings for the exclusive discussion of prob-
lems in philosophy have repeatedly ended in failure.

Finally, the Association is now making splendid progress and is
becoming a source of inspiration to workers in the field of psychology.
At the same time it is doing a real and lasting service for philosophy
in furthering the development of scientific spirit and methods in the
realm of mental phenomena. Nevertheless much remains to be done
before psychology comes into right relations with the rest of the sci-
ences. There is need of all the wisdom and energy available to im-
prove the character of our scientific work, and it is extremely impor-
tant that no step be taken which will weaken the Association.

CHARLES B. BLISS.

(THE REVIEW is ready to print other concise opinions on this or
other matters pertaining to the Association. J. M. B.)

MRS. LAURENCE HUTTON, whose interest in Miss Helen Keller is
well known, allows us to print the following passage from a personal
letter from Miss Keller to her, written under date of January 17, 1899.
Psychologists will be interested in the passage, both because it is Miss
Keller's and also because of the sentiment which her project embodies :
" Have you seen Kipling's * Dreaming True,' or 4 Kitchener's
School'? It is a very strong poem, and has set me to dreaming too.
Of course you have read about the ' Gordon Memorial College,' which
the English people are to erect at Khartoum. While I was thinking
over the blessings that would come to the people of Egypt through
this college, and eventually to England herself, there came into my
heart the strong desire that my own dear country should in a similar
way convert the terrible loss of her brave sons on the 4 Maine' into a

CORRESPONDENCE AND NOTES. 239

like blessing to the people of Cuba. Would a college at Havana not
be the noblest and most enduring monument that could be raised to
the brave men of the ' Maine,' as well as a source of infinite good to
all concerned ? Imagine entering the Havana harbor, and having the
pier, where the 'Maine' was anchored on that dreadful night when she
was so mysteriously destroyed, pointed out to you, and being told that
the great, beautiful building overlooking the spot was the ' Maine
Memorial College,' erected by the American people, and having for
its object the education both of Cubans and Spaniards ! What a
glorious triumph such a monument would be of the best and highest
instincts of a Christian nation ! In it there would be no suggestion of
hatred or revenge, nor a trace of the old-time belief that might makes
right. On the other hand, it would be a pledge to the world that we
intend to stand by our declaration of war, and give Cuba to the
Cubans, as soon as we have fitted them to assume the duties and re-
sponsibilities of a self-governing people."

J. M. B.

G. A. TAWNEY, Ph.D., has been promoted from Assistant to full
Professor of Philosophy in Beloit College, Wis.

G. F. STOUT, editor of Mind, has been called from Aberdeen to
the new Wilde Lectureship in Mental Philosophy, at Oxford.

PROFESSOR JAMES WARD'S Gifford Lectures on c Naturalism and
Agnosticism ' are to be issued at once by the Macmillans. The same
publishers are also to print Professor Royce's Gifford Lectures.

WE have received the first number of the new series of V Inter-
mediere des Biologists, to the title of which the words et des Medi-
cins are added by the new editor, M. L. Hallion. It has several new
and interesting features. With it comes to hand also the first issue of
V Intermediere des Neurologistes et des Alienistes, edited by Dr.
Paul Sollier.

WE notice that Mr. Brooks Adams' Law of Civilization and De-
cay is to be issued in French translation by Alcan, Paris.

PROFESSOR MARTIUS, of Bonn, succeeds Professor Riehl at Kiel,
the latter going to Halle.

WE regret to record the death of Robert Zimmermann, the distin-
guished Herbartian writer on ^Esthetics and Philosophy.

PROFESSOR HAECKEL'S interesting address (listed above) on Der
Ursprung des Menschen has been brought out in book form by the
Macmillans under the title 4 The Last Link.'

240 CORRESPONDENCE AND NOTES.

M. SEAILLES has been appointed Professor of Philosophy in the
University of Paris.

THE Proceedings of the National Educational Association (Wash-
ington meeting, 1898) are of more than usual interest. Papers by
Royce, Krohn, Draper, Shaw, will interest psychologists, as will also
the transactions of the child-study section. Taken with Commissioner
Harris' admirable two-volume Report just published the educational
world has an abundance of good reading.

J. M. B.

DR. E. B. McGiLVARY, Assistant Professor of Logic and the Theory
of Knowledge in the University of California, has been appointed to
the Sage Professorship of Moral Philosophy in Cornell University, to
succeed Professor James Seth, now Professor of Moral Philosophy in
the University of Edinburgh. Professor McGilvary made his chief
philosophical studies at the University of California, and received
there his degree of Ph.D., having previously won his M.A. at Prince-
ton, and his A.B. at Davidson College, N. C. He will begin his
duties at Cornell with the opening of the autumn term of 1899.

THE Rivista Italiana of di filosofia so long and so successfully
edited by the lamented Professor Ferri, is to be continued under the
title Rivista filosofica. It will be directed by Professor C. Cantoni
of the University of Pavia.

VOL. VI. No. 3. MAY, 1899.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW.

A STUDY OF GEOMETRICAL ILLUSIONS.

BY PROFESSOR CHARLES H. JUDD.
New York University.

With the single exception of Brentano's * unsuccessful attempt
to explain the Miiller-Lyer illusion by the general fact that acute
angles are overestimated and obtuse angles are underestimated,
no one has essayed to establish any direct relation between the
illusions of linear distances and those in which there is false
judgment of the angles. The so-called angle illusions have
always been referred to the Poggendorff figure as the simplest
case of the illusion. Since 1861, when Hering2 first explained
the Poggendorff illusion as due to the false estimation of the
angles, there has been, in spite of disagreements as to the ulti-
mate explanation of the false estimation, a universal acceptance
of the statement that the angles are misjudged. It is the aim
of this paper to present certain facts that seem to show that the
false estimation of the angles in the Poggendorff figure is merely
a secondary effect, not always present, and in no case the source
of the illusion. The illusion is rather to be explained as due to
the wrong estimation of certain linear distances, and may be
reduced in the last analysis to the type of illusion found in the
Miiller-Lyer figure.

Before taking up the discussion of the Poggendorff illusion it
will be necessary to point out certain facts in regard to the Miiller-
Lyer figure. The overestimation and underestimation character-
istic of this figure are very much more comprehensive processes

'Zeitsch. fiir Psych, und Phys., III., 349.
2Beitrage zurPhys., p. 384.

242 CHAS. H. JUDD.

than they are ordinarily recognized to be. The attention of the
observer has always been concentrated on the lines included be-
tween the obliques. In developing his theory of boundaries Lipps1
evidently sees that the concentration of the whole attention on a
line within certain boundaries is a limitation which calls for some
justification. He raises the question : How does it come that a
line which bounds the figure within does not at the same time
act as the boundary of the space without? The very important
suggestion contained in this question is, however, entirely lost
in the easy assumption with which Lipps dismisses the difficulty
that he has raised. He assumes that when a line is in a posi-
tion such that it may be regarded as the seat of the two non-con-
tradictory functions which are relatively independent, one of
these functions will appear, while the other will be swallowed
up in the general perceptual process. Such a disposition of the
matter does not find any justification in the empirical facts.
Fig. i is made up of the two figures of the Miiller-Lyer illusion
so placed that the ends of the horizontal lines are equally distant
from the short vertical line placed between them. It is evident
that overestimation within the figure is accompanied by under-
estimation of the space outside of the figure, and, conversely,
underestimation within the figure is accompanied by overesti-
mation of the neighboring space. It may be objected that the
presence of the short vertical line between the extremities of the
horizontals gives us, in effect, two new Miiller-Lyer figures of
empty space in which the oblique lines will, of course, be directed
in exactly the opposite direction to that in which they extend
when regarded as parts of the original figures. The answer to
this objection is that if no vertical line is used, but the subject is
required to locate the point which is apparently half-way between
the extremities of the horizontal lines, he will make an error in-
dicating the presence of the illusion in its full intensity. This
will be made somewhat clearer by Fig. 2. In this figure the
obliques are drawn in such a way that with respect to the line
as a whole they produce no illusion. The partial effects of the
oblique lines are, however, by no means lost. If some neutral
point of reference is marked so that direct comparison is possible,
'Raumaesth. und geom. Taiischungen, III.

GEOMETRICAL ILLUSIONS.

243

244 CHAS. H. JUDD.

it can be seen that the partial effects are present in undiminished
intensity. Thus in the figure the horizontal line as a whole
suffers no illusion whatever. The middle point is marked, and
it appears at once that in one-half of the line there is under-
estimation and in the other half there is an equal degree of over-
estimation. Furthermore, the position of the figure as a whole
with respect to the short vertical lines, which are placed at equal
distances from the extremities of the horizontal line, indicates
that the influence of the oblique lines on the surrounding space
is undiminished.

Other similar facts are illustrated by Figs. 3 and 4. In
these figures the influences at the extremities of each of the
horizontals are alike in kind, but unequal in degree. The re-
sult is, again, a shifting of the middle point. The illusion an-
nounced by Professor Baldwin in 1895 l also belongs here.
The illusion is in brief as follows : If two figures of unequal
size, as two squares or two circles, are brought near to each
other in the field of vision, the point half-way between them
will be attracted towards the larger figure. The similarity be-
tween Fig. 3 and Professor Baldwin's circle figure is apparent
at once. But the illusion appears when squares are used in-
stead of circles. That even in this case the illusion belongs
under the principle here developed, rather than under any prin-
ciple of size-contrast, will be apparent from Fig. 5. Here the
large square contains the small one, and yet the illusion is in
kind and degree exactly like that described by Professor
Baldwin.

All of these facts go to show that the processes of underesti-
mation and overestimation within the figure are accompanied by
far-reaching effects outside of the figures. In fact, overestima-
tion and underestimation are wholly inadequate terms with
which to describe the processes taking place. To say that
points are shifted in their spatial relations with reference to all
the points in the field of vision would be much nearer to the
whole truth. Such shifting becomes apparent only when neu-
tral points of reference are present in the field of vision, or when
direct comparison with points which are shifted in the opposite

1 PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, II., 244.

GEOMETRICAL ILLUSIONS. 245

direction becomes possible. When referred to this general
principle it becomes evident that the phenomena of overestima-
tion and underestimation are only occasional manifestations,
under favorable conditions, of processes that are operative but
undetected in every field of vision. In most cases the ten-
dencies to false estimation of one sort or the other are lost in
the complexity of the conditions or through the absence of
points of comparison. One case in which such tendencies are
present but unobserved is of such importance for our later dis-
cussion that we may call attention to it at this time. If an
oblique line ends in a horizontal line which extends for an in-
definite distance on each side of the point of meeting there will
be no apparent illusion. If, however, the attempt is made to
mark off in the horizontal line equal distances on each side of
the point of intersection with the oblique line, it will be found
that distances on the acute-angle side are underestimated and
distances on the obtuse-angle side are overestimated. Or if the
point of intersection is taken as the point of greatest importance,
the illusion will take the form of the shifting of that point to-
wards the extremity of the horizontal line which is on the acute-
angle side.

Having thus generalized the concepts overestimation and un-
derestimation, we turn to a consideration of the Poggendorff
figure, and a criticism of the theory which regards it as the
simplest case of the angle illusions. First of all, we have to con-
sider certain negative evidences which show that the illusion is
not due to a false estimation of the angles. Such negative evi-
dence is at hand in the now generally known facts. The illu-
sion disappears when the figure is so placed that the intercepted
line is horizontal or vertical. If the illusion were due to wrong
estimation of the angles it is not easy to see how these particular
positions of the figure could operate to destroy the illusion. No
general statement to the effect that an acute angle, one of
the sides of which is vertical or horizontal, is not subject to
false estimation will explain away this difficulty for the angle
theory, for if the intercepting parallels, instead of the inter-
cepted line, are brought into the vertical or horizontal position,
the illusion appears in its full intensity. The negative evidence

246 CHAS. H. JUDD,

presented in these four positions of the figure is strengthened by
that given in Figs. 6, 7 and 8. In Fig. 6 the acute angles are
present, but the illusion does not appear in any position of the
figure. In Fig. 7 the parts of the intercepting parallels which
lie between the points of interception are present, and with these
the obtuse angles. The illusion is strengthened so much that it
cannot be made to disappear in any position of the figure. The
same is true of the case illustrated by Fig. 8, in which only a
small part of each of the intercepting parallels is present. With
regard to the angles, then, we must conclude that the acute
angles, instead of being essential to the illusion, seem rather to
weaken it, for the strongest form of the illusion appears when
these angles are omitted.

Further negative evidence appears in Figs. 9 and 10. In
Fig. 9 the upper and lower halves show the Poggendorff illusion
in opposite directions. If the angles were misjudged, the inter-
rupted lines should seem to diverge on the left and to converge on
,the right. As a matter of fact, it will be seen that all the oblique
lines .appear to be parallel with each other ; this statement apply-
ing, of course, to the two interrupted lines when compared
with each other. Furthermore, since the uninterrupted oblique
lines form the same acute and obtuse angles with the intercept-
ing parallels as do the intercepted lines, it is possible to make
a direct comparison between the angles under discussion in cases
in which the illusion is present and incases in which it is absent.
No inequality will be observable. On the other hand, it will
be noted that the apparent width of the spaces between the ob-
lique lines is not the same when the right and left sides of the
figure are compared. Thus, the interval between the upper
oblique and the interrupted line seems wider on the left than it
does on the right. The space below the intercepted line seems
broader on the right than on the left. The converse is true of
the spaces above and below the lower intercepted line.

Figure 10 will be recognized as a complex made up of 6
and 7. The line CD shows no illusion of the Poggendorff type.
The lines AB and EF show the typical illusion. At O and N the
intercepting parallels are somewhat extended, and it will be ob-
served that the acute angles thus formed, instead of seeming

GE OME TRICAL IL L US IONS.

247

248 CHAS. H. JUDD.

larger than the acute angles at 2 and 3, where no illusion ap-
pears, seem rather to be noticeably smaller.

In view of this negative evidence it seems clear that the false
estimation of the angles cannot be regarded as the explanation
of the Poggendorff illusion. The real causes of the illusion are
to be looked for in some other direction. We turn for our in-
vestigation of the figure to one of the positions in which the
illusion disappears. Such a position is that in which the inter-
ceptedjjline is horizontal. If the apparent length of the interval
between the points of interception is compared with an equal
interval marked off by intercepting parallels which are perpen-
dicular to the intercepted line, it will be observed, as seen in Fig.
n, that the interval in the Poggendorff figure is underesti-
mated. This underestimation was subjected to quantitative
determination. The method employed in these investigations
was the same as that used by Heymans.1 Cards were arranged
so as to present a pair of parallels perpendicular to the horizon-
tal line which they intercepted. The distance between these par-
allels, or the standard distance, was 50 mm. At the right of the
parallels just described was a second pair of parallels also inter-
cepting the horizontal line, but sloping obliquely from the upper
right to the lower left, forming an angle of 45° with the hori-
zontal line. The extreme right part of the figure, including the
right oblique line and the part of the horizontal lying to the right
of it, was made movable, so that the subject could easily adjust
the distance between the points at which the oblique lines inter-
cepted the horizontal. The errors for three subjects are given
in Table I.

TABLE I.

SUBJ.

No. OF DETER.

AVG. ERROR.

M. V.

i

10

6

6.7 mm.
14-5

i.i
i-3

c.

3

6-3

i.i

The next step in the investigation was to break the figure
up into its elements, with a view to discovering the importance
of the different parts of the oblique parallels for the illusion.

1 Zeitsch.fur Psych, und P/iys., IX., 221.

GE OME TRIG A L 1L L US I ON S.

249

B

25°

CHAS. H JUDD.

These oblique parallels were divided into four parts. The part
of the left line above the horizontal was designated a ; the
part of the right oblique line above the horizontal was called b ;
in like manner the lower left line is c, the lower right line d.
Cards were prepared which made possible all the different
combinations of these lines, and measurements similar to those
reported in Table I. were made with each combination. The
standard distance was again 50 mm. ; the angle of obliquity was
as before 45°. The average errors are given in mm.

TABLE II.

SUB. J.

SUB. E.

SUB. C.

ORDER OF GREAT-
EST ILLUSION.

No. OF DETERM.
IN EACH CASE.

10

6

3

SUB. J

SUB.E

SUB.C

LINES PRESENT.

Avg.

M.V.

Avg.

M.V.

Avg.

M.V.

a

M

0.9

ii. 8

0.6

7-7

0.9

ac

ad

cd

ab

8.8

I.O

13.0

o-5

5-3

i.i

d

abd

abd

ac

9-9

0.9

ii. 8

1.2

S-3

3-1

ad

abed

abc

ad

8.9

I.O

17-5

1.2

8.7

i.i

ab

acd

ad

abc

2.4

0.4

13-3

I>3

9.0

0.6

abd

abc

d

abd

8.2

I.O

16.1

0.9

n.6

i.i

a

ab

a

acd

7.2

0.7

13.3

I.O

7.6

0.5

acd

a

acd

abed

6.7

I.I

14-5

1.3

6-3

i. E

abed

ac

abed

b

3-6

0.8

5-7

0.4

2.O

0.6

bd

bed

bed

be

I.O

0.6

4-7

0.8

I.O

0.6

none

d

ab

bd

6.0

1.4

7-4

0.7

2.0

o.o

bed

cd

ac

bed

4.1

0.7

ii. i

0-5

6-3

I.I

b

bd

b

c

2.9

0.7

5-3

0.7

I.O

0.6

abc

none

bd

cd

2.9

0-5

8-5

0.7

12. 0

0.0

c

b

c

d

9-7

8.7

o.S

8.0

0.6

cd

c

be

none

5-7

0.6

6.8

0.8

0.3

0.9

be

be

none

There are very noticeable personal differences in these re-
sults, but the general tendencies are common. The lines a
and d are favorable to the illusion ; the lines b and c are un-
favorable. The figure resulting from the combination of the
favorable lines is identical with the Miiller-Lyer figure for
underestimation ; that resulting from the combination of the lines
unfavorable to the illusion is identical with the Miiller-Lyer
figure for overestimation. Even under the last-named condi-
tions, however, there is a slight underestimation as compared
with the standard made use of in this case. This renders it
necessary for us to examine at the outset of our discussion the

GEOMETRICAL ILLUSIONS.

251

process by which the distance adopted as a standard in this
case is estimated.

Fig. 12 makes it possible to compare the standard dis-
tance between the parallels with three other equal distances. The
distance between the free ends of the interrupted horizontal
(case A) is usually judged as shorter than the distance between
the parallels. That this statement cannot be put in a universal
form will appear when the results of the subject C, in Table II. ,
are examined. The illusion in its general form has been ob-
served by a large number of individuals who were not subjected
to any quantitative tests. We are accordingly justified in re-
garding C as exceptional in this particular. This conclusion
is confirmed by the fact that his judgment in case B is also ex-
ceptional. Most observers see a short unbroken horizontal
line as equal to the standard distance. The subject C, on the
other hand, sees the horizontal line as longer than the standard.
Finally, when the interval between the parallels is compared to
the interval between two dots (case C), the latter is usually seen
as longer. The judgments in this case are, however, so ir-
regular that quantitative determinations are of little value. Cer-
tain quantitative results which throw light on some of these
cases are to be found in Tables III. and IV. In Table III. the re-
sults are given from comparison of the interval between the free
ends of the interrupted horizontal and the interval between the
parallels. The method is the same as before. The standard,
that is, the distance between the parallels, was varied from 2.5
to 150 mm. Ten determinations were made in each case for J,
five in each case for E.

TABLE III.

DISTANCE.

2-5

5-o

IO.O

20.

50.

80.

TOO

'50

Subj. J.

Subj. E.

" "

Avg.
M. V.
Avg.
M. V.

1.4

0.2

1-3

O-2

1.9

0.2
2-5
0.0

3-3
0.4

3-3

0.2

3-8
0.4
3-2
0.6

57
0.6
fi.8
0.8

8.2

1-4

9-9
i-5

3-6

1.2

S.8

2-5

—1.4

i-7

~°84

Table IV. presents the results of a comparison by C of the
distances marked off by a number of unbroken horizontal lines
and the interval between the free ends of an interrupted hori-

252

CHAS. //. JUDD.

zontal. The standard line in each case was the unbroken hori-
zontal, the number of determinations five.

TABLE IV— SUBJECT C.

DISTANCE.

5-o

IO.

25-

50

70

IOO

Avg.
M. V.

2.0
0.0

5-8
o-3

6.0

1.2

10.2

0.6

II. 2
1.4

14.0

1.6

It will be noted that Tables III. and IV. are directly com-
parable. For J and E the interval between parallels is judged
as equal to the horizontal line which is used as the standard in
Table IV. The same general result is to be found in both
tables. The illusion is greatest for short distances.

In connection with these facts attention is to be called to
those cases in Table II. in which the free end of the horizontal
is left after the withdrawal of both parts of the oblique. Take,
for example, the case in which d alone is present. It will be
seen that for J and C the illusion is about as strong as it is when
d is combined with the most favorable line, namely, the line a.
Again, in such cases as a, ac, and even bd, there are indications
that the free end of the horizontal is favorable to the illusion.

If we attempt to find an explanation of the illusion which
appears when the break in a horizontal line is compared with
the interval between two parallels, or with the unbroken hori-
zontal line, it is evident that we cannot appeal to the principle
that filled space is% overestimated when compared with empty
space. The two intervals stand on a par with respect to their
content. Then, again, when these intervals are compared with
an interval bounded by dots, it will be seen that this last example
of empty space is subject to overestimation rather than under-
estimation. The theory of Lipps, which attributes such illusions
to the bounding activity of the various lines and points, on the
general principle that the greater the bounding activity of the
terminal lines or points the more the bounded interval is under-
estimated, does not seem adequate to explain these facts.
Thus, it is difficult to see how the parallel lines can be regarded
as less intense boundaries than the free ends of the interrupted
horizontals. Again, in his explanation of the Miiller-Lyer

GEOMETRICAL ILLUSIONS. 253

figure, Lipps assumes that the oblique lines which slope out-
ward have a bounding activity which is negative. This can-
not hold when applied to case be in Table II. To be sure, some
of these difficulties could be avoided if the bounding activities
were regarded as applying to the intercepted lines rather than
to the intervals. But .this brings us back to the position taken
early in this paper, namely, the position that the points at the
end of a line have spatial relations in all directions, and any
modification of the relations in one direction involved at the
same time the opposite modification in the opposite direction.
Such shifting of points cannot be explained by the bounding
activity of lines or points, for it is the boundaries themselves
that are shifted in their spatial relations.

The movement hypothesis, on the othei hand, seems to meet
the demands of all the different cases. The more intense the
sensation of movement, the greater will be the estimation of the
distance ; conversely, the less the intensity of the sensations of
movement, the shorter the estimated distance. If from a given
point the tendencies of movement are outward, then the move-
ment outward will be, if it is executed, somewhat easier. In
any case the tendency will result in an active tension of the mus-
cles which favor outward movement of the eyes. The space
lying in that direction will be underestimated, while space in the
opposite direction will be overestimated. The point from which
these tendencies emanate will, accordingly, be shifted outward.
If, on the other hand, the tendencies from a given point are in-
ward, the point will be shifted inward. Influences of one kind
and another may be combined in great variety of quality and
intensity. The final apparent position of a point will be de-
termined by all of these influences operating together. The
question now arises : What are some of the influences which
give rise to tendencies of movement? The most important fact
in this connection is that the eye tends to follow lines rather
than to direct its own course through space. When lines are
present in the field of vision they tend to attract and direct the
eye in its movements or in its tendencies of movement. But
every line has two directions, and, therefore, it cannot in itself
determine the particular direction in which the eye is to move or

254 CHAS. H. JUDD.

to tend to move in any particular case. There enters at this
point of our discussion a very important and very ambiguous
factor. We may designate it by the convenient term, the direc-
tion of attention. By this we mean to indicate that the particular
direction of movement in any given case depends on the relation
of that part of the field of space which is subjectively the most
important to all other parts. Thus, in the cases reported in
Table II. the important distances were the breaks in the hori-
zontal lines. The tendencies of movement originating in all of
the lines will have their direction determined by their relations
to these two intervals. If we attempt now to discover which
lines are favorable to movement across these intervals and which
are unfavorable we shall find full agreement between our re-
sults as recorded in the tables and principles just developed.

In Table II. it will be seen that all those combinations of
lines which render movement across the open interval easy, as,
for example, a, ad, acd, deb, and others, are favorable to the
illusion. The fact that cb is not a case of overestimation rather
than underestimation can be explained by a consideration of all
the facts reported in Tables III. and IV., together with some of
the subjective observations made during those tests. A char-
acteristic observation was made by C while comparing the hori-
zontal lines with the interval between the free ends of an inter-
rupted horizontal (Table IV.). The ends of the lines and of
the interval seemed more or less uncertain. The ends of the line
seemed to run out into the surrounding space, thus making the
line seem longer; the ends of the lines bounding the interval,
on the other hand, seemed to close in on the interval, making it
seem smaller. In both these cases there is evidently a strong
tendency for the movement which has originated in the line to
extend itself beyond the end of the line. This holds for those
cases reported in Table II., in which the free end of the hori-
zontal is favorable to the illusion. To return now to the case
be. While these lines alone would result in overestimation of
the interval as in the normal Miiller-Lyer figure, their influence
is counteracted by the tendencies produced in the horizontal lines.

The principles may also be applied to the estimation of the
interval between the dots as compared with the interval between

GE OME TRICAL ILL US IONS.

255

jr

2^6

CHAS. H. JUDD.

M A

GEOMETRICAL ILLUSIONS. 257

the parallels. The dots give rise to no tendencies of movement
across the interval. For most observers the perpendiculars
counteract the tendencies toward underestimation which origi-
nate in the horizontal lines. The influence of these horizontals
is not entirely overcome. In the case of the subject C it seems
to persist in its full intensity. In fact, his description of his
method of estimation would seem to justify the special explana-
tion that he neglects the parallels almost entirely.

The measurements and explanations thus far presented apply
only to the exceptional positions of the Poggendorff figure ; to
those, namely, in which the typical illusion disappears. That
the underestimation of the interval between the points of inter-
ception is present, though in a smaller degree, in other positions
of the figure, can be seen by comparing those cases in which
the illusion appears with those in which it does not appear, as
given in Figs. 6, 7, 8 and 10. But this fact does not suffice to
explain the appearance of the illusion in certain positions and
its disappearance in others. There is another fact of false
judgment to which attention was called in the discussion of
Fig. 9. The distances along the parallels (in the case of Fig. 9
the vertical distances) are also misjudged. For the explanation
of this misjudgment we have only to refer back to our earlier
discussions. When horizontal or vertical distances along the
parallel lines are the subjects of attention, as they are in the
usual positions of the Poggendorff figure, those portions of the
parallels lying on the obtuse-angle side of the intercepted line
will be overestimated. The overestimation of this distance along
the parallels with the underestimation of the oblique distance
across the interval gives us a full explanation of the illusion.
At the same time we have in the appearance and disappearance
of the typical Poggendorff illusion in different positions of the
figure an illustration of the fact that lines produce illusions only
when they have some direct influence on the particular direc-
tion to which the attention is turned. When the Poggendorff
figure is in such a position that the intercepted line is horizontal,
the false estimation of distances along the parallels has no direct
bearing on the distance to which the attention is directed. The
whole influence of the parallels is there absorbed in aiding the

258 CHAS. H. JUDD.

intercepted horizontal line in carrying the eye across the in-
terval. When, on the other hand, the length of the parallel
becomes itself a matter of judgment, as it does when the paral-
lels, instead of the interrupted line, are vertical or horizontal,
then the whole combination of conditions changes. The influ-
ence of the intercepted line is such that distances along the
parallels are overestimated on the obtuse-angle side of the point
of interception. The parallels no longer bridge over the inter-
val so fully, and the underestimation is, therefore, much less
marked.

In view of all these considerations, both negative and posi-
tive, we conclude that the Poggendorff illusion is not due to the
false estimation of angles. The question now presents itself:
Can the Poggendorff illusion under any conditions give rise to
a false estimation of angles? Fig. 13 furnishes empirical evi-
dence which goes to show that it can. The intercepted line in
this figure does not seem parallel to the other oblique lines, but
slopes in such a way that it seems to meet the lower line at the
left and the upper on the right. This leads to a discussion of
the general question : How do we in any case judge the size of
angles ?

The discussions of the estimations of angles have always
confined their attention to the simplest case of such judgments,
namely, those in which the vertex is expressed in the figure.
Such a limitation of the discussion is obviously unwarranted and
has led to theories of angles that are correspondingly short-
sighted. Angles may appear, and often do appear, in concrete
experiences between lines and surfaces not in direct contact.
How is it possible for us to estimate these angles? Fig. 14 pre-
sents a number of cases in which lines were so drawn that each
pair subtends exactly the same angle. All the lines marked A
are parallel and all the lines marked B are parallel. The dif-
ference in apparent size of the angles is noticeable at once.

By means of these figures let us test Wundfs hypothesis,
which is that small angles require relatively greater energy for
the eye to move through them on the general principle of
physical and physiological inertia. This greater energy of
movement is interpreted as due to greater surface between the

GEOMETRICAL ILLUSIONS. 259

sides. Compare now the two Angles IV. and VI. at the bottom
of the figure. The left-hand figure shows ah angle to which
Wundt's theory should apply most admirably and we should
have overestimation. On the other hand, the lower right
figure should be beyond the range of application of Wundt's
theory and we should have underestimation. The appearance
is, of course, directly opposed to the theory in both c^ses.

Or take the Helmholtz theory of contrast in direction of
movement, it is difficult to see how the' greater and weaker
effects of contrast could explain the differences in the estima-
tions of the angles in Fig. 14 for which the vertices are not
expressed. Yet there is a very notable difference in the judged
sizes of these angles. The general criticism of perspective
theories seems to the present writer to have been so fully
carried out by Wundt that there is no call at this time for a
repetition. The angles in Fig. 14, it may be noted, are so
drawn that perspective influences play little, if any, part. All
the lines are in the same direction and the lines are drawn from
the vertices obliquely towards the observer.

The most obvious induction from Fig. 14 is that the
judgment of the length of the sides of an angle is a very im-
portant factor in the judgment of the size of the angle. The
a priori probability which attaches to this statement is so great
that it seems hardly possible that it should have been persistently
overlooked. In addition to this judgment of the length of the
sides, there must also be the judgment of the distance between
the sides at a certain distance from the vertex. In short, the
whole process is a kind of triangulation in which the mind takes
into account three factors, namely, the distances from the ver-
tex at which the measuring arc is to be drawn, and the length
of that arc with respect to the whole circumference of the
circle. Thus it is possible for us to recognize an angle whether
we measure the arc near its vertex or at some distance from the
vertex. Such complex judgment is, however, subject to many
influences that produce illusion. If, for any reason, the arc is
judged too long, the angle is overestimated, or, vice versa, a
judgment which makes the arc too short results in underesti-
mation of the angle.

260 CHAS. H. JUDD.

Misjudgment of the length of the sides may lead indirectly
to such false estimation of angles. Thus, if the subject is
asked to point out the vertex for Angle IV. in Fig. 14, he will
usually place it t$o far from the lines, that is, he will under-
estimate the length of the sides. Conversely, in Angle I., he will
place the vertjgx on A too near the left-hand extremity of B.

These facts apply with less clearness to Angles V. and VI.
VI. is underestimated, but the reason in this case may be that
the arc is underestimated rather than the length of the sides
misjudged. Explanation of Angle VI. is difficult. The
principle discovered in the other cases, however, is of very gen-
eral importance. It can be brought into direct relation with
the fact that all acute angles are overestimated and obtuse
angles underestimated. This will appear from Fig. 15. AC
is a line at the middle point of which (.Z?), an oblique line equal
in length to AB is drawn. Since movement from B to A is
favored by BD, it follows, on the principle developed, that the
point B will be shifted towards A. As compared with BD
the line BA will be underestimated, and the line BC will be
overestimated. In comparing the two angles DBA and DBC
the arcs will, therefore, be estimated as cutting A C, not at A and
C, but at some points as M and N. The true arcs (or chords)
of measurement are DA and DC, but the chords used are DM
and DN. And since DM is longer than DA, while DN is
shorter than DC, the angle DBA will be overestimated, while
the angle DBC is underestimated.

In this way it is possible to explain all the angle illusions.
The movements upward and downward of the lines in the
Zollner pattern, as observed and described by Helmholtz, are
direct confirmations of this position. The successive fixation of
certain points in the figure brings out the illusion of length, first
on the side of an acute angle, then on that of an obtuse angle.
The angles do not suffer any further change by such successive
fixation, but the presence of a neutral point of reference gives
clearness to the illusions of length, that is, the original source
of the angle illusion appears in its simplest form. Furthermore,
it will be found that if Wundt's and Hering's modifications of
the Zollner figure are so drawn that the extremities of the

\

GEOMETRICAL ILLUSIONS. 261

»
different oblique lines are not distinctly marked (particularly

the point to which all converge), the illusion of bending in the
horizontals will be very much reduced, i.f not entirely lost.

Finally, Figs. 16, 17 and 18 present angle and distance
illusions in such relation that the principles discussed may be
directly applied and at the same time confirmed. In Fig. 16
the line AB seems to be bent inward so that its two parts if
continued would form a very obtuse angle within the circle.
This is due in part to the underestimation of the sides of the
acute angle and the overestimation of the arc between the
points of interruption. Furthermore, the rapid increase in
the distance between the line and the circle beyond the points
of contact may result in overestimation of the arc by which the
angle would be estimated. In Figs. 17 and 18 a part of
the diagonal is drawn in such a way that it extends for equal
distances on each side of the middle of the rectangle. In
Fig. 17 it will be noted that the part of the diagonal seems to
meet the left side of the rectangle below the corner, and the
right side above the corner. The illusion will be clearest if
the ends of the line are fixated. It will also be observed that
there is a marked tendency for the eye to pass in its movement,
not through the longer distance from the ends of the line to the
corners, but from the ends of the line to the nearer right and
left sides of the rectangle. This tendency is a full explanation.
It leads to the angle illusion through the underestimation of the
side. Fig. 18 combines a number of the facts already pointed
out. The detailed analysis may be left to the reader.

THE NATURE OF ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE AND
THE MFfHODS OF INVESTIGATING IT.

BY PROFESSOR WESLEY MILLS.
Me Gill University, Montreal.

Those interested in this subject may be classified in the main
somewhat as follows perhaps :

1. Those who see in the animal mind only a sort of weaker
human intellect ; who look chiefly for evidences of intelligence
and take no account of the failures and stupidity of animals.

2. Those who recognize that the animal mind is not the
equivalent of the human mind in all its qualities as it exists in
men of superior development in the highest civilization, but
who nevertheless recognize the resemblance up to a certain
point to man.

3. Those who approach more or less closely to the view that
animals are automata, or at all events consider animal con-
sciousness as utterly different from human consciousness, except
in a few of its lowest states. With regard to investigation or
material of knowledge we recognize a class who, while sus-
picious with reference to the conclusions of the anecdotal school,
do not consider anecdotes worthless, much less meriting the
supreme contempt some writers manifest for such evidence.
They believe that there is no more reason to set aside reliable
anecdotes of animals than of men. Anecdotes may illustrate a
normal, sub-normal or super-normal mental condition or devel-
opment ; but if they set forth facts it is for the psychologist to
explain, not to ignore them. Another class of investigators
see little or no good in anything in comparative psychology or
psychology in general, except experiment, which is for them
the sole key to a reliable knowledge of the mind.

Among psychologists as among biologists there are those who
are willing to shut themselves up in the narrow lane of experi-
262

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 263

ment — a lane with high walls on each side cutting off all view
of the surrounding domain open to general observation and ex-
perience. As these people see so little themselves yet ever be-
hold that little before them, they come to interpret everything in
the light of their own limited observations. They insist on
others believing as they do ; they would have others wear the
fetters they have put on themselves ; all thinking must conform
to the rigid conditions in which they are content to live and
move and have their intellectual being.

The only hope of safety for the man who engages in experiment
is ever to check his observations, and, above all, his conclusions,
by other wider observations and those broad general principles
which are like the points of the compass to the mariner ; and I
venture to suggest that it is the failure to do this which accounts
for the greater part of the wrecks scattered along the shores
and over the bottom of those seas traversed by the experimenter
in biology and psychology.

As we have had what I cannot but think a recent conspicu-
ous example of the sort of neglect referred to, I propose to criti-
cise the methods pursued and the conclusions drawn, the more
especially as this investigator claims to have swept away, at one
fell swoop, almost the entire fabric of comparative psychology.1
He appears to believe that he has razed the old structure to its
very foundations and settled once and forever the weightiest
problems with which others have been long struggling in vain.

Dr. Thorndike has not been hampered in his researches by
any of that respect for workers of the past of any complexion
which usually causes men to pause before differing radically
from them, not to say gleefully consigning them to the psycholog-
ical flames. For Dr. Thorndike the comparative psychologists
are readily and simply classified — they are all insane — the only
difference being the degree, for he speaks of one of them as
being * the sanest ' of the lot.

Having thus cleared the way, this investigator proceeds to
set forth, in no uncertain terms, what we should believe, and his
creed is very brief and easily remembered. Animals neither

1 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE, by Ed. L. Thorndike. (Monograph Supplement
to the PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, Vol. II., No. 4, whole No. 8.)

264 WESLEY MILLS.

imitate, feel sympathetically, reason nor remember, though about
the latter point he is not quite so dogmatic.1 He comes very
near to the belief that they are automata pure and simple,
though this he does not assert in so many words. The above
mentioned views he thinks he has deduced from experiments.
If so, the present writer thinks so much the worse for the ex-
periments. At all events, with the exception of reasoning about
which I wish to reserve judgment, I have come to widely dif-
ferent conclusions and from experiments also as well as from
other sources of information.

Dr. Thorndike in criticising my book2 has given the impres-
sion that I have not made experiments, or ' crucial experiments/
Now, I think it can be shown from my publications that I have
recorded more experiments (not to mention scores which have
not been described) than all other investigators together, if we
except those working on insects. Moreover, these experiments
have been invariably conducted under natural conditions, the
absence of which seems to be almost a recommendation with
some, but which I consider a fatal objection to Dr. Thorn-
dike's work. Incidentally, I may remark that a laboratory as
ordinarily understood is not well suited for making psycholog-
ical experiments on animals.

When Dr. Thorndike charges that most of the books do not
give us a psychology, but rather a eulogy of animals ; that they
have all been about animal intelligence, never about animal
stupidity, I recognize a certain amount of truth in the imputa-
tion. But I beg to suggest that to a certain extent the same
applies to works on human psychology. To what extent has the
mind of the savage or semi-barbarous man been investigated ?
Yet to make comparisons between man and the lower animals
parellel such a study is essential. I do not find Dr. Thorn-
dike's publication any freer than others from the fallacies aris-

1 In an account of his own work given by Dr. Thorndike in Science (Vol.
VII., p. 823) he goes still further in his negations. "Conception, inference,
judgment, memory, self-consciousness, social consciousness, imagination, asso-
ciation and perception, in the common acceptation of the terms, are all absent
from the animal mind."

2 The Nature and Development of Animal Intelligence. London, T. Fisher
Unwin ; New York, The Macmillan Company. 1898.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 265

ing from considering the superior class of human minds or the
civilized and educated man, and comparing him with the lower
animals. Dr. Thorndike considers his experiments crucial ; that
individual peculiarities have been eliminated ; that hunger is an
adequate stimulus or condition ; that no personal factor need be
considered; that " the question of whether an animal does or
does not form a certain association requires for an answer no
higher qualification than a pair of eyes " — all of which I con-
sider fallacious and to a large degree explanatory of the mis-
leading psychology which he has constructed. With dogs I
found several stimuli stronger than hunger, as any one really
acquainted with the nature of animals must know, and such
stimuli may, and frequently do, lead animals so to deport them-
selves that they become a perfect revelation to those who have
long been associated with them.

I had that well illustrated in the case of a tame fox (vixen)
that I reared. When a certain critical period (oestrum) was
reached her whole nature took on a new character, and it be-
came practically impossible to control her as formerly ; and,
unless I had ocular demonstration of the facts, I would not have
believed it possible for any animal to have accomplished what this
fox did. Nevertheless, in order to learn her methods of proced-
ure it was necessary to observe unawares to her, and that I may
say applies to very many studies of animals. That a pair of
eyes is not all that is requisite for a complete outfit as an ob-
server, Dr. Thorndike's work but too pointedly exemplifies. I
venture to think that in all cases it is a question of whose eyes,
or, in other words, the training those eyes have had, and still
more of the intellect that passes judgment on what is seen.

I have all along endeavored to emphasize the importance of
individual differences. They do somewhat disturb statistics, and
they rather spoil curves, it is true, and experimenters have al-
ways been prone to ignore them ; but they exist in nature, and
when adequately recognized our explanations for many things
will be found altogether too simple, and, therefore, delusive,
rather than real and adequate.

Dr. Thorndike admits that « an act of the sort likely to be
attended to will be learned more quickly.' Undoubtedly, yet

266 WESLEY MILLS.

this investigator has practically ignored this in his tests, for he
placed cats in boxes only 20x15x12 inches, and then ex-
pected them to act naturally. As well enclose a living man in
a coffin, lower him, against his will, into the earth, and attempt
to deduce normal psychology from his conduct.

The present writer has pointed out distinctly that when ani-
mals are removed from even their usual, not to say natural, sur-
roundings they may be so confused or otherwise diordered that
they fail to act normally, and this I have illustrated by experi-
ments. Dr. Thorndike found that dogs when placed under simi-
larly improper and disturbing conditions, as I deem them, be-
haved in a like panicky way, except that they gave up sooner,
which he attributes in part to their being insufficiently hungry.
But dogs have not as much perseverance as cats, as my experi-
ments abundantly prove. However, had Dr. Thorndike wit-
nessed the resources of my dogs when let loose in the yard after
some of their companions, which had already been set free in the
adjoining fields and woods, I can believe that even one so fast
bound in the grip of his experiments as he would have altered
his opinions on this and many other subjects. In dogs under such
circumstances we have illustrated not alone an adequate motive
or stimulus, but it is shown that they have memory — can conjure
up exciting pictures of the pleasure-giving scenes of the past,
re-experience in some fashion the delights associated with
that past, make a sort of generalized abstract of the whole — in
a word, have very much the same experiences as the human
being who accompanies them and delights in such things.

When the contrary is proved by adequate observations or
experiments, I am ready to alter my opinions, but not on such
evidence as seems to go directly counter to all that one has
borne in upon him by daily observation. To do otherwise is,
indeed, to bid adieu to common sense as well as to science, and
to accept as proof what seems to me of no more value than
counterfeit coins, but which, nevertheless, like bogus money, de-
ceives the unwary, even among psychologists.

The experiments on chicks I consider the least misleading
and most valuable part of Dr. Thorndike's work. Not only are
birds much lower in the psychological scale ; not only does free

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 267

association explain more in their case, but the conditions of the
experiments were rather more natural. A pen 16x14x10
makes for a chick a very different thing from one 20 x 15 X 12
for a cat. Even those curves which in the case of the cats and
dogs only serve to stereotype error are possibly of some value
when applied to the chicks. Says Dr. Thorndike : " I hate
to burden the reader with the disgusting rhetoric which would
result if I had to insist on particularizations and reservations at
every step." If anything, just such particulars might have some-
what redeemed these experiments. They might at least have
proved helpful in some way. At the present stage of compara-
tive psychology we are in need of observations down to the
minutest details. We can better spare the rhetoric.

When we consider how widespread — indeed, almost univer-
sal— is imitation among animals of the middle and higher grades,
that it is difficult so to separate it from the general psychic life of
the animal as to be able fairly to analyze their mental processes
and determine how much is due to independent development $er
se and how much to imitation, one cannot but marvel at the de-
gree to which that magic word of modern science ' experiment '
can blind the mind to facts thick as the leaves of the forest, and
all pointing to the importance of imitation in animal life. So
obvious an example of imitation as the talking of parrots is set
aside or twisted out of all recognition. It is, moreover, a case of
heads I win, tails you lose. Much that Dr. Thorndike has said
when discussing this subject is valuable as suggesting a basis
for observation and on the genesis of imitation, though this ap-
plies also to human psychology. There is one fallacy that un-
derlies the whole of Dr. Thorndike's experimenting and vitiates
his conclusions, namely, this : that he overlooks the many pos-
sible and actual inhibitions to response to a stimulus. One
would have thought that the case of the cat mentioned by him
(p. 59) would have given him pause. The conduct of that cat,
like all the rest, only proves to him that animals do not imitate.

I find myself ever disposed to imitate in certain cases, yet do
not. To illustrate — when I read a chapter on psychology writ-
ten in the fascinating style of James, one exemplifying the pro-
fundity of a Ladd or a Hall, the bold constructive character of a

268 WESLEY MILLS.

Baldwin, or a vigorous plea on behalf of modern psychology by
Cattell — the list might be much enlarged — I am filled with ad-
miration, and there is an impulse to imitate, but I have not as yet
taken the first step. Having thus been the subject of experi-
ment in this way over and over again, I should, according to
the logic of Dr. Thorndike, be characterized as a non-imitating
creature — not only as regards the subject in question, but gen-
erally. The truth is far from this. There is a strong tendency
on my part to imitate, but there are stronger forces acting to in-
hibit the process, and, moreover, these forces are not always the
same nor is each always equally potent. In truth, the whole
matter is very complex even in animals. I find no difficulty
whatever in explaining why the animals did not respond to the
stimuli Dr. Thorndike used.

When one meets the questionaires he seems at last to strike
the rock bottom of common sense. The author of the experi-
ments referred to has no high opinion of the trainers. " I
would first adjust all things in connection with the surroundings
of the cat so that they would be applicable to the laws of nature,
and then proceed to teach the trick." I see much saving sense
in this remark, and believe that had Dr. Thorndike grasped its
significance he would have given us a very different psy-
chology. The writer seems to have totally neglected the
methods and experience of the trainers of dogs for field work,
and has also I believe failed to make use of the lessons the
trainers of trick animals can teach us. Even to witness a per-
formance of trick animals is enough to enable one to see how
at one time the tendency to imitate assists and at another mars
the performance. To be sure, there is a sort of deliberate,
studied, high-class imitation possible to man, but beyond the
reach of animals, but this is, after all, comparatively rarely em-
ployed in the lives of the great mass of men.

A student of McGill University has communicated to me
the fact that a kitten which could not be induced to jump over
an object placed before it did so only after seeing the mother
do it, and after that there was no more trouble in getting it to per-
form the trick. The young hounds of the Montreal Hunt Club
are taught by being actually put through the performance, t. e.,

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 269

they are attached to an old and strong dog while hunting, so
that Dr. Thorndike's contention as to the uselessness of an ani-
mal's being put through a performance breaks down. Indeed,
that was to be expected even from his own teaching as to the
genesis of associations, to go no further. As to the inability of
animals to have memory images for which Dr. Thorndike con-
tends I find myself, in the light of my experience with animals,
quite unable to agree. I believe that their memory is like our
memory of the same things so far as image, etc., are concerned,
but that there may be with man, owing to the complexity of his
mental condition, a more varied fringe around that memory core
which latter will be much alike in both the man and the animal.

To refer to but a single experiment to illustrate this : I had
a greyhound that was very prone to chase cats, a habit which be-
came with him more and more pronounced, I presume, from his
success in consequence of his speed. On the occasion I wish
to emphasize I had taken the dog in a certain direction, and, as
a result, a cat crossing the street was so hotly pursued by him
that she took to a tree. Many months after I brought the dog
along this same way, but approached the scene of the exciting
chase from the opposite direction. Long before the exact spot
was reached the dog was all attention. It was perfectly plain
that he remembered the long-past incident, and that certain feel-
ings (which accompanying feelings Dr. Thorndike denies to
animals') were also aroused ; but great was my astonishment
when the dog stopped at a certain tree, looked up and behaved
otherwise in such a manner as left no doubt in my mind that he
remembered the identical tree and every detail of the whole inci-
dent. This cannot be explained by the sort of consecutive as-
sociation that Dr. Thorndike would substitute for * memory ' as
ordinarily understood, for the locality was approached from the
opposite direction.

The central phenomena of memory were in this case the
same with the dog and his master, but the feelings and the men-
tal fringe or associated ideas were not identical. In the one case
they were appropriate to the dog, in the other to the man, his
master, who was in this instance trying to draw some psycho-
logical conclusions, so the difference was considerable ; but had

270 WESLEY MILLb.

it been a hunting expedition in which both dog and man took
an active part, the resemblance even in revival would have been
altogether greater.

One finds in the end, however, that Dr. Thorndike does allow
representation to animals within very narrow limits. Along with
this writer's " I never succeeded in getting the animal to change
its way for mine," a quotation from a recent interesting and
instructive publication seems timely: " One must be familiar
with the normal conditions of the insects in question before he
is able to note those slight changes in the environment that offer
some opportunity for an adaptation of means to ends, or before he
is competent to devise experiments which test their powers in
this direction."1 The above seems to the present writer to be
applicable in the widest sense to investigations in comparative
psychology.

The experiments to which Dr. Thorndike refers under the
heading ' Association by Similarity and the Formation of Con-
cepts' only really show that animals may react to a vague
stimulus, and this is quite sufficient to meet the ends of their ex-
istence in many cases ; but neither these experiments nor any
others show conclusively that this alone is the best of which ani-
mals are capable. The comparison of animal consciousness to
human consciousness during swimming is open to the same ob-
jection. Such a mental state is possible to both man and ani-
mals, but neither is confined within such narrow limits of almost
pure sensation.

I must object to Dr. Thorndike's analysis of human conscious-
ness in playing open-air games as being inadequate. It does
not correspond with my own experience nor with the accounts I
have heard persons of different degrees of skill give as to what
was going on in their minds during the playing of games. No
doubt Dr. Thorndike's account does fit a certain portion of the
mental phenomena, but the whole matter is much more complex
than he seems to think, and is worthy of an analysis more ac-
curate and comprehensive than has ever been given to it. Such
views of animal consciousness as Dr. Thorndike presents seem

instincts and Habits of the Solitary Wasps, by Geo. W. Peckham and
Elizabeth G. Peckham, p. 234.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 271

to me altogether too narrow to meet the actual mental condition
of, say, a dog when engaged in a fowling expedition.

From certain experiments which I made with my dogs in
play, taken along with scores of others, I find myself utterly
unable to agree with many of the views of the destructive or nar-
rowly restrictive school of comparative psychologists. We
should surely be very cautious in denying wholly to animals
what Dr. Thorndike terms * free floating ideas.' The believer in
evolution will demand that, in this and other cases in which
qualities man possesses are denied to animals, there be the clearest
proofs given. The burden of proof lies with those who deny
them, and this remark applies to feelings as well as intellectual
processes, though to a less degree. Nor can I agree with those
who maintain that we must always adopt the simplest explana-
tion of an animal's action. Such does not apply to man, and
why should it meet every case among animals ? Though in this
regard Professor C. LI. Morgan with others seems to me to be
in error, I fully agree with the views of this writer as quoted
in the publication under consideration (p. 86) : " Lastly, before
taking leave of the subject of the chapter, I am most anxious
that it should not be thought that in contending that intelligence
is not reason I wish in any way to disparage intelligence," etc.
But Professor Morgan is more and more in sympathy with
the destructive school, so that he now seems willing to surrender
anything to all and sundry who may ask him to stand and de-
liver. I have been myself classed by one of my reviewers1 with
Romanes. While I agree with much in Romanes' attitude in
regard to animal intelligence, nevertheless, since this writer pre-
ferred to work upon second-hand material rather than make
observations and experiments for himself, and had, moreover,
a tendency to speculation rather than the accumulation and
weighing of facts, I prefer to be myself considered an humble
follower of Darwin, who, so far as he went in animal psychol-
ogy, best illustrates the method and especially the spirit that
will, I think, prove most fruitful.

The one point about which I feel like withholding an opinion
till many more observations have been made is that of reasoning.

1 Science, Vol. VIII., p. 520.

272 WESLEY MILLS.

That animals can reach C by some mental process when A and
B are given, and that this is to be explained either by some pro-
cess of inference or by one as yet unexplained, I have little
doubt. Unquestionably, association explains much in the mental
structure of man and still more in animals, but that this is
the whole story when we get beyond elementary chapters in
instinct I cannot for a moment believe, unless the meaning of
the word is greatly and unwisely extended. The subconscious
must enter largely into the psychic life of animals, as of men,
and one who observes animals long and closely must believe
that no such naked skeleton as Dr. Thorndike presents to us
can represent the animal mind.

The mental processes of an animal are generally not com-
parable to pure tones, but rather like those tones that abound in
overtones, though this applies still more to man. Our age will
probably be looked back upon as one characterized intellectually
by great destructive and constructive activity, but also as one
readily satisfied with unduly simple explanations put forward
with a confidence and rashness that will be astounding to a later
age. As showing, however, a different spirit and tendency I
quote the following 1 with much gratification, coming, as it does,
from two most patient, sympathetic and successful observers :
" Our study of the activities of wasps has satisfied us that it is
impossible to classify them in any simple way. The old
notion that the acts of bees, wasps and ants were all varying
forms of instinct is no longer tenable and must give way to a
more philosophical view. It would appear to be quite certain
that these are not only instinctive acts, but acts of intelligence
as well, and a third variety also — acts that are probably due to
imitation, although whether much or little intelligence accom-
panies this imitation is admittedly difficult to determine.
Again, acts that are instinctive in one species may be intelligent
in another, and we may even assert that there is considerable
variation in the amount of intelligence displayed by different
individuals of the same species.'*

The same may, I believe, be affirmed for animals generally ;
and it is work of the character described in the monograph

JOp. cit., p. 228.

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 273

from which I quote which really advances comparative
psychology.

Were it possible to observe an animal, say a dog, from the
moment of its birth onward continuously for one year, noting
the precise conditions and all that happens under these condi-
tions, the observer being unnoticed by the creature studied, we
should, I believe, be in possession of one of the most valuable con-
tributions it is possible to make to comparative psychology. This
would imply not one, but several persons giving up their whole
time, day and night, by turns, to such a task. As yet, but very
imperfect approaches have been made to anything of the kind ;
nevertheless, such as they have been, they are the most valuable
contributions thus made, in the opinion of the present writer, and
the more of such we have the better.

If to such a study another were added, in which the effect of
altering conditions from time to time with the special object of
testing the results on an animal or animals similarly closely
observed from birth onward, we should have another most val-
uable contribution to comparative psychology ; but experiment
on animals whose history is unknown must, in the nature of the
case, be very much less valuable than in such an instance as
that just supposed.

As Professor Groos has suggested in a private communica-
tion to me, it is important to make observations on wild animals,
and there seems to be room for the worker in comparative psy-
chology in zoological gardens as well as in the field or forest.
But I must again maintain that it is fact rather than theory — ob-
servation, as ordinarily understood, and experiment — that are
more needed than anything else as yet.

RESUME.

Comparative psychology is advanced rather by systematic
observations and experiments than by anecdotes ; nevertheless,
the latter, when strictly true, are not valueless.

The study of the development of the animal mind (genetic
psychology) is of the highest importance.

Insufficient attention has been paid to distinguishing between
normal, subnormal and super-normal comparative psychology ;

274 WESLEY MILLS.

an objection, however, which applies with a certain degree of
force to human psychology.

In making experiments on animals it is especially important
that they should be placed under conditions as natural as pos-
sible. The neglect of this is a fatal objection to the work of
the author of ' Animal Intelligence,' published as a monograph
supplement to the PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, Vol II., No. 8,
1898.

The portion of this research referring to chicks is the most
reliable, and the suggestions as to pedagogics, etc., valuable.

This investigator's experiments show that certain associations
may be formed under conditions highly unnatural, which as-
sociations bear about the same relation to the normal psychic
evolution of animals as the behavior of more or less panic-
stricken or otherwise abnormal human beings does to their
natural conduct.

It is not proved, as asserted in the publication referred to,
that animals do not imitate, remember, have social conscious-
ness, imagination, association, and perception ; nor that their con-
sciousness is only comparable to that of a human being during
swimming or when playing out-door games, as understood by
this writer.

It is highly probable that animals, even the highest below
man, have only rarely and at the best but a feeble self-conscious-
ness, if it exist at all.

But on this point and on the question of inference, reason-
ing, etc., the time is not yet ripe for positive assertions.

It seems more than probable that the mental processes of the
highest animals are not radically different from those of men so
far as they go, but that the human mind has capacities in the
realms both of feeling and intellection to which animals cannot
attain. While it is desirable to push analysis as far as possible
it is safer to remain in the region of the indefinite, to refrain from
making very precise and positive statements as to whether the
animal mind does or does not possess certain powers, till we are
in possession of a larger storehouse of facts, especially of the
nature of exact and systematic observations (or experiments).
Festinate lente is a good rule to observe in regard to conclusions
in comparative psychology.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT.

BY PROFESSOR E. A. KIRKPATRICK.

Fitchburgi Mass.

The work of a train dispatcher who has to direct the move-
ments and stoppages of a few score of trains so that there will
be no delays or collisions is justly regarded as very difficult, and
the brightest minds must go through years of training before
they are equal to the task. The child, however, who gets up
from his play and brings us a book, and then resumes his seat,
performs an act of much greater complexity and nicety of ad-
justment, for as large a number of muscles as trains are moved,
and an impulse passes to and from each muscle ; all these move-
ments and adjustments take place in a few seconds, and a varia-
tion of a fraction of a second in the order of contraction inter-
feres with the grace and accuracy of the movements as much as
the variation of a fraction of an hour in the time of trains
interferes with their successful movement.

Without previous practice, pigs, chickens and many other
animals can coordinate visual sensations and movements so as
to walk or run, avoiding obstacles and adapting themselves to the
nature of the ground. Young chickens can move towards and
pick up food with only a little less accuracy than adult chickens.
The human infant has not such power of motor control at birth,
and our problem is to determine how he comes into possession
of it within a year or two. First, it is popularly thought that he
learns how to make the movements ; second, it may be claimed
that the power to make such movements is inherited, just as it is
in the case of the chicken, except that the mechanism is not
complete for some time after birth, as is known to be the case
with birds as regards flying ; third, it may be claimed that the
movements are partially provided for by the inherited mechanism
and partly acquired and learned.

275

276 E. A. KIRKPATRICK.

As to the first supposition, the evidence is overwhelmingly
against the possibility of such a stupendous task being per-
formed by a child in the short space of a few years. He has
over four hundred muscles, and these may be combined in prac-
tically an infinite number of different ways. If it depended en-
tirely upon chance or the child's ingenuity whether he should
find the right combination for any movement, as reaching for a
ball and passing it from one hand to the other, he might work
during his whole lifetime at that one puzzle before he would be
likely to solve it by getting exactly the right muscles and in the
right combinations.

The second theory, though contrary to ordinary observation
and opinion, has many facts to support it. For example, it is
well known that children and even adults who have never
learned to swim sometimes succeed in swimming ashore when
left in the water with nothing to do but sink. Fathers some-
times use this method of teaching their sons to swim. Many
parents have noticed that their children learned to walk and
run with surprising rapidity after they began. The most strik-
ing instance of this kind coming under my notice is thus de-
scribed for me by the father, Supt. Hall, of North Adams,
Mass.

" In reply to yours of March 25th, I give you the following
account of how my little daughter Katherine learned to walk.
She was the youngest of a family of five. The other children
had learned to walk soon after they were a year old, and in the
normal fashion by being encouraged to put forth a series of
efforts until they were able to go alone. Katherine was a
normal child in other respects, bright, active and healthy, yet
unable to walk a step when she was seventeen months old. Of
course, we were anxious, fearing that the cause of this ineffi-
ciency might be physical, especially as she persisted in crawl-
ing and absolutely refused to try to help herself under the
encouragement of any assistance.

"At last we referred the matter to a physician, who said:
* It is a peculiar case, and I can hardly tell whether the diffi-
culty is physical or mental. If there is no improvement in a
short time, call me again.' Shortly afterwards I came home

DEVELOPMENT OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 277

one day at noon, and, placing my cuffs on a table in the sitting-
room, threw myself on a lounge to rest. Katherine happened
to notice the cuffs from where she sat on the floor, and, crawl-
ing across the room, pulled herself up by the leg of the table,
and, reaching out with one hand while she held on to the table
with the other, took a cuff off from the table and slipped it on
over her wrist. Of course, to do this she had to stand alone.
I noticed it at once, and was surprised when she reached out
her other hand for the other cuff and slipped that on, and then
stood looking in a very interested way at the cuffs on both
wrists. Then, to our great surprise, she turned towards me
with a very pleased expression on her face and walked as con-
fidently and easily as any child could. Not only this, but she
immediately ran across the room, through another room and
around through the hall-way, not simply walking, but running
as rapidly as a child four or five years of age would. What
surprised us most was that she did not seem to be wearied by
her effort at all.

" We allowed her to keep the cuffs on for ten minutes or more,
and she was on her feet all the time. At last she sat down a
moment, rested, and then, strange to say, got up on both feet
without assistance and commenced to run around the room again.
As an experiment, I took the cuffs off, and she was as unwil-
ling to try to walk as before. We could not possibly induce
her to take a single step without the cuffs. When, however,
we allowed her to put them on, she seemed to be greatly de-
lighted and walked and ran as before. The result was that I
gave her an old pair of cuffs to put on and allowed her to wear
them for two days. This was the only way we could keep her
from crawling. After that time she seemed to be able to get
along without the cuffs, and has not crawled any since."

Instances similar to this of sudden acquisition of control of the
vocal organs are not unusual. Numerous cases of remarkable
movements by somnambulists and by persons frightened or ex-
cited are so common that it is sometimes said that instinctive
action is more perfect than deliberate action. The fact that
such instances are rare, while most children seem to spend
considerable time in learning movements, is not positive proof

278 E. A. KIRKPATRICK.

that such movements as walking and swimming are not inher-
ited movements. It may be claimed that as fast as the nervous
and muscular systems develop the child begins making the
movements which when combined with others constitute the
movements of walking ; but that those movements ordinarily
looked upon as practice and regarded as the cause of nervous
and muscular development are in reality merely the effect and
sign of the hereditary perfectment of the nervous and muscular
systems which is going on. Such movements as those of walk-
ing and swimming may, therefore, be wholly hereditary, but
it seems reasonable to suppose that the development of those
movements is hastened and in part produced by practice, and
certainly it cannot be claimed that all the various movements of
work and play which human beings perform are inherited rather
than acquired, especially when it comes to the manipulation of
tools.

The third theory is the one more commonly held by psychol-
ogists and physiologists, and in a general way is probably the
most nearly correct, but in my judgment it needs to be modified in
the direction of the last and made much more definite. Observa-
tion of young children has shown clearly that the infant inherits
the power to make many reflex, instinctive, expressive and im-
pulsive movements, and that these simpler movements are com-
bined in performing the various voluntary movements which he
afterwards performs. It seems to be the common opinion that
chance and imitation are important factors in effecting such com-
binations, while some seem to think that the child learns the
simpler movements and then by an act of constructive imagina-
tion combines them in the proper way to effect his purposes.
Professor Baldwin, who has perhaps contributed more than any
one else to the subject, has in part eliminated chance by show-
ing that there is a tendency in every organism so to act as to con-
tinue, increase or repeat favorable stimuli. The performance,
repetition and perfectment of a movement do not, therefore,
depend entirely upon the chance production or repetition of the
stimulus by the environment, but the tendency in the animal to
the circular form of reaction causes the stimulus to be repeated
again and again. He does not, however, make sufficiently clear

DEVELOPMENT OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 279

the physiological basis of this tendency, and he seems to allow
too large an element of chance in the determination of the course
of nervous impulses within the organism. When a child repeats
again and again a sound, as children so often do in the third quar-
ter of the first year, it must be because the auditory sensory center
is in closer connection with the motor center for the vocal organs
than with any other motor center ; otherwise the limbs would be
just as likely to move as the vocal organs. More than this, the
sensory center for that sound must be more closely connected
with the center for producing it, or else any other sound would
be just as likely to be made. There are probably more than a
score of muscles concerned in articulation, and only when just
the right ones contract in just the right degree will a given sound
be produced ; hence the number of different combinations mathe-
matically possible is hundreds of millions. It cannot, therefore,
be a matter of chance when a child repeats, after a few trials, a
sound that he has heard ; but it must depend upon physiological
structure that makes the path more open between certain audi-
tory centers and corresponding motor speech centers. Again,
when a child imitates a movement he sees, it must be because
there is a connection between the visual sense center and the
motor center for moving the part in a corresponding way. Of
course, it is a familiar fact that there is an excess of motor en-
ergy set free in all attempts to make new movements, especially
in the case of children, which causes many other than the neces-
sary muscles to contract ; but physiological openness of certain
paths rather than chance determines which movements shall be
selected for repetition.

The next point which I wish to emphasize is that there is an
inherited physiological space relation between the visual stimu-
lus of an object in a certain position and the muscles for moving
to that object. A young chicken succeeds in picking up a grain
of meal, not because he mentally judges the direction and dis-
tance, but because the visual sensation calls the right muscle
into play. In a similar way, a child grasps an attractive object,
not because he knows its direction and distance, but because the
visual sensation calls the proper muscles into play. So accurate
is this physiological relation between visual sensations and move-

280 E. A. KIRKPATRICK.

ments that, though I experimented frequently from the time she
began to grasp at about three months, I never succeeded in get-
ting my little girl to try to grasp an object more than four or five
inches beyond her reach, and rarely so far as that. She would
stretch her hands towards more distant objects that she wanted,
but not with the grasping movement. The direction of her
movement was also from the first nearly as accurate as the
fixation with her eyes. This physiological space relation of
certain motor reactions to certain stimulations is, in my judg-
ment, of an importance hitherto unappreciated in explaining
not only the development of voluntary movements, but also in
explaining ideas of space.

Close observation of the earliest attempts at grasping con-
vinced me that the only element prominent in consciousness
at first is the visual sensation of the object. After it has been
reached, reflexively grasped when touched and instinctively
brought to the mouth several times, disappointment is shown if
the hand, instead of the object, comes in contact with the lips,
showing that there was then expectation of a certain kind of
sensation that was not realized. The young child in grasp-
ing objects has a sensation or image of the object in a certain
position and an image of a sensation to be gotten ; but according
to my observations there is no evidence that his consciousness is
concerned at all with the movements he is making in order to
get hold of the object and bring it to him. The same is true of
all the earlier voluntary movements of the child, and attention
to the movement itself hinders rather than helps in learning the
movement. In the case of Superintendent Hall's little girl there
was inability to walk so long as she thought about her move-
ments ; but as soon as her attention was concentrated upon get-
ting the cuffs on and carrying them around she succeeded per-
fectly, though she had never tried it before.

Every adult knows that if he thinks about how he is doing a
thing he can do it much less perfectly than when he thinks
merely about what he wants to do ; yet it is a common belief
that one in learning any act must go through a stage of quite
acute consciousness of the movements involved. I maintain, on
the contrary, that children do not ordinarily go through any

DEVELOPMENT OF VOLUNTARY MOVEMENT. 281

such stage in learning their earlier movements, and that it is not
usually necessary for either children or adults to go through
such a stage of consciousness of all, or even of a large propor-
tion, of the elementary movements involved in the new act.

I have not time to give facts in support of this conclusion, nor
to point out its importance in the solution of various educational
problems ; but I will close with one or two general considerations.
In the history of the race arts have always preceded sciences ;
men have learned to do things, then reflected upon how they do
them, analyzed to discover elements, then determined the gen-
eral laws according to which the actions may be successfully
performed, and this order of procedure is the natural one to the
child. It is possible that in some cases short cuts may be taken,
as Baldwin has suggested, and possibly the order may sometimes
be reversed and time saved. A person who knows one
language, for example, may possibly learn another language
more quickly by studying its grammar first ; but I am sure that
a child who knows no language could not learn one by begin-
ning with the grammar. Adults who are able to make many
movements may learn more quickly a new movement by having
attention called to some of the elements, though probably never
by having it called to all ; but a young child would be hindered
rather than helped by such a process. This is true, not simply
because of the general tendency of the mind to develop in this
order, but because the past experience of the race has developed
a very definite system of relations between various stimuli and
various simple movements, and has probably developed less de-
finitely various combinations of simple movements and a ten-
dency to other combinations in the attainment of ends fre-
quently striven for by the race. The teaching of a movement
by having each of its elements learned, and then having these
elements combined and used, is not only a reversal of the natural
order in attaining an end and a misdirection of attention, but is
an undoing of what has been partially done by the experience
of our ancestors, instead of completing the process.

THE INSTINCTIVE REACTION OF
YOUNG CHICKS.

DR. EDWARD THORNDIKE.
Western Reserve University.

The data to be presented in this article were obtained in the
course of a series of experiments conducted in connection with
the psychological laboratory of Harvard University during the
year '96-97. About sixty chicks were used as subjects. In
general their experiences were entirely under my control from
birth. Where this was not true the conditions of their life pre-
vious to the experiments were known, and were such as would
have had no influence in determining the quality of their reac-
tions in the particular experiments to which they were subjected.
It is not worth while to recount the means taken so to regulate
the chick's environment that his experience along certain lines
should be in its entirety known to the observer and that conse-
quently his inherited abilities could be surely differentiated.
The nature of the experiments will, in most cases, be such that
little suspicion of the influence of education by experience will
be possible. In the other cases I will mention the particular
means then taken to prevent such influence.

Some of my first experiments were on color vision in chicks
from 18 to 30 hours old, just old enough to move about readily
and to be hungry. On backgrounds of white and black card-
board were pasted pieces of colored paper about 2 mm. square.
On each background there were six of these pieces, — one each
of yellow, red, orange, green, blue and black (on the white
ground) or white (on the black). They were in a row about
half an inch apart. The chicks had been in darkness for all
but three or four hours of their life so far. During those few
hours the incubator had been illuminated and the chicks had
that much chance to learn color.
282

INSTINCTIVE REACTION OF YOUNG CHICKS. 283

The eight chicks were put, one at a time, on the sheet of
cardboard facing the colored spots. Count was kept of the
number of times that they pecked at each spot and, of course,
they were watched to see whether they would peck at all at
random. In the experiments with the white background all the
colors were reacted to (t. e.9 pecked at) except black (but the
letters on a newspaper were pecked at by the same chicks the
same day). One of the chicks pecked at all five, one at four,
three at three, one at two and one at yellow only. These differ-
ences are due probably to accidental position or movements.
Taking the sums of the reactions to each color-spot we get the
following table :

I. Times reacted to. Total number of pecks.1
Red, 12 31
Yellow, 9 21
Orange, 6 34

Green, 5 u

Blue, i 3

I should attach no importance whatever to the quantitative
estimate given in the table. The only fact of value so far is the
evidence that from the first the chick reacts to all colors. In
no case was there any random pecking at the white surface of
the cardboard.

On a black background the same chicks reacted to all the
colors.

II. is a table of the results.

II. Times reacted to. Total number of pecks.

White, 6 19

Blue, 4 ii

Red, 4 8

Green, 4 4

Orange, 2 7

Yellow, 2 4

In other experiments chicks were tried with green spots on
a red ground, red spots on a green ground, yellow spots on an
orange ground, green spots on a blue ground, and black spots

1This double rating is necessary because of the fact that the chick often
gives several distinct pecks in a single reaction. The * times reacted to' m«an
the number of different times that the chicks noticed the color.

284 EDWARD THORNDIKE.

on a white ground. All were reacted to. Thus, what is ap-
parently a long and arduous task to the child is heredity's gift
to the chick. It is conceivable, though to me incredible, that
what the chick reacts to is not the color, but the very minute
elevation of the spot. My spots were made so that they were
only the thickness of thin paper above pasteboard. Any one
who cares to resort to the theory that this elevation caused the
reaction can settle the case by using color-spots absolutely
level with the surface.

INSTINCTIVE REACTIONS TO DISTANCE, DIRECTION, SIZE, ETC.

I have purposely chosen this awkward heading rather than
the simple one Space-Perception, because I do not wish to imply
that there is in the young chick such consciousness of space-
facts as there is in human beings. All that will be shown here
is that he reacts appropriately in the presence of space-facts,
reacts in a fashion which would in the case of a man go with
genuine perception of space.

If one puts a chick on top of a box in sight of his fellows
below, the chick will regulate his conduct by the height of the
box. To be definite, we may take the average chick of about
95 hours. If the height is less than 10 inches he will jump
down as soon as you put him up. At 16 inches he will jump
in from 5 seconds to 3 or 4 minutes. At 22 inches he will still
jump down, but after more hesitation. At 27 j£ inches 6 chicks
out of eight at this age jumped within 5 minutes. At 39
inches the chick -will NOT jump down. The numerical values
given here would, of course, vary with the health, development,
hunger and degree of lonesomeness of the chick. All that
they are supposed to show is that at any given age the chick
without experience of heights regulates his conduct rather
accurately in accord with the space-fact of distance which
confronts him. The chick does not peck at objects remote from
him, does not, for instance, confuse a bird a score of feet away
with a fly near by, or try to get the moon inside his bill. More-
over, he reacts in pecking with considerable accuracy at the
very start. Lloyd Morgan has noted that in his very first
efforts the chick often fails to see the object, though he hits it,

INSTINCTIVE REACTION OF YOUNG CHICKS. 285

and on this ground has denied the perfection of the instinct. But,
as a matter of fact, the pecking reaction may be as perfect at
birth as it is after 10 or 12 days' experience. It certainly is not
perfect then. I took nine chicks from 10 to 14 days old and
placed them one at a time on a clear surface over which were
scattered grains of cracked wheat (the food they had been eat-
ing in this same way for a week) and watched the accuracy of
their pecking. Out of 214 objects pecked at 159 were seized,
55 were not. Out of the 159 that were seized, only 116 were
seized on the first peck, 25 on the second, 16 on the third, and
the remaining two on the fourth. Of the 55 that were not suc-
cessfully seized, 31 were pecked at only once, 10 twice, 10
three times, 3 four times and i five times. I fancy one would
find that adult fowls would show by no means a perfect record.
So long as chicks with ten days' experience fail to seize on the
first trial 45 J& of the time, it is hardly fair to argue against the
perfection of the instinct on the ground of failures to seize dur-
ing the first day.

The chick's practical appreciation of space facts is seen fur-
ther in his attempts to escape when confined. Put chicks only
twenty or thirty hours old in a box with walls three or four
inches high and they will react to the perpendicularity of the
confining walls by trying to jump over them. In fact, in the
ways he moves, the directions he takes and the objects he reacts
to, the chicken has prior to experience the power of appropriate
reaction to colors and facts of all three dimensions.

INSTINCTIVE MUSCULAR COORDINATIONS.

In the acts already described we see fitting coordinations at
work in the chick's reactions to space facts. A few more sam-
ples may be given. In jumping down from heights the chick
does not walk off or fall off (save rarely), but jumps off. He
meets the situation " loneliness on a small eminence" by walk-
ing around the edge and peering down ; he meets the situation
" sight of fellow chicks below " by (after an amount of hesitation
varying roughly with the height) jumping off, holding his stubby
wings out and keeping right side up. He lands on his feet al-
most every time and generally very cleverly. A four days' chick

286 EDWARD THORNDIKE.

will jump down a distance eight times his own height without hurt-
ing himself a bit. If one takes a chick two or three weeks old who
has never had a chance to jump up or down, and puts him in a
box with walls three times the height of the chick's back, he will
find that the chick will jump, or rather fly, nearly, if not quite,
over the wall, flapping his wings lustily and holding on to the
edge with his neck while he clambers over. Chicks one day
old will, in about 57 per cent, of the cases, balance themselves
for five or six seconds when placed on a stiff perch. If eight
or nine days old, they will, though never before on any perch or
anything like one, balance perfectly for a minute or more. The
muscular coordination required is invoked immediately when the
chick feels the situation " feet on a perch." The strength is
lacking in the first few days. From the fifth or sixth day on
chicks are also able (their ability increases with age) to balance
themselves on a slowly swinging perch.

Another complex coordination is seen in the somewhat re-
markable instinct of swimming. Chicks only a day or two
old will, if tossed into a pond, head straight for the shore and
swim rapidly to it. It is impossible to compare their movements
in so doing with those of ducklings, for the chick is agitated,
paddles his feet very fast and swims to get out, not for swim-
ming's, sake. Dr. Bashford Dean, of Columbia University, has
suggested to me that the movements may not be those of swim-
ming, but only of running. At all events, they are utterly dif-
ferent from those of an adult fowl. In the case of the adult
there is no vigorous instinct to strike out toward the shore.
The hen may try to fly back into the boat if it is dropped over-
board, and whether dropped in or slung in from the shore will
float about aimlessly for a while and only very slowly reach the
shore. The movements the chick makes do look to be such as
trying to run in water might lead to, but it is hard to see why a
hen shouldn't run to get out of cold water as well as a chick.
If, on the other hand, the actions of the chick are due to a real
swimming instinct, it is easy to see that, being unused, the in-
stinct might wane as the animal grew up.

Such instinctive coordinations as these, together with the
walking, running, prooning of feathers, stretching out of leg

INSTINCTIVE REACTION OF YOUNG CHICKS. 287

backwards, scratching the head, etc., noted by other observers,
make the infant chick a very interesting contrast to the infant
man. That the helplessness of the child is a sacrifice to plas-
ticity, instability and consequent power to develop we all know ;
but one begins to realize how much of a sacrifice when one
sees what twenty-one days of embryonic life do for the chick
brain. And one cannot help wondering whether some of the
space-perception we trace to experience, some of the coordina-
tions which we attribute to a gradual development from random,
accidentally caused movements may not be more or less defi-
nitely provided for by the child's inherited brain structure.
Walking has been found to be instinctive ; why not other things ?

INSTINCTIVE EMOTIONAL REACTIONS.

The only experiments to which I wish to refer at length
under this heading are some concerning the chick's instinctive
fears. Before describing them it may be well to mention their
general bearing on the results obtained by Spalding and Mor-
gan. They corroborate Morgan's decision that no well-defined
specific fears are present ; that the fears of young chicks are of
strange moving objects in general, shock in general, strange
sounds in general. On the other hand, no such general dis-
turbances of the chick's environment led to such well-marked
reactions as Spalding described. And so when Morgan thinks
that such behavior as Spalding witnessed on the part of the
chick that heard the hawk's cry demands for its explanation
nothing more than a general fear of strange sounds, my experi-
ments do not allow me to agree with him. If Spalding really
saw the conduct which he says the chick exhibited on the third
day of its life in the presence of man, and later at the stimulus
of the sight or sound of the hawk, there are specific reactions,
for the running, crouching, silence, quivering, etc., that one
gets by yelling, banging doors, tormenting a violin, throwing
hats, bottles, or brushes at the chick is never anything like so
pronounced and never lasts one-tenth as long as it did with
Spalding's chicks. But as to the fear of man, Spalding must
have been deluded. In the second, third and fourth days there
is no such reaction to the sight of man as he thought he saw.

255 EDWARD THORNDIKE.

Miss Hattie E. Hunt, in the American Journal of Psychology >
Vol. IX., No. i, asserts that there is no instinctive fear of a
cat. Morgan did not find such. I myself put chicks of 2, 5,
9 and 17 days (different individuals each time, n in all) in the
presence of a cat. They showed no fear ; went on eating as if
nothing about. The cat was still, or only slowly moving. I
further put a young kitten (eight inches long) in the pen with
chicks. He felt of them with his paw, and walked around
among them for five or ten minutes, yet they showed no fear
(nor did he instinctively attack them). If, however, you let a cat
jump at chicks in real earnest, they will not stay to be eaten,
but will manifest fear — at least chicks three to four weeks old
will. I did not try this experiment with a lot of chicks at dif-
ferent ages, because it seemed rather cruel and degrading to
the experimenter. When in the case of the older chicks nature
happened to make the experiment, it was hard to decide
whether there was more violent fear of the jumping cat than
there was when one threw a basket or foot-ball into the pen.
There was not very much more.

We may now proceed to a brief recital of the facts shown by
the experiments in so far as they are novel. It should be
remembered throughout that in every case chicks of different
ages were tested so as to demonstrate transitory instincts if such
existed — e. g., the presence of a fear of flame was tested with
chicks 59 and 60, one day old, 30 and 32, two days old, 21 and
22, three days old, 23 and 24, seven days old, 27 and 29, nine
days old, 16 and 19, eleven days old, and so on up to twenty
days old chicks. By thus using different subjects at each trial
one, of course, eliminates any influence of experience.

The first notable fact is that there develops in the first month
a general fear of novel objects in motion. For four or five days
there seems to be no such. You may throw a hat or slipper or
shaving-mug at a chick of that age, and he will do no more than
get out of the way of it. But a twenty-five days old chick will
generally chirr, run and crouch for five or ten seconds. My
records show this sort of thing beginning about the tenth day,
but it is about ten days more before it is very marked. In gen-
eral, also, the reaction is more pronounced if a lot of chicks are

INSTINCTIVE REACTION OF YOUNG CHICKS. 289

together, and is then displayed earlier (only two at a time
were taken in the experiments the results of which have just
been quoted). Thus the reaction is to some degree a social
performance, the presence of other chicks combining with the
strange object to increase the vigor of the reaction. Chicks
ordinarily scatter apart when they thus run from an object.

One witnesses a similar gradual growth of the fear of man
(not as such probably, but merely as a large moving object).
For four or five days you can jump at the chick, grab at it with
your hands, etc., without disturbing it in the least. A chick
twenty days old, however, although he has never been touched
or approached by a man, and in some cases never seen one ex-
cept as the daily bringer of food, and has never been in any
way injured by any large moving object of any sort, will run
from you if you try to catch him or even get very near him.
There is, however, even then, nothing like the utter fear de-
scribed by Spalding.

Up to thirty days there was no fear of a mocking bird into
whose cage the chicks were put, no fear of a stuffed hawk or a
stuffed owl (kept stationary). Chicks try to escape from water
(even though warmed to the temperature of their bodies) from
the very first. Up to forty days there appears no marked wan-
ing of the instinct. They did not show any emotional reaction
to the flame produced by six candles stuck closely together.
From the start they react instinctively to confinement, to loneli-
ness, to bodily restraint, but their feeling in these cases would
better be called discomfort than fear. From the loth or I2th to
the 2Oth day, and probably later and very possibly earlier, one
notices in chicks a general avoidance of open places. Turn
them out in your study and they will not go out into the middle
of the room, but will cling to the edges, go under chairs, around
table-legs and along the walls. One sees nothing of the sort up
through the fourth day. Some experiments with feeding hive
bees to the chicks are interesting in connection with the follow-
ing statement by Lloyd Morgan: " One of my chicks, three
or four days old, snapped up a hive bee and ran off with it.
Then he dropped it, shook his head much and often, and wiped
his bill repeatedly. I do not think he had been stung ; probably

290 EDWARD THORNDIKE.

he tasted the poison" (Int. to Comp. Psy., p. 86.) I fed seven
bees apiece to three chicks from ten to twenty days old. They
ate them all greedily ', first mashing them down on the ground
violently in a rather dextrous manner. Apparently this method
of treatment is peculiar to the object. Chicks three days old
did not eat the bees. Some pecked at them but none would
snap them up, and when the bee approached they sometimes
sounded the danger-note. Finally an account may be given of
the reaction of chicks at different ages, up to twenty-six days,
to loud sounds. These were the sounds made by clapping the
hands, slamming a door, whistling sharply, banging a tin pan
on the floor, mewing like a cat, playing a violin, thumping a
coal-scuttle with a shovel, etc., etc. Two chicks were together
in each experiment. Three-fourths of the times no effect was
produced. On the other occasions there was some running or
crouching or, at least, starting to run or crouch ; but, as was
said, nothing like what Spalding reports as the reaction to the
'cheep' of the hawk. It is interesting to notice that the two
most emphatic reactions were to the imitation mew. One time
a chick ran wildly, chirring, and then crouched and stayed still
until I had counted 105. The other time a chick crouched and
stayed still until I counted 40. But the other chick with them
did not and in a dozen other cases the ' meaw ' had no effect.

I think that the main interest of most of these experiments
is the proof they afford that instinctive reactions are not neces-
sarily definite, perfectly appropriate and unvarying responses to
accurately sensed and, so to speak, estimated stimuli. The old
notion that instinct was a God-given substitute for reason left us
an unhappy legacy in the shape of the tendency to think of all
inherited powers of reaction as definite particular acts invariably
done in the presence of certain equally definite situations. Such
an act as the spider's web-spinning might be a stock example.
Of course, there are many such instinctive reactions in which a
well-defined act follows a well-defined stimulus with the regu-
larity and precision with which the needle approaches the mag-
net. But our experiments show that there are acts just as truly
instinctive, depending in just the same way on inherited brain-
structure, but characterized by being vague, irregular, and, to
some extent, dissimilar reactions to vague, complex situations.

INSTINCTIVE REACTION OF YOUNG CHICKS. 291

The same stimulus doesn't always produce just the same
effect, doesn't produce precisely the same effect in all individ-
uals. The chick's brain is evidently prepared in a general way
to react more or less appropriately to certain stimuli, and these
reactions are among the most important of its instincts or inher-
ited functions. But yet one cannot take these and find them
always and everywhere. This helps us further to realize the
danger of supposing that in observation of animals you can de-
pend on a rigid uniformity. One would never suppose because
one boy twirled his thumb when asked a question that all boys
of that age did. But naturalists have been ready to believe that
because one young animal made a certain response to a certain
stimulus, the thing was an instinct common to all in precisely
that same form. But a loud sound may make one chick run,
another crouch, another give the danger call, and another do
nothing whatever.

In closing this article I may speak of one instinct which
shows itself clearly from at least as early as the sixth day,
which is preparatory to the duties of adult life and of no other
use whatsoever. It is interesting in connection with the general
matter of animal play. The phenomenon is as follows : The
chicks are feeding quietly when suddenly two chicks rush
at each other, face each other a moment and then go about their
business. This thing keeps up and grows into the ordinary
combat of roosters. It is rather a puzzle on any theory that an
instinct needed so late should begin to develop so early.

DISCUSSIONS.

PROFESSOR MtJNSTERBERG ON MYSTICISM.

The criticism of l The New Psychology/ it seems, has a sequel.
We have an equal and presumably impartial attack upon Mysticism,
of which one form is psychical research. In taking up the cudgels,
however, I am not going to defend this curious department of inquiry.
Even among those who are interested in it there is room enough for
scepticism of the most scrutinizing sort. I accord any man whatever
opinion he pleases to have about it. But I should ask that the
scientific method that Professor Miinsterberg demands in this and all
psychological work be represented in his criticism, or a frank admission
made that dogmatism is the fundamental instrument of knowledge.
To me his recent article in the Atlantic Monthly is one of the most
amusing documents that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I
am not going to attack the discussion as a whole, but only to deal with
that part of it which criticises psychical research. Let us see how
much science there is in his method.

Professor Miinsterberg in one passage confesses that until the last
summer vacation he felt rather guilty for forming and stating opinions
on this subject before reading its literature. He then proceeds to en-
joy his vacation ' in working through more than a hundred volumes
of the so-called evidence.' ! ! ! Just think of that! A scientist spend-
ing the summer rest of a few weeks reading more than one hundred
volumes of matters involving a question of evidence, and actually
forming what he thinks a scientific conclusion on them ! ! I do not
believe there are twenty-five volumes in existence on this subject that
any sane man ought to read at all, let alone doing it at such a time.
I have watched this subject for ten years, and have in all that time read
no more than ten volumes, some of them exceedingly carefully, and I
did not dream of forming an opinion or irreversable conclusion upon
them. On this subject of psychical research, unless you have made
sufficiently decisive experiments personally (not merely curing one
hallucination by suggestion), it may take a hundred years to arrive at
any scientific conclusion at all. But would Professor Miinsterberg ad-
vise his students to study psychology generally at the rate of ' more
292

DISCUSS/QMS. 293

than a hundred volumes ' a vacation when the temperature is between
eighty and a hundred ? Moreover, what right has a professed scientist
to depend upon books, no matter how many of them, for a conclusion
that involves matters of very delicate experiment, and not analytical
and introspective methods ? Professor Miinsterberg says that he is not
a detective. He should then not pronounce upon problems that re-
quire that sort of ability. Here is a place for a confession of ignorance
and to eschew the pretensions of knowledge.

Apropos of this last remark it is well to recall another singular
confession of our author. His reason for not making a personal in-
vestigation into this question is that it is not * dignified to visit such
performances ' as seances ! ! If physiology and biology had acted on
this maxim we should have known very little about life on the one
hand, and about brain processes on the other, on which Professor
Munsterberg relies so much for his assurance against mysticism.
Dignity is not anything that should stand in the way of experiment or
exact method. I confess I admire Darwin for playing a bassoon to his
garden plants to test some supposition, though his neighbors, had they
seen him at it, would have thought him suitable for a lunatic asylum.
Science at one time was too dignified to examine the stories about
falling meteors, but it came to terms at last. It did the same with
hypnotism. It first packed a jury to condemn it, and thought it had
laid the monster, but after forty years contempt decided to embrace it
as a fact nevertheless ! ! Its dignity would not save its scepticism.

It seems, again, that Professor Munsterberg cannot protect himself
against fraud. He thinks the scientist is trained to ' an instinctive
confidence in his cooperators.' Granted. All scientific truth involving
the cooperation of others, then, must be taken on authority. Every-
thing depends upon the assurance of men that there is no fraud who
have either not looked for it or are not able to detect it ! ! When
science comes to that pass I shall have done with it. A man who
cannot protect himself against fraud must not expect his opinion to be
worth very much. He may read ' more than a hundred volumes' in
his vacation and form theories in that way, but he must not expect us
to take his experimental work seriously.

Let us have some science. "If I talk with others whom I wish
to convince there is no physical process in question, mind reaches
mind, thought reaches thought, but in this aspect thoughts are not
psychophysical phenomena in space and time, but attitudes and propo-
sitions in the sphere of the will." Well, this is either telepathy with
a vengeance or it is blank nonsense. Just think of the statement that

294 MYSTICISM.

there is no physical process in the communication of thoughts ! !
Where is the evidence for all this ? Can science escape the demand
for fact to prove an assertion ? What facts has Professor Miinsterberg
to show that this view is either true or intelligible? Then, what does
he mean by a 4 proposition in the sphere of the will ' ? While we are
playing * ducks and drakes ' with the language of science, why not go
further and say that fear is a feeling in the sphere of logic ? As to
what Professor Miinsterberg may intend by this description of the
communication of ideas, I can well imagine. But I can do it only by
having some knowledge of the process myself, and not from any state-
ment that he makes. When I wish to transmit my thought to others
by talking I make a disturbance in the air, and the receiver interprets
the sound. Now, if 4 communication ' be convertible with l interpre-
tation ' we may agree that there l is no physical process in question/
but in all intelligible parlance, outside the suppositions of telepathy,
4 communication ' means that the physical process is a part of the
totality. Otherwise there is no interpretation even, and the only re-
source for common thoughts would be universal telepathy, which Pro-
fessor Miinsterberg will not admit as possible. And neither for nor
against one or the other of the claims does he produce any facts ! ! It
is simply bald blank assertion, and this is supposed to be science after
laughing at the dogmatism of the Middle Ages !

We have another illustration of the same sort of thing. ll The
ethical belief in immortality means that as subjects of will we are im-
mortal; that is, that we are not reached by death. For the philo-
sophical mind, which sees the difference between reality and psycho-
logical transformation, immortality is certain; for him the denial of
immortality would be even quite meaningless. Death is a biological
phenomenon in the world of objects in time ; how, then, can death
reach a reality which is not an object, but an attitude, and, therefore,
neither in time nor space ? Our real inner subjective life has its felt
validity, not in time, but beyond time : it is eternal." This is sci-
ence, I suppose ! ! Not a fact to prove it. It is said that l philosophy '
shows this. Whose philosophy ? On what facts is it founded ? Then,
again, what is immortal ? We are not told what it is. From a pre-
vious reference to the ' ethical belief ' Professor Miinsterberg says that
it ends in mysticism, and I imagine that what he says of it here is in-
tended to be condemned as compared with the philosophic verdict.
If so it cannot be the subject of will, and if it is not this we have im-
mortality affirmed without telling us what is immortal. But assuming
it is ' we as subjects of will ' that are immortal, what is this ' we,*

295

especially when an earlier passage asserts that the 4 inner reality,'
which is here said to be eternal, ; never consists of psychological
phenomena.' But this sort of criticism aside as savoring of quibbles,
I must press the scientific demand for fact to show that the tremendous
assertion here made has another basis than the mere speculative
opinion of the author. As for myself I must contend that there is not
one iota of rational evidence for immortality, of any intelligible or de-
sirable kind, outside the sphere and method of psychical research. I
do not maintain that even this is rational, but it is all that can lay the
slightest claim to being rational from the standpoint of science, and
the philosophic standpoint I absolutely reject as merely a process of
looking into one's navel to solve the riddle of the Sphinx. Heaven
knows that the spiritualist's 4 scientific ' evidence for his belief has
been meager and poor enough, but the philosopher's has been worse.
It has rested mainly on ' dignity ' and k dignified ' methods, tempered
with equivocation and hypocrisy to escape persecution. I follow the
method and accept the verdict of science on this matter. If it gives
me trustworthy facts making immortality a rational belief, I can affirm
it; if it cannot produce these facts I either suspend judgment or
accept the probability, from the connection of conciousness with a
perishable organism, that this function dissolves with it. And when
I speak of immortality I mean personal survival ; that is, the con-
tinuance of consciousness beyond the life of the body. Any other
immortality I do not care a picayune for, and would not be caught
juggling with any affirmative proposition containing the term. What
amazes me is that any man making the slightest pretense to scientific
method would, after the terrible lesson of scholasticism, attempt for a
moment to make such a tremendous assertion as that of immortality
without at least a small array of empirical facts to support it. There
is another very singular passage. After telling us in fine language
that science must not prejudge a question, must not 4 reject a fact be-
cause it does not fit into the scientific system of to-day,' etc., Professor
Miinsterberg goes on to say: " This is the old text," etc., " Yet it is
wrong and dangerous from beginning to end, and has endlessly more
harm in it than a superficial view reveals, as it is in last conse-
quences not only the death of real science, but worse, the death of real
idealism." Well, we have to choose between psychical research and
idealism. But what is idealism? Is that so clear in these times that
men have no freedom to question it? When I read a book or essay
on idealism I am reminded of the sermon which the old woman could
not understand, but which, nevertheless, edified and consoled her by

296 MYSTICISM.

the presence in it of ' the blessed word Mesopotamia.' Idealism is
unintelligible, but then it is the basis of ethics and art ! I say frankly
that if I had to choose between psychical research and idealism I
should unhesitatingly take the side of psychical research for clearness
and knowing * where you are at.' For I do not know any field of
thought which is more full of intellectual hobgoblins than that of
Kanto-Hegelian idealism. I am not opposing idealism, because if I
am allowed to define it for myself I should say that it is a mere truism.
It is to me like the proposition that water is wet or blue is a color.
But I do not expect to solve any problems with it. Least of all, do I
consider it a sanctuary in which I am not allowed to say anything
about either materialism or spiritualism. The only way that idealism
can get into antagonism with any theory is to limit itself to solipsism.
In any other form it is only a field for that kind of intellectual gym-
nastics which, as Kant remarks, characterizes the heroes of Valhalla.
They are forever hewing down shadows which only spring up again
to renew their ceaseless and bloodless conflict.

But the most remarkable thing about this passage is its distinct
renunciation of scientific method for a dogmatism that knows all about
the universe without any further inquiry. I do not see why a man talks
any more about 4 science ' and ' scientific ' method as an enemy of
superstition when he shows that he has no other conception of it than
that which denies the right to revise existing opinion. Evidently, sci-
ence and dogmatism are the same here, while idealism is ' that blessed
word ' which is to exorcise all spirits except its own, and they are as
shadowy as the ghosts that inhabit Homer's Cimmerian shades.

Taking the article as a whole, I do not see why Professor Miin-
sterberg did not distinguish between the relevancy of the various al-
leged phenomena that he was criticising. Table turning, telepathy,
clairvoyance, hypnotism and what not were lumped together with no
more conception of their differences than is usually displayed by the
spiritualist himself. The fact is that not one of them, unless we
except telepathy, even if they were genuine, has any bearing on the
question of spiritualism, and telepathy, if true, might be used as a
very effective bar to spiritualism. But as in the phenomena of in-
sanity and hallucinations, which, by the way, Professor Miinsterberg is
not too dignified to study, we can classify alleged facts and discuss their
relevancy to the hypotheses which they are said to support. Professor
Miinsterberg should have read that hundred volumes with sufficient
care to discover the distinction that a scientist ought to master at first.
There is no use to assume that the spiritualist has the right conception

DISCUSSIONS. 297

either of his problems or of his facts. I consider that he has neither, as a
rule, and it would save some reputation if these alleged phenomena
could be treated as patiently as are those of insanity. I am here de-
fending only the method of psychical research. I do not care what
becomes of its facts or alleged phenomena. I merely ask that its
critics deal with it from the inside, and not in a confessedly a priori
manner. My attention to it for ten years has convinced me that there
is enough in the subject to engage serious consideration, no matter
what the conclusions may be. In fact, the plausibility of some tre-
mendous claims is so great, and so thoroughly in accord with what
the common mind in this sceptical age would like to see established,
that it will require all the severity and sceptical scrutiny of scientific
method at our command to get any proper attention to normal psy-
chology. I happen to know some genuine supernormal phenomena,
not explainable by either fraud, illusion, or suggestion, and whose
significance, or at least plausible significance, will have to be reckoned
with by men who, like the mediaeval theologians refusing to look
through Galileo's telescope, cannot sacrifice their dignity for the sake
of controlling a movement instead of following in its wake. Some
of those who are making haste to laugh at it without studying it and
its alleged facts at first hand will find themselves where they will
have either to lose their influence for all psychology or, in order to
save it, will have to 4 eat crow,' and 4 white crow' at that. It is not
the remarkable nature of the alleged phenomena of psychical research
that gives them so much interest and influence ; for the scientific
scepticism of the last century has very well fortified the average in-
telligence against some of the vagaries of spiritualism. But it is the
wonderful triumphs of invention and discovery in the fields of both
science and art that have destroyed the ordinary criteria of the limits of
human knowledge and capacity, so that the average mind is rapidly com-
ing to expect that almost anything is possible. Electricity, the tele-
phone, Roentgen rays, the phonograph, surgery, hypnotism, etc., have
opened up such a fairy land of wonders and possibilities to the com-
mon mind that it is not surprising to see many otherwise balanced in-
tellects yielding to the claims of spiritualism. Science must reckon
with this condition of mind and, instead of employing dogmatism
against it, treat its alleged phenomena in the same serious and sympa-
thetic manner that insanity receives. Science has taught us not to
burn witches, as they did once, but to put them in asylums. Perhaps
the same generous treatment of psychical research may still further
extend the operations of humanity. To do this also it will not re-

THEORY OF RELIGION.

quire us to spend our summer vacations in reading any very large
amount of occult lore.

JAMES H. HYSLOP.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

MR. MARSHALL AND THE THEORY OF RELIGION.

Perhaps the most interesting problem with which evolutionary sci-
ence has to deal is as to the social function of religion. Religion as a
very general and large phenomenon could have survived and grown
only as a useful element in the struggle of existence of the individual
and his society. This evolutionary assumption that what is, subsists
and increases only by virtue of function ; that natural evolution is an
evolution of utilities, and that useless factors are always speedily elim-
inated in the struggle of existence, is really a close approach to the
old doctrine of evidences by which the theologian makes the warrant
of religion to be the function which it plays in man's life. For in-
stance, the apologist for prayer has always assured us that such a prac-
tice could not have arisen and developed except that it met a real need
of human life and was in some way truly answered, and the evolution-
ist as biologist and sociologist likewise finds that prayer by its very
existence shows its validation as an important factor in human life, if
not in the way the religionist assumes, at least in some way. It is an
interesting fact that, though science, by widening the domain of natural-
ism indefinitely, has shown that the religions are ineffectual in their
methods, yet science, by its own assumption, sees in religion a func-
tion which has arisen in the struggle of existence.

Of recent interpretations of religion from the point of view of evo-
lutionary science Mr. H. R. Marshall's l Instinct and Reason* is the
most notable and thoroughgoing. Mr. Marshall finds that evolution
is toward organism, which is action of the part for the whole, and in-
stinct is the psychic side of this organic tendency, while reason is the
correspondent of individualistic action. The main stress of evolution
is to subordinate the individual organ to the organic whole, the eye to
minister to the body rather than to itself, the individual body to minister
to the perpetuation of the species and of social wholes. But indi-
vidualism is also a primitive and strong interfering tendency, and so,
to give weight to the organic, Nature gives birth to religion as an in-
stinct restraining us from undue individualism. Thus, when inclined to
selfish actions religion appears as restraint, and so impulsive to social
activity. The earliest sociality has to do with the perpetuation of the

DISCUSSIONS. 299

species and the family relations ; hence the earliest form of religion is
phallicism. Religion is in this and all its later forms fundamentally a
1 governing instinct ' as suppressing individualism and helping to so-
ciality. This is its utility amidst all its seemingly strange and per-
verse forms, an eminent utility which is subserved by all expressions
of the religious instinct, fasting, prayer, sacrifice, etc.

That social utility is the function whereby religion has persisted
and increased in human affairs is a familiar thought, but the merit of
Mr. Marshall is that he has given this a large biological setting, and
has brought it into line with the evolutionism of to-day. In his theory
religion loses its absolutism as worship of the Deity. Religion is
*' the restraint of individualistic impulses to racial ones," implying that
the belief in the Deity as usually found being from the psychological
point of view an attachment to, rather than of the essence of, the re-
ligious feeling. The conservatism of religion means merely that it
is instinct, which is by its nature conservative, and thus religion opposes
individualism as an action variant from the general racial forms. Re-
ligion appears as restraining influence, an instinctive * do notj even in
its most egotistic forms, as it marks a dependence and a certain out-
ward reference of conduct. Thus religion has its value, not in its sup-
posed intrinsic advantage of obtaining good things from a deity, which
is mostly fiction and illusion, but as repressive to the lower selfish in-
stincts which tend to make man an independent unsocial being.

Now, in touching upon this theory, we must first remark that it re-
poses in a large part upon a one-sided view of organism. Mere natural
organism is in its origin and early stage not an altruism of part to
whole ; it is in the struggle of existence a method of advantage by a
reciprocity of individuals ; a mode of exchange of values whereby the
exchanger always seeks to give the least for the most ; to get off with
as small a quid pro quo as possible, or none at all, if the individual is
strong enough. The struggle for advantage in organic reciprocity is
common to the origin and early progress of organism and of altruism as
mere justice. In the crude struggle of existence organic social forms
arise and develop to a certain degree of community of interest and
reciprocity, but with an intrinsic struggle within the organism itself
for dominance by each organ. Societies are very largely of this type
even in civilized life, as in the keen rivalry of industrialism and com-
mercialism, which takes every advantage for a bargain. And in every
organism under purely natural conditions there is internal disharmony
and rivalry as keen in its way and as selfish as the struggle of the
individual society with other societies. Hence religion in the sense of

300 THEORY OF RELIGION.

restraint does not appear in pure naturalism, and is not essential to
organic activity. The only restraint in elementary societies is weak-
ness ; the individual does not take more because he dares not. The
social organism as range of reciprocity is at first wholly governed in
the measure of reciprocity by force and cunning, and thus religion as
restraint cannot be accounted coextensive with organism.

Now, in the primitive social status, where a mere competitive
reciprocity is the mainspring, religion does in a very real sense exist
as direct function as contrasted with the indirect function of restraint.
Religion is primarily a method of reciprocity with superiors, a method
involved in the struggle of existence, a method of worship, homage,
devotion, etc., to find favor and obtain advantage with superiors,
human and extra-human. Religion is a mode of socialization, a tie
which binds child to parent, wife to husband, vassal to lord, as well
as a tie to other superiors (supposedly existing in our view) as ances-
tors and nature deities. In militarism the direct function of religion
is very great, and most very successful military leaders have been
largely successful by being able to make themselves worshipped and
adored by their men, and so securing perfect obedience, and unity,
and dependence. And the leader surrounds himself with godhood by
his special relationship to the ancestral and nature deities. It is in
this way that what appear to us fictitious deities exercise a real and
valuable utility in socialization ; that is, by association with the living
leader and chief. At the same time it must be recognized that mere
religiousness as dependence upon the extra-human superior has been
disadvantageous as destroying intelligent self-reliance. The superior
and intense religiousness of the Hebrews never made them a great con-
quering nation. In the military competitive struggle of tribes for ex-
istence in West Africa, Miss Kings ley notes that the Fans, a compar-
atively unreligious tribe, are in the ascendant. In modern times the
most successful militarism is not the most religious, but the most
scientifically self-reliant. And the tendency is to rely less and less on
religious observance, as noting of omens, invoking deities, etc., and
to give the time to drill and tactics, and to make the soldier self-reliant
in every emergency.

But undoubtedly religion as direct function plays yet a most im-
portant function in militarism and in political and social aggregation.
A worship and homage bind the masses to the Czar Alexander and to
Queen Victoria. Human beings transcendently exalted by their
power, intellect, wealth, still enlist a vast amount of religious feeling
and activity toward themselves, which unifies society under their abso-
lute leadership.

DISCUSSIONS. 301

But the tendency of modern socialization is not a unification of
inferiors to supreme superiors, but of equals to equals in democracy.
Hence, as the supremely superior is lost, religion as direct social func-
tion is lost also. But this form of religion has a survival form in the
phrases of courtesy, such as, " I pray you and beg you to accept," by
which by politeness we put ourselves as suppliants, but this is a mere
ghost of the historic reality. Democracy emphasizes vox populi as vox
dei ; hence a positivist religion, religion as worship of humanity, is its
natural outcome and its natural binding tie. And this religion directly
emphasizes the true organic dependence of the individual and the
supremacy of the race as such. But this evolution has scarcely begun,
and it throws no light on the historic function of religion, and it can
hardly be claimed that the direct function of religion sufficiently ac-
counts for the large and important place of religion in the history of
society, but it is still a valuable clue, and one much neglected by Mr.
Marshall. Wherever immense superiority has appeared man has sought
to ingratiate himself by acts of worship and homage, and this has
been, and still is, a successful method and a social tie within the range
of living human superiors ; but it has been utterly insufficient when
applied to what science deems fictitious superiors in environment, as
ghosts and nature deities ; nor can the religion of these have its full
function as merely a background and basis for the living human
superior fully to exalt himself and secure worship. Superior though
nature be, we now know that the only real adaptation to it is not by
the personal method of religion, but by intelligent self-reliant method
of applied science. A vast deal of historic religion has thus failed of
direct utility, and we can only suppose that the justification of its ex-
istence lies in some indirect function.

But, if as mere sanction and basis of authority of living human
superiority this religion is scarcely sufficient function, we may add
other indirect functions ; for instance, dependence for example and also
as restraint.

First, then, it may be said that religion as dependence and obedi-
ence thereby emphasizes and encourages a habit which is most neces-
sary to socialization. We must consider this function of religion as of
value in the history of society, and yet we must regard it as of no high
significance. And we must note that religion begins rather as inter-
dependence and reciprocity, the god being as dependent on the wor-
shipper as the worshipper on him. In this matter early religion but
reflects early society. But religion gradually loses reciprocity and be-
comes absolute dependence of man on deity, and at the same time

302 THEORY OF RELIGION.

society assumes forms of absolute dependence on supreme power of
monarch and despot and hierarch. It must, then, be considered likely
not merely that religion sets a model for social relations, but vice
versa also. Indeed, so far as religion concerns itself with the extra-
human it is probably derived in its forms and spirit from religion as
direct function in sociality. And, at any rate, religion as setting an ex-
ample of absolute dependence is harmful to high socialization. Re-
ligion as fostering mendicancy, poverty, and all forms of unreciprocal
dependence has been a distinct drag on social progress, which demands
a high interdependence. The dependent classes are the problem of
modern society. A vigorous independence and individuality is most
valuable in societies where freedom reigns, where initiative has the
freest scope, and progress is least hindered by conservative religion.
The evolution of society is from a bare competitive reciprocity up
through absolutism to the higher reciprocity of rational free indi-
vidualism. Modern society is dominated by the scientific spirit, which
demands that man work out his own salvation by practical apprecia-
tion of scientific knowledge and method. Science encourages an
intelligent dependence on the specialist, but recognizes infallibility
nowhere, and it must regard religion as anti-social so far as it em-
phasizes dependence on extra-human beings, and thus defeats real
social cooperation to secure the end. Thus the highest sociality is a
very complex interdependent, self-reliant specialism, which seeks to
control nature through knowledge by natural means. Thus the British
government repressing the plague in India is a higher, more success-
ful type of society than the Hindu attitude and method toward the
plague. And so everywhere religious socialization tends to be sup-
planted by scientific, and so far as religion hinders, by example or
precept, it must be accounted as loss, as pathological rather than really
functional.

We have mentioned the direct function of religion and one indirect
function, namely as setting example and giving emphasis to depend-
ence, and thus helping the bond between inferior and superior in
society. These forms of function have little if any notice from Mr.
Marshall, but the sociologist must, I think, regard them as very im-
portant, although hardly solving the whole problem of the function of
religion. However, the negative side of the indirect function we have
mentioned is restraint. That is, it is plain that religion, by encourag-
ing dependence, thereby restrains and inhibits independence. In the
moment of individualistic action we receive an instinctive check and an
impulse towards social and racial activity. Religion thus holds us
to the narrow path of typical racial action.

DISCUSSIONS. 303

In regarding religion as merely negative and indirect function in
repressing the lower, unorganic, individualistic instincts, Mr. Marshall
must highly offend religionists in general, who make religion the abso-
lute and supreme end of life, and not a social means. Religion has al-
ways had to do battle with the State, which has ever sought to enslave
her and make her a tool, and the restraint function theory lies along the
same line. But we note that so soon as the feeling permeates religion
itself that God and the God-consciousness are mere social instruments
religion is decadent, becoming formal and losing real vitality. That
is, when indirect function becomes direct, and religion is observed for
its social values, it loses its real power. It is certain that religion be-
coming conscious that it is not attaining its supposed and natural end,
but seeking to continue itself as a mere social function, soon loses this
value. However, in my paper on the psychology of religion (PSY-
CHOLOGICAL REVIEW, May, 1898) I have discussed this point of the
socialistic theory, and it is only necessary here to remark the paradox
that religion must be kept in ignorance of itself if it is to be itself and
exercise its due function.

That restraint, the negative indirect function, as impulse which
keeps us from offending the social order, counts largely in explaining
the persistence of religion will at once be granted ; but it cannot be
regarded as the sole social utility of religion, as we have just sought to
show. But early religion is mainly positive in function, and it seems
highly improbable that it originated as negative inhibitive instinct.
Religion primarily is a direct mode of obtaining advantage from high
superiors, and has thus been carried on by successive generations until
it has become instinctive, as, for instance, in prayer. It is not unlikely
that prayer originated in the field of battle, when a fallen wounded foe
prayed for his life to his conqueror. Religion arises, like all other
utilities, as activity hit upon in a critical moment, in this case by some
inferior in relation to superior, and then continued and improved and ulti-
mately embodied in the race as instinct. This is the assumption which
brings religion into the line of evolution. A Gold Coast negro prays,
" God give me to-day rice and yams, gold and agries; give me slaves,
riches and health, and that I may be brisk and swift !" (Taylor,
Primitive Culture, Vol. II., p. 367.) Where is restraint implied in
such religion ? And yet it is an extremely common form in all degrees
of culture, especially the lower. We cannot see trace of restraint-func-
tion in a vast mass of religion which must be accounted for. It is
mainly as conducing toward a human intermediary as religious spe-
cialist, the sorcerer, and so towards a religious organization of society,

304 THEORY OF RELIGION.

that such prayer and such religion in general have social bearing and
utility, and partly as fostering the habit of dependence ; but the re-
straint function cannot be said to appear at this stage. The simple,
self-seeking one seeks without restraint a gratification by religious
means. In a vast deal of similar religion there is evidently no conflict
of racial and individual, and hence no higher governing instinct, as
religion, to enter in and restrain the powerful instinctive, selfish
activity. When religion becomes not merely personal means, but
personal indulgence, religion becomes unrestraint, as we see, for in-
stance, in many phenomena of revivalism. (See, for instance, Sidis,
Psychology of Suggestion, passim. ) Religion has done much to retard
society by its formal conservatism, and to break up society in the heat
of powerful emotions ; and all this must be taken into account in a
full view of the subject. The reformer and radical believe they have
the God-given message and methods, and thus society has often been
disturbed and sometimes even the family set at nought, as in hermit-
age and celibacy. In Christianity itself the family is secondary, and
the disciple must be ready to hate even father and mother. Religion
of the highest type, as interfering with the natural evolution of worldly
success and advantage by individuals and societies, and setting up an
unworldly, mystic, spiritual kingdom, destroys natural evolution, and
hence naturalistic science must consider it pathological or seek some
indirect function, as does Mr. Marshall.

Mr. Marshall's definition of religion as an instinctive check to indi-
vidualistic action, a * stopj ' do notj coming as from a high divine
source, is far too narrow for either psychology or sociology, which must
study religion as a general relation of inferior to superior in manifold
forms and functions, as direct, and sanction, as example, as restraint.
Every hypothesis, such as Marshall's, however skillfully deduced from
biological assumptions, must be tested without bias by definite and
extended study of historic facts, an immense and very complex field.
And as Mr. Marshall fails to do this the scientific mind is disap-
pointed. If even the religious experience of some single individual
were thoroughly analyzed, something would have been gained for
scientific exactness, but, as it is, his work remains as at best an ingenious
suggestive speculation.

HIRAM M. STANLEY.

LAKE FOREST, ILL.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

The Psychology of Peoples. GUSTAVE LE BON. New York, The

Macmillan Company. 1898. Pp. xx -f- 236.

As the title implies, the author believes that it is the psychology,
chiefly the character, of peoples which determine their arts, institu-
tions and history. The problems involved have been treated more
fully in works on the civilizations of the East, and " this short volume
may be regarded as a brief synthesis." ** Each of the chapters com-
posing it should be regarded as the conclusion arrived at by anterior
investigations." The work is divided into five books dealing with the
psychological characteristics of races, how these are displayed in the
various elements of the culture of races, race-history determined by
race-character, how psychological characteristics are modified, and the
dissociation of race-character and decadence.

The central idea of the work is that races possess souls the acquisi-
tion of which marks the apogee of their greatness and the loss of
which marks their decay. In this soul, sentiment, beliefs and inter-
ests are the moving and directing principles, and these constitute the
basis of what the author calls character. Very meagre importance is
assigned to the role of intelligence in the civilization of peoples, even
beliefs being determined by suggestion and imitation so far as they
affect the masses. Culture is merely a matter of memory: it can be
acquired by inferior races, but does not affect character. Inferior races
are distinguished from superior ones by differences of character solely ;
superior races are distinguished from each other by variations of both
character and intelligence. Wide variations between individuals are
the mark of developed races, but they do not count in determining the
rank of a race. In estimating character, the masses alone are to be
taken into account.

Ideas " do not exert an influence until, after a very slow evolution,
they have been transformed into sentiments and have come, in conse-
quence, to form part of character. They are then unaffected by argu-
ment and take a long time to disappear." u Religious ideas are
among the most important of the guiding ideas of a civilization. The
majority of historical events have been due indirectly to the variation of

305

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PEOPLES.

religious beliefs. The history of humanity has always run parallel to
that of its gods " (p. 235). " In religion, as in politics, success always
goes to those who believe, never to those who are sceptical, and if at
the present day it would seem as if the future belonged to the so-
cialists, in spite of the dangerous absurdity of their dogmas, the rea-
son is that they are now the only party possessing real convictions "
(p. 178). " Faith is the only serious enemy which faith has to fear."
" A people is only led by those who embody its dreams." The author
gives an interesting account of the genesis of such faiths, a process in
which reason plays but an insignificant, and suggestion an all-important,
role. Propagation of faith is never by argument, and always by asser-
tion, affirmation, impression. In time " the mere effect of imitation,
acting as a contagion, a faculty with which men are generally en-
dowed in as high a degree as are the big anthropoid apes," insures the
spread of the idea ; and then it is that it becomes a matter of senti-
ment and an element in character in the race. Then it is irresistible
to argument. It is such factors of the common life of individuals
which make the race l a permanent being that is independent of time/

The author holds that religious faith is the all-important moment
in the life of humanity, but he considers the objects of religious faith
to be « illusions,' ' chimeras,' < hallucinations' and ' the children of our
dreams,' leaving the reader to infer that humanity is self-deluded.
And this inference accords in general with the almost cynical and pes-
simistic tone which the author's thought at times assumes. He pre-
dicts that Europe will be swallowed up of socialism, and that America
will be torn to pieces by an inter-race war between the incompatible
elements that constitute her population. As to human nature in gen-
eral, " of all the factors in the development of civilizations, illusions
are, perhaps, the most powerful " (p. 207). The triumph of ideas " is
insured when they are defended by the hallucinated and by enthusiasts.
It is of slight importance whether they be true or not" (p. 206).
" Doubtless it is man who created the gods, but after having created
them he promptly became their slave" (p. 192). Is it cynicism, or is
it simply a love for antithesis and epigram ?

The work gives an interesting account of many of the facts of the
race-consciousness and laws of its modifications. The style is inter-
esting and strong. Many valuable suggestions are contained in the
work. The author's personal philosophy of religion is, however,
irrelevant to the theme, and rather weakens than strengthens the clos-
ing chapters of the work.

BELOIT COLLEGE. GUY TAWNEY.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 307

Les origines de la psychologic contemporaine. D. MERCIER.

Louvain, Institut Superieure de Philosophic, 1897. Pp. xii -f 486.

Fr. 5.

This book is mainly a critical review of modern idealism from the
standpoint of the neo-scholastic. To him the development and out-
come of post-Cartesian idealism amounts to a reductio ad absurdum of
its fundamental assumption. This assumption is none other than the
sharp distinction introduced by Descartes between the two substances
soul and body, soul essentially thought, body essentially extension, the
two being utterly irreducible and incomparable, and their anion a
sphinx's riddle. Occasionalism, ontologism, and parallelism were but
so many artificial efforts to guess the riddle. More consequent is the neg-
ative attitude of idealism, beginning with Locke's denial of clear ideas
of the substances matter and mind, and passing through Berkeley's utter
rejection of matter, and Hume's utter rejection of mind, to Kant's de-
monstration that knowledge of substance was not only unattained, but
from the nature of thought unattainable. Kant still believed in em-
pirical certainty, but here the author finds him inconsequent. If the
objects of thought are determined by thought, no certainty is possible.
The system of Hegel did not escape the subjectivistic difficulty, and
was, indeed, a construction of the imagination rather than of reason
(239). The truly logical consequences of the Kantian principles are
seen in the doctrines of some recent French writers — such as Remacle,
who contends that agnostic idealism must be extended to cover ideas
themselves ; that is, that even inner experiences, as known, are not the
experiences as they are in themselves — or such as Louis Weber, who
concludes that the only truth is the truth of a judgment, that outside
of the judgment there is no existence.

This position of utter negation, though the only logical outcome
of idealism, is self -destructive (340). For a judgment is meaningless
unless it refers to some existence independent of the judgment. And
unless an object is known as it is in itself, it evidently cannot be known
to be different from our idea of it. The Kantian difficulty is the Car-
tesian folly, that of first conceiving a mind apart from its objects
(' pure' reason), and objects apart from any mind (things ' in them-
selves'), and then wondering how the two are to be brought together

(344)-

As idealism proceeds from Descartes' definition of the soul, so from
his definition of the physical has grown the conception of a universal
reign of mechanical law. If all other bodies are machines, why not
the human body ; and if the single human body, why not those largei

308 PSYCHOLOGIE CONTEMPORAINE.

organisms, the species in its development (Darwin), and human so-
ciety in its history (Comte) ? The system of Comte is thus on its
positive side a carrying-out of the Cartesian doctrine of body, while
on its negative, anti-metaphysical side it is an attempt to escape the
more brutal materialistic consequences of the same doctrine (77).

Thus our author traces back to Descartes the two negative
characteristics of contemporary psychology ; its idealistic dependence,
in all matters of theory, on the data of consciousness alone, and its
positivistic neglect of ontology and rational psychology. Its third
great characteristic, derived from natural science, is its increasing use
of experiment. The author brings together evidence of the neglect of
metaphysics in the universities and of the vigor of experimental study.

Among contemporary psychologists, Mercier picks out three as
attempting either to harmonize or to supplement the current Cartesian
tendencies. Spencer attempts a synthesis of the various conflicting
elements. But he supplies no true organic unity. Nor does his
4 transfigured realism ' amount to more than a hazy belief. As for
his doctrine of universal evolution, it is a mere expansion by analog/
of a biological hypothesis, and owes its prestige less to agreement
with facts than to its hold on the imagination (144, 145)- Fouillee,
though idealist and positivist, tries to avoid some of the negative con-
sequences of these doctrines by introducing the conception of * idees-
forces,' i. e., of the idea as dynamic, and of conscious or sub-conscious
life as the dynamic principle of all physical existence. But when he
would furnish a ground for knowledge of substantial reality, he can
do no better than to allow the dynamic idea to create or postulate the
reality it wants ('fiat Deus'). Wundt would enrich idealism by
substituting the conception of * actuality ' for the conception of sub-
stance, and voluntarism for intellectualism. The latter attempt he
carries too far. His genesis of ideas from the action of ' pure will '
is as much a creation ' ex nihilo ' as the intellectualist's derivation of
the will from mere ideas (214). Yet Wundt is not far from the
kingdom. If he " could disencumber himself of his idealistic and
positivistic prejudices, and of the false notion of substance that he
borrowed from Kant, and follow freely the direction which his own
researches force upon him, he would logically be led to accept the
fundamental theories of Aristotle's psychology. He would no longer
consider the characteristic mark of the psychical as residing in con-
sciousness. He would accept * * * the conception which regards the
soul as ' the first entelechy of the living body.' And the soul, so consid-
ered, would appear in all truth as 4 that empirical concept of which

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 309

everyone makes use who really and successfully cultivates empirical
psychology and not barren speculation'" (216).

This is the doctrine of the soul which the neo-scholastic pro-
pounds in place of the Cartesian separation between body and soul.
Man as we know him is not a pure consciousness, but a compound of
mind and body. Results deduced from the conception of conscious-
ness as isolated from the body are not applicable to the actual man.
Psychology, so understood, is an arbitrary abstraction. What is wanted
is an anthropology, based upon the fundamental thesis of the substantial
unity of man (295). The soul of man is the soul of the entire man,
and is not to be found wholly in consciousness. Its primordial func-
tion is not thought or feeling, but the « informing and animating of
the matter of the body.'

Between the soul and its acts we must, on metaphysical grounds,
assume the existence of faculties, substantially distinct from the soul
(304) . Since a faculty is simply a means of arriving at an act, there
are as many separate faculties as there are types of the soul's action.
There are five groups of faculties, those of organic life, those of sen-
sory knowledge, those of intellectual knowledge, those of will, and
those of locomotion. Feeling and will, on the other hand, are not
separate acts, but parts of the same act. Feeling is but the passive
side which appears in every state of consciousness, but which has been
overlooked because the mind, in its Cartesian isolation, was, almost
of necessity, conceived as the source of its own ideas and as altogether
active.

In conclusion, the author sketches the history of the neo-Thomistic
movement, recognizes that the dogmatic method of the old scholastic
philosophers must now-a-days be replaced by a critical method, and
urges his colleagues to foster experimental psychology, for which their
own fundamental conceptions provide the only logical basis.

The above summary of the author's principal line of argument
passes by several interesting chapters, such as those which defend the
conceptions of supra-sensible knowledge and of finality immanent in
nature. To criticise the author's views would lead us too far afield.
His style is clear and attractive. His argument is skillfully conducted,
and is well worth some attention from those who have been brought
up on an idealistic diet. The main defects of the book lie in the direc-
tion of inadequacy. His statements of opposing views are admirably
fair and objective, so far as they go. But he does not do justice to
the positive side of the work of Kant and his successors. Still less is
his summary statement of certain scholastic doctrines adequate to carry

310 LA PERSONNE HUMAINE.

conviction. For a fuller statement of them the reader is presumably
referred to other books by the same author.

ROBERT S. WOODWORTH.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

La Personne Humaine. L'ABBE C. PIAT. Paris, Alcan. 1897.

Pp. 401.

The theme of this work is suggested by the contradiction between
the representations of human personality formulated by the traditional
spiritualistic philosophy and those current in modern scientific psy-
chology. According to the former the human person is a unique, in-
divisible, self -identical and permanent entity, actively producing and
supporting its states and possessed of intrinsic capacities of reflection,
in virtue of which it is rational, responsible and free. According to
the latter the conscious self is a resultant of the play of a manifold of
elements, the coordination of which constitutes its unity, and this co-
ordination is never absolutely complete, but is capable, under patho-
logical conditions, of such profound disturbances that two or even
more personal consciousnesses may successively or simultaneously arise
in connection with the same bodily organism ; the organism itself, and
not an independent conscious entity, is then commonly regarded as the
substantial bearer of the mental life, which latter is represented as
everywhere conforming to general principles of evolution and subject
to the inexorable necessity of nature. We have here a clear, forcible
and eloquent apology for the spiritualistic tradition face to face with
the newly-discovered or newly-emphasized facts of science and in con-
flict with dominant scientific hypotheses.

The argument falls into three main divisions, entitled respectively
Perception, Reflection and Responsibility. The first maintains by the
usual appeal to the unity of consciousness, recognitive memory, etc.,
the original unity and persistent identity of the self, and criticises the
evidence to the contrary in the facts of double consciousness. The
second maintains the unique originality of the power of the human
mind to think of and through universals, and criticises the evidence for
the derivation of this faculty on evolutional principles from an organic
process, from instinct or from the language of the lower animals.
The third maintains the reality of freedom relatively to the moral
ideal as a living and concrete perception, and, explaining the con-
sciousness of responsibility as dependent on a number of elements in-
dependently variable, sets forth the causes and consequences of its
enfeeblement with impressive reference to certain features in the dark
obverse of modern civilization.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 311

From a scientific point of view the most valuable parts of the
book are probably the critical. The criticism of the phenomena of
double consciousness follows the lines made familiar to us by Professor
Ladd in demanding more accurate observation and description of the
facts and in explaining the accredited phenomena partly as pure auto-
matisms and partly as changes due to distraction of attention in the
field, rather than in the subject of consciousness. The criticism of the
evolution theory in the second part is also unquestionably acute,
though in insisting so strongly on the < fait decisif ' it seems to overlook
the vast heuristic importance of a conception which may fall far short
of the verification desired. Still, as over against a certain tendency
to elevate a scientific theory into a scientific dogma, it is not bad to be
reminded once in a while, even at the risk of some exaggeration, of
its actual shortcomings.

As to the positive constructions of the book, the questions involved
are so many and so complex that it is difficult to say anything without
saying much, and any extended discussion would be here out of place.
A few words on one point only must suffice. The contradiction which
the author notices at the outset is certainly one which occasions no lit-
tle perplexity to the student and the clearing up of which is a task
worthy of a philosopher. But when, fresh from the reading of Ribot
and Binet or, say, from the penetrating chapters of Mr. Bradley, one
goes for more light on the unity and identity of the human person to
the pages of this book, one can hardly help feeling, with all admira-
tion for the lucidity of the style and the intellectual and moral tone of
the discussion, that the real difficulties have not been met after all.
One admits, of course, the unity of the consciousness, in each particu-
lar act of attention, what James calls i the unity of the passing state,'
whether the state be one of perception, of recognitive memory or what
not; but to find in this the evidence of the unity and persistent identity
of the concrete self, seems trivial. For this unity of consciousness,
even if we include in it the invisible unity of the subject 4 1,' surely
is not the self, the person, of which we and the writers whom M. Piat
opposes are thinking. And when, taking up the concrete self in all
the complexity of its changing content and the variety of its aspects,
we ask after its nature and significance, then it is that our question be-
comes burdened with all the weight of the problems of biological and
psychological science and of social and metaphysical interpretation.
It is noteworthy that, while claiming for the ego an existence as a per-
manent unity, on the direct testimony of consciousness, M. Piat refers
the question of its substantiality to theology and faith. So far as this

312 CITIZENSHIP AND SALVATION.

points to a higher criterion of judgment than that furnished by empir-
ical psychology, it embodies a true instinct. For the ultimate mean-
ing of personality is found, not in the facts of consciousness, but in
ideals of the will. As Hegel said, the great thing is not to be a person,
but to become one. But, if this is so, then the first thing to do is to
discriminate as far as may be with the utmost clearness the different
questions at issue and the different points of view from which they
may be legitimately regarded. It is more than likely that when the
presuppositions and relativity of the different standpoints are fully
understood, the disputes between spiritualists and phenomenalists,
metaphysicians and scientific psychologists, will largely disappear.
Philosophical dogmatism now as of old renders discussion interminable.

H. N. GARDINER.
SMITH COLLEGE.

Citizenship and Salvation, or Greek and Jew. A Study in the
Philosophy of History. ALFRED H. LLOYD. Boston, Little,
Brown & Co. 1897. Pp. 142.

Stevenson, in one of his essays, remarks that the purpose of a
preface is to give the author of a book the opportunity, after his labors
are over, to appear before the public with his plans, and proudly pro-
claim the nature of his achievement. The reviewer of Citizenship and
Salvation would be much surer of his ground if Dr. Lloyd had availed
himself of this privilege of the author and not sent this interesting, but
very obscure, little book out into the world without a prefatory word.
The work is divided into three parts, entitled, respectively, ' The Death
of Socrates,' ' The Death of Christ/ and < Resurrection/ It is, as its
secondary title indicates, a ' Study in the Philosophy of History/ and
it is conceived in a thoroughly Hegelian spirit, although entirely in-
dependent and original in plan and execution. It is also called by the
author a 'biological study of self-denial,' and might equally well be
styled a metaphysical study of self-realization. It is not a ' super-
natural ' or ' unnatural self-hood,' however, that is realized in self-denial,
not ' a self that originally was not.' Self-denial is * the way to the ex-
pression of an already active life, of an already living ideal.' In other
words, the self that gets 'fulfilled' in the historical process through
self-denial was from the first « secure ' and « active.' History, progress,
means the record of successive self-denials, rendered necessary by the
incompleteness of ideals and the consequent clashing of opposing ten-
dencies, which ever result in self-fulfilment. Socrates, for example,
the real Socrates, was ' vitally present in the life of Greece from the

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 313

very beginning;' he was 'the inner motive of Greece that had in spite
of all determined her destiny from the very beginning.' He was
alive in Greece long before Phaenarete gave him birth on the slopes of
Lycabettus, and he continued to live after he had drunk the poison,
getting fulfilled even in his own death and in the death of his race in
the triumph of Rome. The contradiction which led to the tragedy of
Socrates' death was the contradiction between the worldly life, the
4 miserly ' life, which takes means for end, and ' the life apart from
the world, which assumes that the end will realize itself.' Either
attitude alone would check fulfilment. Divorce of means and end
meant their reunion in an historical movement, which Philip of Mace-
don and Alexander in fact inaugurated, and which Rome completed.
Of this movement the philosopher was Aristotle, who taught that the
soul is not an end by itself, but the end or purpose of the body, and
that, similarly, the world is to be regarded as the incarnation of reason.
When reason is regarded, however, as the world's, it comes to be re-
garded as no longer man's, and thus forgetf ulness becomes ' the suc-
cessor of reason in man,' and man himself is then considered as ' but
a means to the world's end.' The universal empire of Rome, with its
militarism and mechanism, is the inevitable outcome. Thus Rome
completes the work of Alexander and Aristotle.

The way is now prepared for Christ, who as the * World- Reason '
(the ' Word Incarnate,' the * revealed ideal ') is 'the liberator of the
world.' This Christ, however, is not merely the historical Jesus, but,
again, as in the case of Socrates, a motive always present, although in
him become at last, in a special sense, active. This idea of a World-
Reason revealed unto men, is the self of Christ that triumphs in Roman
Christianity. When we turn to Judea, moreover, we observe a conflict
similar to that which existed at Athens ; there we find the same 'co-
operation of symmetrical opposites.' Jewish idolatry of the past had
come to be pure formalism, lacking all vital content; and Christ, as
the Messiah, expressed in life ' an as yet unrealized ideal.' The re-
spective attitudes of Christ and his people were, however, but contra-
dictory and one-sided aspects of the single activity which constituted
the national motive of the Jewish people. Hence the collision was
inevitable, and in that collision — the crucifixion — the Jewish ideal is
set free. And here we come upon a very ingenious theory of our
author's. The motive of the Jewish people found also its expression
in money lending. Money, as a commodity, is the treasured past
which the Jews idolized ; lending, on the other hand, affirms the
future as motive. ' In money-lending the confusion of future with

3H CITIZENSHIP AND SALVATION.

past found expression, and a national life, so long isolated, so long-
deprived of participation in distinctly worldly affairs, was set free, the
people turning their necessity into opportunity' (p. 81). And so
the Jews became Christians in their own — 4 a very worldly way.'
They with their talent for money-lending, and the Christians, with
their spiritual other -world, severally conquer Rome.

Let us apply these ideas. Rome had become, before the appear-
ance of Christianity, a military government, a mechanism. Each part,
each citizen, of such a government says in effect : * I am not, because
we are all one and equal.' Yet each feels, when the mechanism
moves, as the soldier feels after the battle : 1 1 did it' (p. 90, 91). 'A
sentient mechanism is a whole which upon action breaks into a
group of microcosmic reproductions of itself,' that is, it becomes an
organism (p. 91). Christianity, therefore, was able to interpret Rome
unto herself, for Christianity is summed up in the word organism,
which Dr. Lloyd ' likes to call the Christ-motive.' Now there are
two 4 chief incidents of all activity,' sanction and interpretation.
(This is introduced with an ' of course.') Socrates ' sanctioned '
the Roman empire, Christ ' interpreted ' it. But the interpretation
is, as always, fatal. Organism and mechanism cannot co-exist. The
remaining history of Rome is simply the record of a process, in which
the leaven of the idea of organism is spreading more and more. Phi-
losophy, with her dispute over universals, over substances and monads
and a priori forms, tells the same story. And Kant is the last great
Roman philosopher.

In the third part of the book, conclusions are drawn — not without
an apology. Democracy is seen to be the goal, and at the same time
the fulfilment of monarchy. It is also the consummation of the
4 Christ-motive' organism. In a democracy, each citizen is, in fact,
a parvus in suo genere rex, each has 4 imperial rights over his own
complete self-expression.' At the same time, each becomes a media-
tor for, represents, all the rest, in his own individual way. In order
that he may properly do this, however, he should have ' credit ' pre-
cisely in proportion to his power to apply the world's forces, and the
bank should be merely an institution for gauging this credit by accu-
rately measuring each man's individual * capacity for action.' When
banking reaches this perfect stage, every capitalist will be a laborer,
and every laborer a capitalist. The church will undergo a similar res-
urrection. It will cease hoarding the future, as the bank will cease
hoarding the past, and turn its attention to the ' more vital expression'
of the soul, here and now. Prayer is then simply 4 the earnest, hon-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 315

est, trusting definition of the sphere of one's activity ; ' it is 4 science
becoming motive, or mind liberating soul.' And, on the other hand,
4 ritual ' is simply ' body expressing soul,' the action which prayer sets
free.

To criticise Dr. Lloyd's work in any complete way would require
a book larger than the volume before us. I shall confine myself there-
fore to a few of the more obvious reflections that suggest themselves.
It is probably safe to surmise that no one will be convinced by the
book. It is far too brief to prove its position, and far too long for a
mere statement of it. There are numerous repetitions — a defect which
the author himself recognizes. Now, very frequently these repetitions
concern just those matters about which we should like to have more
light, but the repetition does not give the added light. Startling as-
sertions are frequently made as matters of course, a fact which inti-
mates that Dr. Lloyd has as yet let the world only into a little corner
of his thinking-shop. One cannot but feel that there is much that
is fanciful in our author's reasoning, as, for instance, in his discussion
of money-lending as 4 left-handed ' Christianity, and in the whole
treatment of banking. So in the characterization of historical events
and personages, one is sure that the facts are distorted, or, at least, but
very partially presented, in order to fit the formula. The description
of Socrates, for example, as a ' spendthrift,' taking end for means,
and standing for ' abstract spirituality,' is Socrates twisted so as to
form the proper antithesis to his contemporaries, regarded, also by a
tour deforce, as ; misers taking means for end.' Again, when we are
told : c in the nature of organisms, as he who runs may read, are the
primal teachings of Christ' (p. 92), we are hardly satisfied to forego
the evidence. To try to show that history had to be as it has been, is
a dangerous and difficult, if not impossible, undertaking. Dr. Lloyd
would seem not to have a proper appreciation of the magnitude of his
task. He slips over and around obstacles smoothly enough, but for
this very reason leaves the impression that much of his writing is
mere word-play. It is often hard to see what he is thinking behind
his phrases. Words are not used with that consistency which logical
procedure demands. We find ourselves reading of Christ, the motive
of his people, and anon, without warning, we are dealing with the
historic Jesus of Nazareth. There is a similar shuffling in the case of
Socrates. The term organism is used with great vagueness. The
general objection to this whole way of thinking the universe under the
form of an organism — the objection, namely, that the individual is lost
in the process, that his significance, his freedom, is destroyed — is

A STUDY OF A CHILD.

lightly passed over with the remark, repeated several times, with
slight variations, that when we say that history ' required ' the appear-
ance of a given man, at a given time, we mean also that his own true
selfhood required the same thing : (p. 61) that ' internal sanction,' cor-
responding to l external stimulus,' frees us from determinism. But
this ' true selfhood' appears, after all, to be a sort of spirit of hu-
manity behind the scenes, the l inner motive ' of the life of the people,
and, thus considered, the doctrine becomes ' as vague as all unsweet.'
One finds, however, many passages in the book which dimly suggest
that Dr. Lloyd has a message of which he has not yet succeeded in
delivering himself. Citizenship and Salvation is a program, and it is
to be hoped that Dr. Lloyd will live to carry it out. Only we cannot
refrain from adding the further wish that in the meantime he read
more French and less German, so that the message may be more in-
telligible when it comes. What, for instance, could be more hope-
lessly obscure than pages 72, 73 ?

CHARLES M. BAKEWELL.
BRYN MAWR.

A Study of a Child. LOUISE E. HOG AN. New York, Harper &

Bros. 1898. Pp. x -f- 220.

This is so distinctively a popular book that one hesitates to offer a
review of it for publication in a psychological journal. But a justifi-
cation for so doing is to be found in Chapter L, wherein the author tells
us that " the few facts that were noted (during the first year) may be
of greater interest possibly to psychologists than to the general reader."
So she presents her observations to psychology. To quote from these
records will serve to illustrate the nature of them, and the psychologist
will perceive that he is not to expect to find trustworthy observations,
critically considered. "When the child received his first bath he
lifted his head unaided from the lap in which he was lying, thus show-
ing to the popular mind an early inclination to know what was going
on about him * * * and to the psychologist great promise of brain
powers" (p. 15). On page 16 is noted his objection to a Raff concerto
for the violin and piano, and his toleration upon the same occasion of
Handel's Largo. This observation, at least in its present form, is not
available to psychology except as having the value of an impression ;
for it lacks the verification which it should have received from subse-
quent observations, or from an alternation of the concerto and the
largo in order to determine whether the child's feelings changed with
the change in the music. The main feature of the book is a series of

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 317

500 drawings by the child, executed by him during a period of some
six years. These show an advance in the acquirement of manual
dexterity, and an increasing appreciation of detail in the objects repre-
sented. The subjects chosen by the child for the exercise of his skill
are also noteworthy, as indicating the direction of his interests. But
we are not told (except in the case of the locomotive) whether draw-
ings were often made for him. so that he followed or was helped by
a copy ; whether he drew from an object, from the memory of an ob-
ject, or by all of these methods. Many of the drawings are obviously
imaginative. These should have constituted a separate series. The
want of system in the arrangement of the cuttings and drawings is to
be regretted, and is a hindrance to their usefulness.

The language record also is fairly full ; yet here only a time record
is given, from which one learns that the child was able to say certain
things by a certain date. It is a pity not to have formulated the records
for correlation with other observations on child language.

The book is full of suggestions as to methods of inculcating de-
sirable habits and various virtues, which will attract both kindergart-
ners and parents, and it leaves on one's mind the pleasant impression
of a happy, lovable child.

KATHLEEN CARTER MOORE.

PHILADELPHIA.

Die praktische Anivendung der Sprachphysiologie beim ersten

Leseunterricht. H. GUTZMANN. Berlin, Reuther u. Reichard.

1898.

Every medical man is more or less interested in the physiology of
speech in proportion as he is called upon to study the many defects
which are met with among school-children, and the conviction is
forced upon him that by good or bad methods of instruction latent
tendencies to such defects may be either developed or eradicated.
From such a practical acquaintance with the results of imperfect train-
ing arose Dr. Gutzmann's interest in the theoretical problems discussed
in this work.

The monograph is divided into four parts : first, an historical re-
view of the opinions of educational writers concerning the place of the
physiology of speech in school instruction ; second, the psychological
justification for the study of speech physiology, and its practicability as a
school method; third, the hygienic value of a physiological method in
teaching to read ; and fourth, the practical application of physiological
principles in school instruction.

318 ANWENDUNG DER SPRACHPHYSIOLOGIE.

The earlier treatment of the problem was based on fanciful anal-
ogies between the form of the printed letter and the adjustment of the
organs necessary in pronouncing it, as when Bonet the Spaniard re-
marks that the shape of the letter B, with its two semicircles meeting
the perpendicular line, signifies the closing of the lips involved in ut-
tering it, and that the letter A is formed like a trumpet <| to indicate
that the letter must be pronounced with open mouth and constricted
throat, which latter, however, as the cross-bar indicates, must not be
wholly closed. Passing by these, we find that a long series of those
who grasped the real significance of the speech-learning process have
urged, or adopted, the physiological method of instruction. Graser,
Fechner, Bohme, Krug, Grassmann — all these made earnest efforts to
apply the principles of speech physiology in their instruction. Krug,
the most explicit and insistent, demands that every child shall be
made to construct each vocal element with a clear consciousness of the
various adjustments of the organs involved : this exercise shall precede
the actual instruction in reading. Krug's principles are intricate, his
process, at least at first sight, artificial, and his method tiresome and
wasteful. It is necessary to seek more simplified and practicable ways
of applying these principles in school instruction.

The psychological justification of this method lies in the nature of
the processes involved in learning to speak or to read. The com-
bined process involves the activity of five brain-centers with their
respective tracts: (i) The perceptive centre and auditory nerve -
tract; (2) the motor centre and nervous tract connecting it with the
mechanism of speech; (3) the visual perception-centre of the move-
ments of speech and writing ; (4) the kinaesthetic perception-centre
which makes aware of the adjustments of the organs involved in
speaking and writing, and (5) the motor centre by which the move-
ments of the hand in writing are produced and directed.

The child learns by imitation ; in speech this is chiefly through the
ear, but not solely; the eye also participates. The child imitates
movements of the lips when soundless ; blind children come to speech
later than the normal ; of those who have lost their hearing some
rapidly recover power to communicate by reading the lips. In
German deaf-mute schools the sole method of teaching vocal language
has been by the use of kinsesthetic and visual sensations in acquiring
direct conscious control of the mechanism of speech. In blind deaf-
mutes the sense of touch replaces vision in connection with kinaes-
thesia.

The objection may be urged that such a method is not practicable ;

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 319

it is too confusing and burdensome, and can be applied only in-
dividually, not to classes. In reply, the success of deaf-mute instruc-
tion, and the relatively rapid progress of the pupils, demonstrate its
possibility. By this method idiots have been taught to speak when
all other means had failed, (v. Piper, Gutzmann, etc.) In normal
fully-endowed children the progress should be correspondingly more
rapid. As a matter of fact, it has been successfully used with young
children and with stutterers to the number of nearly 400 by the elder
Gutzmann. The objection is valid only against particular forms of
the method which have been employed in the past, a disability which
a perfectly possible simplification will remove.

The hygienic value of the physiological method of instruction in
reading will be found in the correction of a long list of defects in
speech and the prevention of a still greater number. There are 80,000
stammering school children in Germany. The proportion increases
greatly with the age of the pupils, the number in the highest grades
in some schools reaching three times that in the lowest. The statistics
from half a dozen cities show that the most rapid increase takes place
between the ages of seven and eight years, that is, immediately after
the first instruction in reading. Of these a large part on their en-
trance upon school life were not developed stutterers, but showed only
a tendency to such defect. It lies in the power of the teacher to cor-
rect this predisposition by training ; else the habit, which is highly infec-
tious, will be fixed through imitation. The still imperfect control of
speech when the child begins school life, combined with frequent ten-
dency to stuttering and lack of self-confidence, affords at once the con-
dition for the establishment of all sorts of defects. The root of all
such troubles lies in the imperfect control of the mechanism of speech,
which has all along been practically met by directing attention to the
processes involved and endeavoring consciously to perform the correct
movements. Diesterweg and Gutzmann especially have urged the use
of this means as a corrective, advising systematic practice in breathing,
vocalization and articulation.

The practical application of these principles should not precede
the teaching of reading, but should accompany and illustrate it from
the first moment. The question of method presents three problems :
(i) the means which the psychology of speech reveals for awakening
the right physical images ; (2) the way in which the individual organs
can best be exercised; (3) the arrangement of the course of instruc-
tion in response to this demand.

The means are hearing, feeling, seeing. Clear apprehension of the

320 DIE IDEENASSOZIATION DES KINDES.

sound to be produced is necessary, since by it the correctness or incor-
rectness of the adjustment is chiefly to be judged. The child should be
trained to observe, by direct feeling, how the mouth and throat are
adjusted in speaking, for by means of these kinaesthetic images the
movement is afterward produced. He should also know the form
taken by the vocal organs in pronouncing the elements of speech,
for by this means he is directly assisted in the production of the spe-
cific sounds desired.

The author does not propose the substitution of a radically new
method in teaching, but only the introduction of a rational system of
training in vocalization and articulation, in connection with the use of
illustrated primers and photographs of the positions of the vocal
organs in articulation. A plate of twelve such pictures accompanies
the monograph.

ROBERT MACDOUGALL.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Die Ideenassoziation des Kindes. PROFESSOR ZIEHEN. Berlin,

Reuther u. Reichard. 1898.

In his introduction Professor Ziehen reviews the experimental
work done concerning the association of ideas in children, and gives
full bibliographical references to researches upon the nature of as-
sociation in general. The work reported on was confined to children
from eight to fourteen years of age, and considered four things : the
determination of the child's store of ideas ; of the nature of associations
resulting from a given initial idea ; of the rapidity of the association
process, and of the influence of special conditions, such as fatigue,
upon the rapidity of association. The first inquiry was a preliminary
one. Of the three principal questions of the investigation only that
concerning the association process is taken up in the present mono-
graph. The initial idea was suggested by an object seen, heard, or
felt, or by a word. The words were arbitrarily chosen monosyl-
lables, usually concrete ideas, with occasional terms of relation
(e. g. ' similarity') of processes (4 storm') and proper names.

Concerning the form of association the question of chief interest is
whether the process of association in the child shows a greater or less
tendency than in the adult to special fixed association groups.

Our earliest associations are, without exception, spatially and tem-
porally determined individual ideas. From these are derived spatially
and temporally indeterminate object ideas. In adults the word (ex-
cept in the case of proper names) awakens throughout universal

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 321

ideas ; to give individual worth it is necessary to add a definite article
or pronoun. The author's distinction here is a logical one, but it is
doubtful if such a discrimination between adult and child can be
drawn psychologically. The image, or psychological representative,
must be without exception a concrete image, definite or indefinite,
derived from individual past experiences. Accompanying this
psychological element, however, is the awareness that the image
means a type and not an individual. But such knowledge of his
meaning the child of eight already possesses. The truer distinction —
and perhaps that intended — is that in the adult the concrete image has
less localization ; it hangs before the mind as an isolated thing, but
not, therefore, as a universal.

Verbal associations were rare ; only in one case were they frequent,
where they formed twenty-four per cent, of the total. Among adults
such forms are much richer and more frequent. Of verbal associa-
tions the most usual form was word-completing, e. g., £> ett-federn :
Post-Karte, etc. Rhyme associations were rare, Schlange ; Zange ;
Fisch ; Tisch, etc., but individual cases were found with almost every
child. One noticeable type smacks strongly of the school and its
training, e. g., Bett is written with '/*/' Macht is written with a
capital.

In the case of adults not only is the representative image of a con-
crete term a general one, but almost always the image which it calls up
is likewise general. It is astonishingly different with the child. The
author says : "I was prepared for a relative predominance of the in-
dividual association form. Of the degree of this prevalence I had not
the slightest suspicion * * * * Most of the children connected with al-
most every stimulus word an individual idea, and with this again an
individual idea, and in many cases both were spatially determined."
The percentage of individual associations decreases with the age of the
child ; in the third class it is seventy-two per cent. ; in the first, sixty-
two per cent. ; among adults the author found it to be on the average
ten per cent., in regard to analytic and synthetic associations the ele-
mentary idea never aroused another elementary hetero-sensorial idea
(£. g., sweet white}. This is natural ; it awakens always the totalized
object association (e. g., sweet-sugar} ; this point suggests such phe
nomena as colored hearing, of which the author makes no mention,
and the question whether they are of later development and not present
in the imagery of children of eight to fourteen years of age. The ele-
mentary idea arouses a composite image four times as often as a simple ;
the type is red-blood, not red-green. This also is natural ; the child

322 PSYCHOLOGIE INDIVIDUELLE.

finds red combined in the concrete with elements of the other senses
constantly, but seldom with green. The composite idea arouses most
frequently (59 % of all cases) as its associate another composite which
bears no relation of partiality to the first (e. g., window-door} ; next
to this, but far behind, comes its association with a greater composite
of which it is a part (e. g., window-wall); very seldom is this latter
relation reversed (e. g., window-window-sash) .

The visual type predominates much more than among adults. Af-
fective partitive^ideasjare very rare (e.g., gut — nicht gut ; thut Weh •
etc.). In spite of the variety of content the form of association is al-
ways contiguity in the wider sense. No case of pure (indisputable)
association through resemblance was observed. Associates farfetched
in space and time are found much oftener than with adults. With
adults familiarity is predominant; with the child congruity plays a
much greater r61e; on the other hand, distinctness and constellation
bear a much less important part. In closing the author recalls again
the difficulty in tracing all the linkages of association upon which the
very form depends, since the child himself forgets, and the conse-
quent need for extended and patient investigation for the determina-
tion of these problems.

ROBERT MACDOUGALL.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Psychologie collective et Psychologie indimduelle. RENE WORMS.

Lecture delivered before the Paris Academy of Moral and Political

Sciences, November 12 and 19, 1898. Pp. 35.

These are by no means the first helpful words which psychologists
have received from this eminent French sociologist, but they contain
the most pointed bit of advice which he has addressed to them directly.

Starting with a reference to the rapid growth of sociology in re-
cent years, he passes with a word the evident dependence of sociology
upon psychology, and proposes to trace the influence of sociology upon
psychology, in the formation of a collective psychology and in modi-
fying the psychology of the individual, and then to sketch the outline
of a new psychology which would recognize these changes. He is
not here concerned with the metaphysical reality of the collective mind,
but with the scientific inquiry into the causes of such common phe-
nomena as the mind of a nation, a family or a crowd. He finds two
sets of influences always present, a common environment and the re-
ciprocal influence of the members of a group upon one another. The
soil, climate, and productions of a country, for instance, arouse numer-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 323

ous common sentiments in the minds of a people, while the social rela-
tions of family, friendship, religion, politics and education have an
equally large share in the formation of the national mind. In the fam-
ily the same influences are at work, together with a new element still
stronger, that of heredity. Men engaged in the same industry come
to have mental characteristics which are distinguished from those of
the national type in the same twofold way, by the more limited and
therefore more intense effect of the common environment — city, vil-
lage, shop and fellow workmen, and by the particular stamp of that
industry. The various groups thus mentally differentiated within the
nation may be divided into four classes : those founded on blood-rela-
tionship— families and races ; second, those of locality — cities, villages
and provinces; third, those, of industry — farmers, mechanics, mer->
chants, etc. ; fourth, those based on intellectual interests — all sorts of
political, religious, literary and social organizations. A reference to
various French writers on the state, family, city, provincial life and
the life of workingmen shows that a collective psychology is already
an established fact. Few of these writers are professional psycholo-
gists, and much remains to be done, but the way has been mapped
out. Development will follow naturally.

In showing how sociology has influenced the study of individual
psychology attention is confined to the higher mental faculties of reason
and free will. Reason, as the faculty of general ideas, is of practical
value in the social life, since every individual is making constant ap-
peal to laws and general ideas, but it is also social in its origin.
Man gets his first general ideas from the constant recurrence of phe-
nomena which pass before his eyes, but he is much more influenced
by the character and action of the men around him than by the cosmi-
cal or biological elements of his environment. Therefore, the first
general ideas are social. The preservation and development of these
ideas is in turn possible only through the medium of language, another
social function. In short, human reason is penetrated with social ele-
ments.

Free will is impossible apart from reason. Therefore, free will,
in its nature, shares the social elements of reason, while the field of its
activity is the social world. Its highest aim is the moral elevation of
humanity ; its standards of right action are social standards ; its rules of
life those which can be adopted by all right wills. Thus the factors
in the creation and development of human personality are almost
wholly social. Heredity may furnish the first elements of our being,
but education is equally important in the formation of our character

324 PSYCHOLOGY INDIVIDUELLE.

and minds, and in adult life it is in social relations with our fellows
that our personality is developed — by imitation, opposition and adapta-
tion. The larger part of individual mentality is a product of our col-
lective existence.

But although the social mind has become an object of scientific
study, and the individual mind is shown to be largely a product of the
social life, there are objections to setting up a collective psychology as
opposed to individual psychology. Collective psychology is, in the
last analysis, psychology of individuals, while the mental life of any
individual can be understood only in the light of the social life. All
psychology is at the same time collective and individual. Secondly,
our ordinary psychology, which is generally called individual, is any-
thing but individual. It deals with general principles which are true
for all men, and is even more comprehensive than collective psychology.

A better division of psychology would study separately the three
sets of elements which we have found entering into each personality :
those common to the whole race ; those common to the group of which
he is a member, and those which make up his individual personality.
First, we would have a general psychology of the mental faculties
common to all human beings ; second, a special psychology, or what has
been called collective psychology. The word ; special ' brings out
more clearly the essential nature of these researches, that of distin-
guishing between different groups of men which from the social point
of view constitute different species ; third, an individual psychology
which would study the particular mental life of concrete individuals,
the normal development and crises of intellect and heart, their natural
tendencies, their influence on associates, and the net result of their
mental existence.

Should this division be adopted, the younger science of sociology
would render a distinct service to psychology, but at the same time would
be doing itself a good turn. The results of psychology thus special-
ized would be far more valuable than the universal and abstract princi-
ples of the present psychology. The second of the proposed groups
would be of especial value to the sociologist. In the mind of the na-
tion he would find the general causes of its economical, moral, and
political organization. In the mental characteristics of its families,
cities, industries, and social groups he would often find the explana-
tion of the details of this organization, and also of the strifes and in-
ternal difficulties which the national life has to surmount. At the same
time the first group would give him the general mental characteristics
of mankind, and thus help explain the striking similarities in the de-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 325

velopment of different nations, while the third group would throw light
on the question how the intellect or will of a single man sometimes
transforms an industry, a whole region, or perhaps a nation.

Our first impression is that, so far as the making of books is
concerned, the second of these fields belongs to the sociologist, while
the third is the peculiar province of the man of letters. Our second
thought is that the radical reforms suggested in psychology have al-
ready taken place. Present psychology is not confined to abstract or
general principles. It has had no difficulty in absorbing sociological
doctrines, if it has not succeeded in absorbing the sociologists them-
selves, and it has also picked up a few facts from physiology, biology,
anthropology, history, and other sciences. Nine-tenths of all the
large and increasing literature of psychology belongs to the second or
third of these groups — practically all of the so-called new psychology
with its experimental work, child study, educational investigations,
animal psychology, and abnormal psychology, with its suggestive re-
searches in hypnotism, insanity, and the subconscious realm. A good
beginning has also been made, especially by French psychologists, in
the study of individuals ; for instance, noted writers and men of skill.
In fact, it is impossible to carry on psychological investigation and add
to the sum of the truths contained in the first group except through the
study of the concrete individual. In this particular psychology is not
different from geology, physics, chemistry, or any of the other sciences.

But it is feared that there are many teachers of psychology in
America, as well as in France, who imagine that when it comes to
the classroom psychology is radically different from the other sciences,
and that here general truths may be made interesting and profitable
quite apart from the concrete facts. If a fuller recognition of this
threefold division shall avail to inspire teachers with the newer spirit
of their science, and bring the student into closer contact with con-
crete mental facts, making them all sociologists and giving them all
the literary insight into human nature, and awakening them to the prac-
tical possibilities of psychology in the professions and in the daily
life of every individual, psychologists will, indeed, be grateful to the
sociologist.

But it is by no means clear that anything would be gained by at-
tempting to introduce this threefold division into the text-books used
in the ordinary courses of psychology. Where only one course is
given, at any rate, it is better to do justice to the three elements simul-
taneously. There is more crying need for improvement in methods
of teaching than for wholesale changes in text-books.

CHARLES B. BLISS.

326 EFFECTIVE ETHICAL INSTRUCTION.

O ivahaniach w natezeniu minimalnych optycznych i akustycznych
ivrazen (zur Erkldrung der Intensitatsschivankungen eben
merklicher optischer und akustischer Eindriicke). W. HEIN-
RICH. Reprint from the Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences in
Krakau. November, 1898. Pp. 18.

This is an abstract of a paper which reviewed the whole discussion
of the fluctuation of minimal visual and auditory sensations and pre-
sented the results of the author's investigations, some of which at
least were previously described in the Zeitschrift fur Psych, und Phys.
der Sinnesorgane, Vol. IX. and XI. According to Heinrich the fluc-
tuations with visual stimuli are definitely proved to be due to the
constant fluctuations taking place in the curvature of the lens, while
there is every reason to believe that the fluctuations of auditory sensa-
tions are caused by the effect of breathing upon the tension of the ear
drum. Experiments with a carefully trained observer who had lost
both ear drums failed to reveal any fluctuation. Microscopical exam-
ination showed that the ear drum does move outward with every
inspiration and inward with every expiration. A graphic record of
the breathing and the auditory fluctuations showed that with deep
breathing the number of fluctuations corresponds with the rate of
breathing. With normal breathing, out of fifteen respiration periods
ten corresponded to fluctuations in sensation. The author thinks that
a more exact knowledge of the movements of the ear drum will
furnish a complete explanation of the phenemenon.

One of the most striking announcements is that no fluctuation
could be detected when the faint sound was a steady tone instead of a
watch tick. These experiments were made upon only one person,
and it is hard to believe that this will be found true for all persons
under all conditions.

CHARLES B. BLISS.
LEONARD'S BRIDGE, CONN.

Society's Need of Effective Ethical Instruction in Church and

School, and the Suggestion of an Available Method. E. M.

FAIRCHILD. The American Journal of Sociology, January,

1899. PP- 433-447-

The writer describes his method for the visual instruction of ethics
in the public schools. By means of the camera and lantern slides,
scenes illustrating the various practical ethical problems of child life,
quarrels and fights, work and play, the sneak, the thief, the bully, the
cry-baby, the general good-for-nothing, are shown to the children,

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 327

while the teacher, in a carefully prepared lecture, describes the proper
adult feeling called forth by the successive pictures.

CHARLES B. BLISS.

The Daivn of Reason or Mental Traits in the Lower Animals.
JAMES WEIR, JR. New York, The Macmillan Company. Pp.

234-

The author begins with the following definition, "Mind is a re-
sultant of nerve, in the beginning of life, neuro-plasmic action,
through which and by which animal life in all its phases is consciously
and unconsciously, directly and indirectly, maintained, sustained,
governed and directed." He holds that conscious mind originated in
sensual perception thousands of years after unconscious mind. The
book treats of the following topics : Sense in the Lower Animals,
Conscious Determination, Memory, Emotions, ./Estheticism, Parental
Affection, Reason, Auxiliary Senses, and Letisimulation, and the
whole is followed by general conclusions, a bibliography and an in-
dex. No writings recognizing the Weismann theories seem to have
been consulted, for few, if any, appear in his bibliography, and he
writes as if the inheritance of acquired characteristics had never been
questioned.

The author has spent many years in observing and experimenting
with animals, and reports some very interesting and valuable facts, but
his long association with animals and habits of reading his own ideas
and feelings into their actions make him partisan and uncritical. He
has discovered that when dogs appear to be baying the moon they
are listening to the echo of their own barking, and says that the
4 dog's voice is exceedingly pleasing to himself,' and that this indicates
a 4 high degree of esthetic feeling in the dog,' when the more natural
explanation would be that he supposes that he is answering another
dog. He thinks that animals can count, and even holds that a blind
dog who recognized the loss when one of her six puppies was taken
away soon after birth must have had an abstract idea of the number
six. The most surprising example of uncritical judgment, especially
for a medical man, occurs when he says of the mason wasps that
u they possess a mental faculty which far transcends any like act of
human intelligence ; they are able to tell which of the eggs will pro-
duce males and which females. Not only are they able to do this ;
but seemingly fully aware of the fact that it takes a longer time for
the female larvae to perfect than it does the male larvae, they provide
for this emergency by depositing in the cells containing female eggs a

328 THE DAWN OF REASON.

larger amount of food." It seems never to have occurred to him that
nutriment may determine sex. He cites the recognition of one ant by
others of its nest as an example of memory, although Lubbock has
proved that this takes place when the ant has not been hatched in the
same nest, but has been hatched elsewhere. In general, he thinks of
but one explanation of a fact, or else accepts the one most favorable
to the intelligence of his animal friends ; hence his conclusions in re-
gard to the higher mental activities of animals will have little weight
in the present critical study of animal intelligence, though some of his
facts are valuable.

His most important contribution would seem to be the work he
has done in studying the sense organs and discriminative power of the
lower animals. If he can prove to the satisfaction of other psycholo-
gists what he claims to have demonstrated he will be entitled to a high
place as an investigator in this field. In most cases he gives few de-
tails in regard to his experiments, so that it is impossible to judge as
to the care with which they were performed.

He holds that all animals can tell the difference between light and
dark, even without an eye or optic nerve, as is shown by such instances
as the blind fish from Mammoth Cave always seeking the darkest place
in the aquaria. He holds that such low animals as jellyfish will
follow a light, and that their so-called ' marginal bodies ' are eyes, in-
stead of ears, as others have claimed. He claims to have discovered
rudimentary eyes in the star fish, oysters and worms, and holds that a
snail has a cornea, a lens and retina, and can detect a white moving
object like a ball of cotton, with which he experimented, at a distance
of two feet and a black one at from twelve to fourteen inches, and
that a crayfish can descry a man at the distance of twenty or twenty-
five feet.

As to hearing he says : " It is highly probable that the majority of
lower animals, especially those which are sound producers, can hear
just as we hear," and that others can hear ^ '''by feeling the sound
waves." He claims to have demonstrated the organs of hearing in a
number of insects, and that only in the Lepidoptera and certain Hem-
iptera are they in the antennae, as has been claimed by many ento-
mologists.

He claims that animals have at least two auxiliary senses, u tinctu-
mutation, the color-changing sense, and the sense of direction, or, as
it is erroneously termed, the ' homing instinct.' Neither of these facul-
ties is instinctive, but they are, on the contrary, true senses, just as
hearing or taste or smell," and he thinks he has demonstrated the gan-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 329

glion centers concerned in these senses. If Dr. Weir desires his claims
in regard to the senses to be accepted by scientists he should publish
further details, for naturally no careful scientist will accept such im-
portant conclusions till details have been given and the results verified
by the experiments and observations of others. The present book is
popular rather than scientific, as, indeed, the author intended it
should be.

E. A. KlRKPATRICK.
FlTCHBURG, MASS.

Vergleichende Untersuchungen der Sehsckarfe des hell- und des
dunkeladaptirten Augis. S. BLOOM, und S. GARTEN. Pfliiger's
Archiv, LXXIL, 372-408. 1898.

This paper contains errors of carelessness in the parts that are open
to the eye of the reader, and hence it fails to inspire confidence that
the thousand and one little details that require constant attention in the
carrying out of any investigation have not been neglected. The re-
viewer does not, of course, usually take the time to look for such errors,
but in this case he is much struck to find, from the diagram on p. 404,
that the visual acuity of an observer is, under certain circumstances,
yl^ at a distance of 9° from the fovea, and has risen to yg-^ at a dis-
tance of 8° from the fovea, and also that upon another occasion, the
change from yj^ to yf ^ of visual acuity takes place between the dis-
tances 12° and 10° from the fovea. Upon referring to the table which
the diagram illustrates, it appears that this is purely an error in the draw-
ing, evidently caused by substituting at one point millimeters instead
of the degrees into which they are being converted. Any one is liable
to make a momentary mistake now and then, but it is difficult to un-
derstand how so palpable an absurdity in a drawing can have with-
stood the inspection of the two authors of the paper (and also, no doubt,
of the head of the Physiological Institute of the University of Leipzig) .
One is not surprised after this to find that there are errors in the mak-
ing up of simple averages. And in glancing at the other pages of
diagrams, one notices that, on p. 389, when the visual acuity should
be twice as good for the bright adapted eye as for the other, it is repre-
sented as being three times as good ; this causes such a discrepancy in
the course of the two curves as occurs nowhere else, and hence it is
here also very singular that the authors did not look back at their tables
to see if it was justified. On p. 398 we are asked to believe that an
observer is able to distinguish two dots brought gradually in from the
periphery at exactly the same distance whether the dots are five or

33° VERGLEICHENDE UNTERSUCHUNGEN.

eight millimeters apart — that is, that his visual acuity at 21° 20' from
the fovea is, in a certain measure, both 100 and 63, and that neverthe-
less a superiority of a degree or two in the distance at which definition
takes place on the part of the darkness-adapted eye (that is, transfer-
ring to the above measure a superiority of 12) is sufficient to found
theories upon ! Again, we find from the table on page 388 that at 6°
from the fovea and again at 13° 30' the visual acuity of the darkness-
eye remains exactly the same up to the one-thousandth of the unit — »
here the ordinary unit — while the objective illumination is increased
to eleven times, to fifty-seven times and to seventy-nine times that
which was employed at first. (At 3° and at 12°, on the other hand,
there is shown a gradual improvement.) This, indeed, would be an
addition to our knowledge of very remarkable interest if it were a
result to be depended upon.

A paper so riddled with evidences of utter ignorance on the part
of its authors of the precautions to be taken in observations on the
powers of the human eye in the periphery (and of the control to be
exercised by common sense) has probably never before found its way
into print. But in spite of these grounds for suspicion one finds one-
self capable of a fresh feeling of surprise on seeing that the summing
up of the results of the investigation is quite in disaccord with the
body of the paper. We are told in the summary that " as appears
from all our experiments on central and peripheral visual acuity, * * *
in spite of the objective illumination being extremely faint, and alike
for both eyes (the bright and the dark-adapted), the dark eye, though
it sees things much brighter, sees them much less sharply." But as
regards central vision, this was not the case at all for a very faint il-
lumination, as the tables show, and as the authors themselves plainly
state a page farther on. Thus it appears from the table on p. 388
that it was only when the lowest illumination tried had been increased
1,170 times that the bright-adapted eye saw better than the dark-
adapted eye in the center ; and the authors say on another page of
this same summing up: u only a much more considerable increase of
the illumination brought about for the center of the retina as well a
superiority in the capacity of the bright-adapted eye."

If we overlook these numerous marks of inadvertence on the part
of the authors and treat their results, for the moment, as deserving
of acceptance, they would appear to have made out that, starting
with an illumination just invisible to the dark-adapted eye at the center :
(i) the dark-adapted eye remains the superior up to eighty times that
illumination as far as three degrees from the fovea, but either farther

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 331

out, or for brighter lights, the bright-adapted eye renders the better
service; (2) this superiority of the bright-adapted eye becomes so
small at a distance of 40° as to fall within the probable error of the
observations, that is to say, to disappear entirely (a fact which is not
drawn attention to by the authors) ; (3) nothing is gained for the
dark-adapted eye by reducing the illumination for it until objects look
no brighter than for the other eye. (It does not appear why a long
investigation of this point was thought necessary, in view of the fact
that it had already been shown that a diminution of intensity had no
favorable effect upon vision for an eye in this state. A condition X
having been shown to be superior to a condition Y, it would not seem,
as a matter of logic, to be necessary to go through an investigation to
show that it is also better than Yx, when it is known that Yx is never
better and is nearly always worse than Y.)

The authors give no discussion of the theoretical bearing of their
results, except to point out that, since there is no illumination at which
the dark-adapted eye sees as well as the bright-adapted eye sees at its
optimum illumination, the state of dark adaptation cannot be simply a
state of non-fatigue. If our knowledge of the retina were still in
the condition which it was in before we had gained any information
about the growth of the visual purple or the descent of the pigment
granules, this would be an interesting contribution. As it is, the
result is simply what we had every reason to expect. The with-
drawal of the pigment granules has for its evident effect the reinforce-
ment of the faint light which enters the retina by reflection and re-
fraction from one visual element to another ; it would be very strange
if the space-giving elements of the retina, whichever they may be,
should not perform much better service when they are isolated in their
beds of black than when they are subject to an influx of light on every
side. Many of the recent writers on these subjects speak as if the
night-adaptation of the retina were an affair of the visual purple only,
and apparently forget the important change which takes place (and
which cannot be without effect) in the position of the black pigment
of the epithelium, a change which is entirely adapted to explaining
the diminished visual acuity for a given subjective brightness of the
night-adapted eye. This phenomenon does not apparently throw
any light on the burning question whether the rods are or are not
chiefly instrumental in the renewed vision that comes to us by night.
It is only when the cones are known to be hors de combat by means
of the night-blindness of the fovea, that we can be sure that we are
dealing with rods only; the experiment made at this illumination goes

332 DENDRO-PS YCHOSES.

to show that what the rods gain in sense of brightness by the increase
of the visual purple they more than lose in definition (/. <?., in space
sense) by the loss of their separating pigment granules, but that (even
when the increased sense for brightness is wholly counteracted by caus-
ing the night-adapted eye to look through gray glass) this superiority
practically ceases at a distance of 40° from the fovea. It would be in-
teresting to know if there is here also a diminution in the extent of re-
treat of the pigment granules.

There is every reason to expect that the cones as well as the rods
should show subjectively some effect of night adaptation, for their
change of size is a very marked phenomenon. This may easily ac-
count for the fact that there is some slight adaptation, if not at the
center, still within the rodless region. We know now that the feeling
of pressure is dependent upon a deformation of the skin and probably
a change of concentration of fluids in which nerve-ends are immersed.
Such a change of conditions might also easily follow upon the shrink-
ing of the visual elements of the retina.

C. LADD FRANKLIN.

BALTIMORE.

A Study of the Sense Epithets of Shelley and Keats. MARY GRACE
CALDWELL. Wellesley College Psychological Studies. Poet-Lore,
Vol. X., No. 4, 1898. Pp. 573-579-

This study gives a careful tabulation of all the sense epithets used
by the two writers. The first table compares the frequency of adjec-
tives of the different senses — sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. The
second shows the number of adjectives used figuratively compared
with the number used literally. The third gives the number of adjec-
tives of color, lustre and form, while a fourth compares the frequency
of the nine colors most used. Sight stands first in frequency, sound
second, while touch, taste and smell are less adapted to poetic use.
Shelley writes less of the external and uses fewer sense epithets than
Keats. A larger proportion of those that he does use are figurative.

CHARLES B. BLISS.

Dendro- Psychoses. J. O. QUANTZ . American Journal of Psy-
chology, Vol. IX., No. 4, pp. 443-306.

Even a psychologist has to think, for a moment, what Tree-States-
of-Mind may be. Dr. Quantz has in this article given in a valuable
collation of facts an interesting view of the vegetable kingdom as it
has affected the body and mind of man in all their manifestations —

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 333

emotions, customs, religion, medicine and poetry. In the first section
he sums up the biological and anatomical evidence for the descent of
man from some race of tree-climbers, and in the next — 4 Psychic
Reverberations ' — he outlines certain psychoses which, existing to-day,
can be, he thinks, accounted for only by the supposition that .we spent
our lives in trees in some previous pre-simian existence. Such states
of mind are, among others, fears of serpents, winds, thunder-storms, and
the fear of falling. ' Tree Worship,' ' The Life Tree,' l The World
Tree,' ' The Paradise Tree,' are followed by the tree * in Medicine,'
* in Child Life' and 'in Poetry,' the last being the least successful,
as for adequate treatment it would require a volume by itself. The
prominence of the tree in all these relations seems, however, hardly
to be proved, even by the very wide range of folk-lore covered by
the author ; and the article at times falls very near being a mere cata-
logue of the uses of the word 4 tree ' and its synonyms, wherever they
occur. It seems credible that vegetable life, being next in impor-
tance to animal life, should receive a secondary amount of human at-
tention ; but it seems, likewise, somewhat in the air to use these facts
as an argument for the spiritual descent of the human soul from the
sensations and reactions of tree-climbers. 'T were to consider too
curiously to consider so. It is hard to tell upon what subject such an
article might not be written, where analogy runs rampant and the
result is an intoxicating series of similitudes, which, if regarded with
any degree of credulousness, dazzle one with their bizarre aspect.
From the fact that when two branches of a tree grow together again,
or the twig of a bramble enters the ground again making a hole, they
have a remedial power, why should we not better infer a belief
in holes or circles than in wood ? These examples seem just as likely
to be instances of the importance of the circle in magic or of sugges-
tion as a therapeutic agent. As raw material for poetry Dr. Quantz's
article is most interesting. WILFRID LAY.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

Hydro- Psychoses. FREDERICK E. BOLTON. Am. Jour. Psy., Janu-
ary, 1899. Vol. X., No. 2, pp. 169-227.

Minor Studies from the Psychological Laboratory of Clark Univer-
sity, XII., XIII. and XIV. Ibid., pp. 280-295.
In the first-named paper the author investigates the influence that

water has exerted in shaping and moulding man's psychic organism.

Evidences of man's pelagic ancestry are found in the fact that his

embryo goes through all the stages of evolution. Thus he is, at one

334 HYDRO-PS YCHOSES.

time before his birth, practically indistinguishable from a fish. The
brain and nervous system, the organs of circulation and respiration
show structural rudimentary organs; and vestigial structures in man
are cited to show the subaqueous existence of our infinitely distant an-
cestors. Of course, a great argument is the fact that there are amphib-
ious animals, and that, when young, they are all aquatic ; and another
is in the 'animal retrogressions to aquatic life,' seen in the whale, seal,
beaver, walrus and sea lion. ' Psychic reverberations ' are felt by us
even to-day in the hypnagogic phenomena of swimming, floating and
jumping, and in the preference for suicide by drowning. In ' the
primitive conceptions of life ' water is seen to be important, and the
theories of the Ionic philosophers are dragged in, in the section ' Wa-
ter in Philosophical Speculation,' ' Sacred Waters,' with their oracular
powers and superstitions ; and 'Water Deities ' are cited in great num-
bers, as are ' Rivers of Death ' and ' Paradise ' as a land beyond the sea.
Water itself is animate in the superstitions of childhood and primitive
culture. ' Lustrations and Ceremonial Purifications ' by water, in-
cluding « Infant Baptism,' show the natural reverence one has for one's
forebears. Even ' Water in Literature,' poetical and religious, is
touched upon and found to be a great source of all kinds of emotion.
'The Feelings of People at Present toward Water' have been inves-
tigated by Mr. Bolton with a Clark University questionnaire which
contained rubrics on ' Running Water,' ' Large Expanses,' ' Waves,
Billows, etc.,' 'Children's Animistic Conceptions of Water' and the
4 Earliest Feelings toward Water;' and the answers to these numerous
questions are given to the extent of almost nine pages of fine print.
The 'Pedagogic Significance' of all this is that children like to play
in the water, and they ought to be allowed to do it ; and that the hu-
man soul is benefited by communion with water. Here is the final
sentence (p. 227) : " The childhood of the race was spent in delight-
ful contact with nature ; the child, ontogenetically recapitulating the
phylogenetic development of the race, craves instinctively for com-
munion with nature."

The serious objection to papers of this kind is that the writer has
not given proof of the applicability of his facts to his theory and to his
theory alone. This would have been most desirable in an article con-
sisting largely, if not solely, of a conglomeration of facts and legends,
a mixture of science and folk-lore.

This remarkable paper and its fellow Dendro- Psychoses no-
ticed immediately above, are beautiful examples of the way to make
a syllabus seem interesting ; but the possibilities of the continuance, ad

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 335

znjin., of such lines of thought should be appalling to the mathemat-
ically scientific mind. For why should we not have articles on Aer-
Psychoses, Geo-Psychoses and Omichlo-Psychoses, as air, earth and
fog (particularly the last) must have exercised a great, in proportion
as it is distant in time of evolution, and, therefore, fundamental, influ-
ence upon our thought. Supporting the thesis in Geo-Psychoses
which we expect to see emanating from Clark (I give a few hints for
the forthcoming article) would be 'Dust thou art,' etc., and the fact
that so many people prefer to be buried in the earth rather than burned
up ; and the fact that a great many persons will have themselves cre-
mated and turned into their constituent gases is a good point for the
article Aer-Psychoses. The present writer confesses to an extraor-
dinary fondness for similitudes and analogies, and that he much en-
joyed reading Mr. Bolton's article, for it awakened in him many de-
sires to drop books and seek some well-known swimming hole ; but it
is a pertinent fact that, while reading Hydro- Psychoses, something
(was it his subconscious self?) kept humming in his ears the tune out
of the hymn-book : 4 Pull for the Shore.'

Numbers XII., XIII. and XIV. of the Minor Studies are (a)
1 On Nearly Simultaneous Clicks and Flashes,' (o) i The Time
Required for Recognition ' and (c) 'Notes on Mental Standards of
Length.' (a) The first research, conducted by Mr. G. M. Whip-
pie, seems to show that the flashes, either by reason of their faint-
ness and the focussing of the attention necessary to take them in,
or for some other reason, tend to be perceived before the clicks.
Might not, however, the variability of the results of Whipple and
those of Exner, Gonnesiat and others be due to the visual or audi-
tory type of the subject? Summed up, the results of these experi-
ments (6 subjects) are to show ' a greater attention-claiming quality '
of the flash, which makes the interval for recognition shorter
for the flash-click than for the click-flash order, and that this holds
true for series of pairs. (3) In the second research, by F. W.
Colegrove, illustrations from magazines were shown to the subject,
some of which he had not seen before, and he reacted, indicating
whether he had or had not. The results (from 5 subjects) seem to show
that the judgments vary in quickness with the expectation of known
(quicker) or unknown (slower) pictures, (c) In the third, by Mr.
Colegrove, the mental standards of length were studied by giving 10
subjects a series of fifty circles graduated from 1% to 4T\ inches in
diameter and a series of lines the same lengths, and asking them to say
how long they were. Three inches was the favorite estimation.
NEW YORK. WILFRID LAY.

^INVENTION.

The Dynamogenic Factors in Pacemaking and Competition. NOR-
MAN TRIPLETT. Am. Jour. Psych., Vol. IX., 1898, pp. 507.
In bicycle races the value of a pace may be from twenty to thirty
seconds per mile. Mr. Triplett states the theories that have been pro-
posed to account for this wholly or in part. The nature of each of these
theories is indicated by their respective titles, namely, suction, shelter,
encouragement, brain worry, hypnotic suggestion and automatism.
He then advances another theory, stated as follows : ** Bodily presence
of another rider is a stimulus to the racer in arousing the competitive
instinct ; another can thus be the means of releasing or freeing nervous
energy that he cannot himself release; and, further, the sight of move-
ment, by suggesting a higher rate of speed, is also an inspiration to
greater effort." This theory does not exclude the above-mentioned
factors in bicycle pacing, but it is supported by laboratory experiments
in which most of them were eliminated. The experiments consisted
in a flag race. The flags were attached to cord belts that were run by
turning a crank like that of an ordinary fishing reel. The races
were made alternately with and without a pacemaker or rival, /'. £.,
alternately against time and time pius a rival. Of forty children ex-
perimented upon, twenty were stimulated positively; they made
greater speed in the presence of the pacemaker. Ten were over-
stimulated ; they lost by the presence of the pacemaker. Ten were
stimulated but little. As with wheelmen, the value of a pace was
different for different children, but somewhat constant for the same
individual in successive trials. Variations for age and sex were small
and fluctuating.

In support of the second clause of the theory, he cites an experi-
ment from Fere, illustrating this author's theory that the energy of a
movement is proportional to the idea of that movement. The third
clause of the theory is based upon an experiment in which the speed
of counting from one to twenty was increased by * pacing.'

C. E. SEASHORE.
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA.

L? Invention. Par FR. PAULHAN. Revue Philosophique. March

1898.

This contribution to the psychology of invention is characterized by
a detailed description of the phenomenology of inventive processes, on
the basis of intellectual and emotional experiences of the inventors them-
selves. The two most obvious generalizations drawn from this wealth
of material, including inventions in art, science and technique, are,

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 337

first, that all inventive processes are essentially alike in presenting
certain well-defined phases, and secondly that these processes are essen-
tially volitional in their type ; the main -problem which emerges is the
question of the relation of the chance associations or suggestions to the
dominating idea of the invention.

In all invention there is first of all a tendency of desire, unsatisfied,
which imposes upon the mind certain more or less fixed ideas upon
which it counts for satisfaction. This is followed by a crisis, akin to
volition, in which the dominating idea remains confused and unlogical
often until the last moment, and may follow as well as precede the de-
tails.

The conditions of this semi-volitional phenomenon are to be found
naturally in the sensational and affective sides of consciousness ; the
former being either general nervous stimulation, as when thought is
stimulated by music or walking, or secondly by stimulation through
some special artistic sense, either by the same sense in which the in-
vention is conceived or by a law of transposition of the senses, as
Paulhan calls it ; an invention in one artistic sense may be stimulated
by the experiences of another, as when Massanet is stimulated to the
composition of oriental airs by the sight of a turban or by the taste of
Greek wine, or when Flaubert desires to write a story in purple !
Color schemes have suggested music, and vice versa.

The lack of logical connection between the conditions and results
of invention indicates that the connections between the ideas are often
largely emotional ; and to this color is lent by the foregoing facts,
which lead the writer to compare a specialized artistic faculty, which
may be thus variously stimulated to the eye nerves whose functioning
may be brought about by other than the normal stimulus. As further
proof of the volitional nature of invention, it is shown that unsatisfied
passions and instincts are often effective causes, Chauteaubriand and
Rousseau furnishing neat examples.

This tendency to affiliate invention with the volitional rather than
the logical side of consciousness — going so far indeed as to consider
the difference only one of content — leads naturally in the direction of
reducing invention to a continuation of instinctive life, and to the false
view which Ribot holds out, that it is capable of a purely nervous
explanation. But the author saves himself from a too mechanical
point of view — which when pressed must resolve itself into James'
chance tipping of the nerve cells — by refusing to call in the element
of chance, and by substituting for the fascinating definition of M. Paul
Sauriau, that the element of c hazard ' in invention is * the conflict of

338 NEUROLOGY.

external casualty with internal finality,' a more comprehensive notion
of invention as the resultant of a conflict of different systems of inter-
nal finality. This conception M. Paulhan has, unfortunately, not
developed further, and the reader will miss likewise a detailed treat-
ment of the social criteria of the reception of an invention. A study
of these criteria from M. Paulhan's volitional standpoint, such as
Baldwin has developed from a different point of view, is necessary to
the completion of his study. In conclusion we can only call atten-
tion to the interesting discussions of the relation of invention to imita-
tion, and to the sources of the subjective sufficiency of an invention.

WILBUR MARSHALL URBAN.

On the Alleged Sensory Functions of the Motor Cortex Cerebri.

E. A. SCHAEFER. Journ. of Physiol., Vol. XXIII., No. 4, Nov.,

1898. Pp. 310-314.

This important though brief article or report was read before the
Congress of Physiologists at Cambridge, England, in August, 1898. It
has especial interest at this time because of the prominence which
discussions of the will as bodily action hold in current psychological
discussions.

H. Munk had made the assertion, followed by many, that " after
total extirpation of the arm- and leg-area [of the cortex of monkeys]
tactile sensibility of the opposite extremities is permanently lost ; a
touch or light pressure is without any effect; neither tactile reflexes
nor eye- nor head-movements are produced. The same is the case if
the whole arm- or leg-region is removed in monkeys ; tactile sensibil-
ity is permanently lost in the opposite arm or leg." It was to test the
truth of this assertion that this set of thirty experiments was performed
on the cortex of monkeys. They were made (i) upon the area con-
nected with the movements of the face (already published) ; (2) upon
the area connected with the movements of the leg; (3) upon the com-
bined area connected with the movements of both arm and leg ; and
(4) upon the gyrus fornicatus.

These experiments lead Dr. Schaefer to assert boldly that the
above cited statement of Munk is c ' entirely erroneous ; that, in fact,
complete voluntary motor paralysis of a part may be produced by a
cortical lesion without perceptible loss of tactile sensibility " (a fact
certainly in accord with frequent clinical experience). "It cannot,
therefore, be the case," says the writer, "that the motor paralysis
which is produced by a lesion of the Rolandic area is due to a sensory
disturbance. And it also follows that tactile sensibility is not localized

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 339

in the same part of the cortex from which voluntary motor impulses
directly emanate." This does not preclude the possibility that branch-
lets of the sensory sort of nerves enter the motor areas of the brain ;
indeed, the tingling often felt upon stimulation of the region suggests
that they do so. It seems to the experimenter conclusive that repeat-
edly excision of the motor area produced no anaesthesia in the part
which was thereby paralyzed. We shall await with much interest
the outcome of this important and seemingly difficult discussion.

GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

Recent Views as to the Topical Basis of Mental Disorders. DR.
KIRCHHOFF. Trans, by A. W. McCoRN. Am. Jour. Insanity,
Vol. LV., No. 3, January, 1899. Pp. 481-495.

This is a brief review of the present status of the localization of
cerebral functions, with especial psychiatrical reference.

The region about the fissure of Rolando, formerly called motor, is
now shown to be half-composed of sensory fibres from all parts of the
body ; hence it is called by Flechsig the somaesthetic area. Quite an-
alogous to this is the visual center ( 4 those cortical regions into which
the fibres of the occipito-thalmic radiations of Gratiolet extend ' — parts
of the cortex adjacent to the calcarine fissure), while it further appears
that the retina is directly represented, homologously, in the cortex, as
to a less perfect extent is the neural portion of the ear. The auditory
area is in the posterior part of the superior temporal gyri and in deeper
transverse convolutions. The olfactory area is probably in the gyrus
hippocampi, and taste is most likely represented in the uncus near the
nucleus amygdalae. Pain may very probably be represented in the
external limb of the lenticular nucleus (the putamen) and in the nucleus
caudatus. These centers seem to have trophic functions also, and this
relation empirical lessening of pain by improved nutrition corroborates.
The unity of the whole nervous system is to be recognized continually.
Flechsig's notion of thought-centers in the form of association-centers
scattered through the cortex between the sensory regions, but mainly
three in number, of which two, the middle and posterior, are probably
united into one, the seat of the intellect, Dr. Kirchhoff considers ten-
tatively admissible.

GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN.

34° NE UROLOG Y.

Neural Dynamics. W. J. HERDMAN. Journ. of the Am. Med.

Assn., Vol. XXXI., No. 21, December 19, 1898. Pp. 1211-

1214.

This is another theory of neural dynamics and quite in line
with the most natural suppositions concerning this doubtful matter ;
the article was read at the meeting of the American Medical As-
sociation held in Denver in June, 1898.

Dr. Herdman likens neurons to charged electrical condensers.
The nutritive processes and states of a neuron are indices of its
readiness for action, it having a surface-tension and a corresponding
electrical potential. The end-organs of sensory nerves serve as ave-
nues of ingress for forms of motion, which latter causes rearrangement
of the cell's molecules and a change in the static electrical condition.
On the one hand, every change in a neuron acts as a stimulus on
every neighboring neuron, but at the same time, by the principle on
which electro-magnetic induction acts, each neuron restrains the
action of the others, the balance thus being easily disturbable. " Thus
conduction and transference of nerve force are, according to this
theory, to be regarded as of the nature of electrostatic phenomena."

GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN.

Ueber die Primitivfibrillen in den Ganglienzellen vom Menschen
und anderen Wirbelthieren. ALBRECHT BETHE. Morpho-
logische Arbeiten, VIII. Band, i Heft, 1898. Pp. 95-115.
This article by Dr. Bethe, of the University of Strasburg, is one
more of the reports of very important histological research into the
nature of the ultimate neural unit which are making this basal dis-
cussion so animated and seemingly contradictory. He is one with
Remak, Max Schultze, Nissl, and Apathy, besides very many
others, in considering the fibrilla, and by no means the cells or the
neuron, as the anatomical and physiological unit of the nervous sys-
tem. By an improvement on Apathy's method he has been able to
demonstrate the fibrillaa in the vertebrates, namely, in the frog, dog,
rabbit, and in man.

After a brief historical review of the work in this direction to date,
and considerations in regard to methods employed, he describes the
ultimate fibril lae in, first, the axis-cylinder, and, second, as it appears
in the ganglion-cell. Two plates of drawings, thirteen in number,
finely represent what he has seen even, without the elaborate and
detailed description of the text. He seems to have examined with

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 341

his new methods nearly every sort of nerve-cell found in the species
studied, as well as the various sorts of conductive structures.

Dr. Bethe considers it probable that the fibrillae may conduct im-
pressions both toward and away from the cell ; that the protoplasmic
cell-projections are not neural, but nutritive ; that the connection be-
tween the cell, especially its nucleus, and the fibrillae is very 4 loose/

" The result of this research," says its conductor, " I may give in the
very words of Max Schultze, expressed more than twenty-six years ago,
but not recognized until to-day : ' Hence such a ganglion-cell, out of
which a centrifugal nerve-fiber arises, has meaning as the originating
organ of this fiber only in the sense that the fibrillae out of which the
axis-cylinder is composed lead to it by way of the lateral branches of
the ganglion-cell, while the fibrillae, which may be seen extending
through the substance of the ganglion-cell, do not arise from the cell,
but in themselves only surround it after the manner of the branches of
the axis-cylinder and continue on into other lateral branches.' "

GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN.

Neuron Energy and its Psychomotor Manifestations. IRA VAN
GIESON and BORIS SIDIS. Archives of Neurology and Psycho-
Pathology. Vol. I., No. i, 1898. Pp. 5-24.

This is the first article in the State Hospitals Bulletin under its
new title and in its greatly improved dress. The object of the article,
announced as only preliminary, is thus stated by its authors: "We
intend here to set forth, in a concrete, diagrammatic form a theory
that attempts to correlate the various general manifestations of psycho-
motor life with more or less definite physiological processes depending
on the expenditure or restitution of nerve energy."

Many useful and precise definitions occur, and the article is espe-
cially rich (about three pages) in seemingly elaborate algebraic formu-
lae expressing the various sorts of metabolism of the neuron-groups.
Psychopathies indicates psychic disaggregation correlative to dissocia-
tion within constellations ofr neurons, the neuron itself remaining un-
injured; while Neuropathies is defined as u a group of psychophysical
manifestations running parallel to fluctuations of static energy and ac-
companied by organic changes in the neuron." In mental disease
psychopathies may become neuropathies, and the latter may go on to
cytoclasis through processes of catalysis and cytolysis.

" The cycles in dynamic energy correspond to the physiological
manifestations of the nervous system in the activity and rest of the

342 NEUROLOGY.

individual in normal daily life. Concomitant with the expenditure of
dynamic energy of the neurons, the individual passes through the
active normal waking state, and hand in hand with the restitution of
this expended dynamic energy, he passes through the sleeping state of
normal daily life. When, however, in the expenditure of energy, the
border line is crossed, dynamic energy is used up and static energy is
drawn upon. The border line that separates the normal physiological
from the abnormal or pathological psychomotor manifestations is
stepped over. * * * * Catalysis corresponds to liberation of the
upper levels of static energy, and is accompanied by retraction of ag-
gregates of neurons, bringing about the phenomena of psychophysio-
logical dissociation. Restitution of the energy expended in the cata-
lytic process is accompanied by expansion or synthesis of the neurons,
which are again able to transmit or receive impulses in the particular
aggregate to which they belong. An arrest or halt after the expendi-
ture of energy in these upper static levels, corresponds again to a state
of retraction of the neuron or catalysis. * * * * Broadly speaking,
psychopathies run parallel to the phenomena of retraction and expan-
sion of aggregates of neurons, while neuropathies are concomitant
with actual degeneration of the neuron, especially of its cytolymph.
* * * * This one continuous process of liberation of neuron energy
may cover the life of a single individual or may extend over the life-
history of many generations.

44 The continuous descending pathological process may spread out in
time and space, may extend over a long duration of time and embrace
a great number of individuals. The tide of neuron energy may ebb
away gradually, leaving each succeeding generation on a lower stage
and deeper level in the continuous process of neuron disaggregation
and degeneration, thus giving rise to the different stages and manifes-
tations of congenital degeneracy. Many of the so-called degeneracies
and the congenital diseases of the nervous system arise, we believe, in
this way."

44 We may conclude this brief preliminary communication," say
these two scientists of the Pathological Institute, 44 with a few laws
relating to the metabolic processes of neuron activity : I. Catalysis
stands in direct and synthesis in inverse ratio to the number of disag-
gregated neuron associations. II. All other conditions remaining the
same, the instability of a cell aggregate is proportionate to the number
and complexity of its associative functioning groups. III. The sta-
bility of a neuron aggregate is proportionate to the frequency and
duration of its associative activity. IV. The instability of ;a neuron

NEW BOOKS. 343

aggregate is proportionate to the frequency and duration of the inter-
ruptions in its functioning activity. V. The mass of formed meta-
plasm granules stands in direct ratio to the intensity of cyto lysis and
in inverse ratio to the progress of cytothesis."

GEORGE V. DEARBORN.

NEW BOOKS.

De la Methode dans la Psychologic des Sentiments. F. RAUH.

Paris, Alcan. 1899. Pp. 305. Fr. 5.
La Nouvelle Monadologie. CH. RENOUVIER and L. PRAT. Paris,

Colin etCifl. 1899. Pp.546. 12 fr.
Wb'rterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe und Ausdrucke. R.

EISLER. In 8 parts. Parts L, II. Berlin, E. S. Mittler u. Sohn.

1899. Pp vi 4- 1-96 and 97-192. M. 2 each part.
The Foundations of Zoology. W. K. BROOKS. New York and

London, Macmillan. 1899. Pp. viii 4- 339* $2.50.
The Development of English Thought. SIMON N. PATTEN. New

York and London, Macmillan. 1899. Pp. xxvii 4- 409. $3.00.
Philosophy of Theism. A. C. FRASER. 2d ed. amended. Edin-
burgh and London. 1899. Pp. xviii 4- 338.
Manual of Psychology. G. F. STOUT. Vol. I. London, W. B.

Clive. 1898. Pp. xii -f 240.
Essay on the Bases of the Mystic Knowledge. E. RECEJAC.

Trans, by SARA C. UPTON. New York, Scribners. 1899. Pp.

xi 4- 287. $2.50.
The Public School Mental Arithmetic. J. A. McLENNAN. New

York, Macmillan. 1899. Pp. x 4- 138. 25 cents.
Anthropological Investigations on one Thousand White and Colored

Children of Both Sexes. ALES HRDLICKA. Illustrated. New

York and Albany, Crawford Co. 1899 (?). Pp. 86.
Spinoza, his Life and Philosophy. F. POLLOCK. 2d Ed. London,

Duckworth; New York, Macmillans. 1899. Pp. xxiv 4- 427.

$3-

All students of philosophy will welcome the new edition of Sir

Frederick Pollock's standard work — so long out of print. This edi-
tion is somewhat reduced in size from the omission of the < critical
and bibliographical matter collected ' in the former edition. The ap-
pendices to the earlier edition are also omitted c except the English ver-

344 NOTES.

sion of Colerus.' Certain later bibliographical indications, on the
other hand, are now included. J. M. B.

Lectures on the Republic of Plato. R. L. NETTLESHIP. Ed. by

G.R.BENSON. London and New York, Macmillans. 1898. Pp.

vi + 364. $2.75.

NOTES.

THE « Teacher's Professional Library ' is the title of a series of
books announced by The Macmillan Company under the general edi-
torship of Professor Nicholas Murray Butler, of Columbia University.
The contributors to this series will be leading teachers and students of
education in Europe as well as in the United States. A number of
volumes have already been arranged for.

PROFESSOR EDWARD BRADFORD TITCHENER is preparing for pub-
lication early in the fall 4 A Laboratory Manual of Experimental Psy-
chology,' which will be published by The Macmillan Company. The
work will be in two volumes and will detail an elementary course of
laboratory work. The first volume will deal with qualitative analysis,
the second with the exact measurement of mental processes. Each
volume will be published in a student's and a teacher's edition, the
former giving instructions as regards the conduct of experiments, con-
trol of introspection, etc., and the latter furnishing references, cognate
questions and exercises, and standard results. (Publisher's note.)

WE notice in the Journal of Mental Science, which is much im-
proved in form and appearance, the beginning of an * Index Medico-
Psychologicus,' prepared by Dr. J. Turner. The first part goes from
A to I, for the year 1893—4. The arrangement is alphabetical simply.

DR. DODGE has been advanced to an associate professorship of
philosophy at Wesleyan University.

MESSRS. MAYER AND MILLER, of Berlin, are publishing in three
volumes the mathematical correspondence of Gottfried Wilhelm Leib-
nitz, under the editorship of C. J. Gerhardt.

DR. BENJAMIN RAND, of the department of philosophy, will pub-
lish in April a work entitled 4 The Life, Letters and Philosophical
Regimen of the Third Earl of Shaftesbury.'

EDWARD THORNDIKE, Ph.D. (Columbia), instructor in education
in Western Reserve University, has been appointed instructor in
genetic psychology in Teachers College, Columbia University.

VOL. VI. No. 4. JULY, 1899.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW.

STUDIES ON THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE.

THE ACQUISITION OF A HIERARCHY

OF HABITS.

BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM LOWE BRYAN,

University of Indiana /
AND SUPERINTENDENT NOBLE HARTER,

Warsaw, Indiana.

I.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AN OCCUPATION.

A field for research is offered in the psychology of occu-
pations. The chief engagement of every one is the acquisition
or exercise of one or another association of habits, such as con-
stitutes skill in a game, trade, profession, language, science or
the like. With a little license one may call all of these occu-
pations. In mastering an occupation, doubtless the whole man
is involved, body and mind, sensation and movement, thought,
interest, imagination, will, — innumerable known and unknown
aspects of our psycho-physical life.

It might be argued that such an affair is too complex for
scientific treatment until we have done with more elementary
things, the fusion of ideas, the psycho-physic law, the chem-
istry of the cell, or whatever may be still more elementary. In
reply, it may be said that the history of science justifies the
study of concrete facts, however simple or complex, whether or
not the results can at once be correlated with other facts and
theories. One studies microscopically, another macroscopically.
One studies the chemistry of the cell, another tone sensations,

346 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

another comparative religion. A fact fixed at any point stands
in its own right, throws light at once upon the less and upon
the more complicated aspects of reality, and so does its share
toward a future correlation of the sciences into science. The
fashion of a time may run now to narrower, now to broader
studies ; but time justifies all work which meets its test, verifi-
ability ad libitum.

Most psychological studies, doubtless with good reason,
have dealt with abstractions. This is obviously true of the
studies, earlier and later, on will, association, attention, etc. ; for
these ' faculties ' are plainly not concrete phenomena of con-
scious life, but artificially isolated aspects of conscious life. It
is no less true that in the later laboratory studies on the fatigue
of a muscle, the reaction time in a silence cabinet, or the like,
we are dealing with abstractions. The reacting man, muscle,
or ganglion is, indeed, concrete ; but when a given process in
one of these is studied experimentally, the first and hardest task
is just the isolation of that process from * disturbing conditions ' —
that is, from the complex stream of life in which alone it nor-
mally occurs.

The best of these analytic studies, earlier and later, are in-
valuable to science and, in due course, to the conduct of affairs.
Invaluable, but still far from sufficient, by themselves, either
for science or for practical guidance. The scholar singles out
of the complex processes before him, some general aspect (law)
or some group of facts. He exploits one or the other precisely
and systematically. Excellent ! But too often the price of this
precision and system is an absorption which makes him blinder
than his neighbors to facts or laws that are in the processes con-
cerned, but outside the range of his methods, and to the actual
course of events in which all the facts and laws known and un-
known are interfused.

This blindness to things before his nose, but out of the focus
of his attention, is the disease-of-the-scholar. He assumes that
the particular principle or fact which he has defined sub-
stantially determines the whole stream of life in which it be-
longs. He writes an essay on will, or studies the latent period
of an excised muscle, and thereupon issues commands to the

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 347

public schools. Science is his debtor if he has developed any
truth. Science has time to wait for the rest. But if he tries to
put his learning to work, the realities which he has ignored will
have their revenge.

However, it is easier to see the need of trustworthy concrete
psychology than to supply the need. The actual concrete pro-
cesses of life are, indeed, all about and within us, but in a be-
wildering tangle. Out of this tangle we are all forced to get
some ' knowledge of human nature' so that we may live to-
gether. To our own insights in this direction we may add those
of others, those of artists and other sagacious men, those sanc-
tioned by the folk. In this way we build up a concrete psy-
chology, each for himself, and by this we guide ourselves in
dealing with one another. It is the dream of the scholar to sup-
plant this lore of the folk by an array of knowledge equally
concrete and practical, but immeasurably wider, more accurate,
more systematic, and freer from personal bias. The dream is
long in fulfilling. There are quick ways, but they lead to
pseudo-science. Witness phrenology, physiognomy, graphology
and the more precocious chapters in criminology. Such out-
comes warn us that there is no profit in fleeing from studies
which pay for their precision by being abstract, to studies which
pay for their concreteness by being untrustworthy. Better any
fragment of cerebral physiology which is true, though by itself
unable to tell any one what to do, than a Science of Human
Character which tells every one what to do, but is not true. It
must be recognized that macroscopic studies are subject to the
same tests as the microscopic. The essential test in both cases
is verifiability ad libitum.

The best examples of psychological studies at once concrete
and reliable are to be found in the literatures of comparative
psychology, psychiatry, criminal and individual psychology.
Here in the best cases we have pictures of the typical conduct
of animals, children, melancholiacs, paranoiacs et cetera, which
instruct us better than unscientific popular psychology can,
what to expect and what to do in dealing with individuals of
these sorts. To this group of studies the psychology of an oc-
cupation would belong.

348 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

It would be well worth while if we could discern in any one
man the chief subjective effects of mastering an occupation.
Learning the business has been his chief concern, his most
thoroughly evolutionizing experience. It has been an affair not
of weeks or months of forced laboratory practice, but of years,
wherein the natural interests of life have constantly driven him
toward levels of skill only to be reached under such stimula-
tion. In the measure that he has mastered the occupation, it
has mastered him. Body and soul, from head to foot, he has —
or one may say he is — the array of habits which constitutes pro-
ficiency in that sort.

Can such a case be studied with profit to science? The
probability that it can be is increased by the fact that an occu-
pation leads many men toward the acquisition of the same set of
habits. These men are scattered all along the way from ap-
prenticeship to mastery. Many of them begin and quit after
touching lightly and being lightly touched by the business.
These dabblers and failures are highly instructive objects of
study. Many others press on into some usable degree of pro-
ficiency. These men are colleagues not in name only, but psy-
chologically and physiologically. They have similar knacks,
or similar traditions of the trade, or similar habitudes of some
kind necessary in their business. They know, as well as they
know anything about themselves, what the main habitudes de-
veloped by their occupation are ; and if the psychologist can
find his way to the right questions, they can give a valuable in-
trospective account of those habitudes. It may be possible in
the case of some occupations to supplement such testimony by
objective experimental tests. A few in each occupation become
experts, and of these an occasional one becomes able to do
easily and quickly what his lesser colleagues can scarcely believe
possible. Such cases are, of course, hardest to understand, and
may escape all definition. But it would surely be worth while
to begin the study of the genius by following him along that
part of his path which he shared with many others. We might
in this way, at least, find the point where he disappeared. That
would be something.

In a word, society has already made for us in each occupa-

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 349

tion a vast experiment in the development of habits. If we
can make use of some of these ready-made experiments, if we
can delineate the path or paths by which one travels toward
mastery of an occupation, if we can discover and describe the
characteristic stages of the progress, if we can do these things
so that every detail of our work can be objectively verified by
any competent scientist, and so that the outcome will be ac-
cepted as true by those who have mastered the occupation, this
should prove not unprofitable work. It should supplement what
analytic psychology can do for pedagogy and psychiatry ; for
it would portray the actual typical procedures of men in learn-
ing or in failing to learn. And it should supplement what
analytic psychology can do toward developing the science of
mind; for %it would exhibit not theoretical syntheses of alleged
psychic elements, but the actual syntheses which the science of
mind must accept and explain.

During the past five years the authors have made studies in
the psychology of one occupation — telegraphy, utilizing
throughout the work the experience of telegraphers as well as
the methods of psychological research. The foregoing pages
are not intended to overemphasize the importance of the results
obtained, but to express a conviction which the study has de-
veloped, that in this direction lies a programme worthy the
labor of many good men.

II.

DATA OLD AND NEW.

In a former series of studies on the physiology and psy-
chology of the telegraphic language [PSYCH. REV., IV., p. 27]
the authors gave the curves of improvement in sending and re-
ceiving. These curves were determined by the records of in-
dividuals tested each week, from the beginning of practice until
fair proficiency was reached, and were confirmed by a con-
sensus of opinion from about two hundred operators. As the
conclusions of this paper are based in part upon those curves,
one of the figures (X.) from the former paper is reproduced
for convenience of reference.

35°

WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

Reproduced from PSYCH. REV., IV., 44.

Tfeceiv/vct

a

Te.tr <

RATE..

Connected discourse curve at the top ; word curve in the middle ; letter curve
at the bottom.

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 351

The salient feature of the pictures shown in Figures II. to X,,
is the difference between the two curves. The sending curve
has a form made familiar by many published practice curves.
The receiving curve has for several months a similar torm, but
suddenly rises into what looks like a second practice curve.
Moreover the history of expert telegraphers shows that after
some years the receiving curve may ascend rapidly a third time.

Interest in the novel form of this curve deepens as evidence
appears to show that it represents, in general, the course of im-
provement in various other acquisitions, e. g*. , the learning of a
foreign language, of chemistry, of English composition, etc.
Interest is further challenged by the difficulty of explaining the
form of the curve. In the former paper the authors proposed
no explanation. None of our reviewers, nor of the psychologists
with whom we have conversed, has given us a hint as to its
meaning.

To investigate the problem further the following experiment
was devised. A student should be tested each week on

(<z) rate of receiving letters not making words,

(3) rate of receiving letters making words, the words not
making sentences,

(c) rate of receiving letters making words, the words mak-
ing sentences.

These tests were made in the winter of 1896-1897. The
subject was John Shaw, of Brookville, Indiana, who had be-
gun the study of telegraphy about six weeks before the making
of first test, Oct. 24, 1896. The method of making the test is
described in PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, IV., p. 48. The test was
made each week until May 9. One test day, Dec. 26, was
missed. The results are given in Figure XL

Before discussing these results we subjoin evidence relating
thereto derived from the introspections and observations of
telegraphers. As hitherto noted (loc. cit., p. 27), one of the
authors (H.) was for years a telegrapher. To supplement his
experience we have held long and satisfactory conversations
with operators1 of every grade up to the most expert men in the

1 We cannot express too warmly our thanks to the members of the tele-
graphic profession for their cordial assistance without which the present study

35 2 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

country. We have asked telegraphers three principal ques-
tions :

A. To what is attention mainly directed at different stages
of progress?

The answers agreed entirely, and were as follows : (a) At
the outset one ' hustles for the letters.' (b) Later one is * after
words.' (V) The fair operator is not held so closely to words.
He can take in several words at a mouthful, a phrase or even
a short sentence, (d) The real expert has all the details of the
language with such automatic perfection that he gives them
practically no attention at all. He can give his attention freely
to the sense of the message, or, if the message is sent accu-
rately and distinctly, he can transcribe it upon the typewriter
while his mind is running upon things wholly apart.

The feat of the expert receiver — for example of the receiver
of press despatches — is more remarkable than is generally sup-
posed. The receiver has two advantages over the sender. He
can receive mentally far faster than any one can send ; and
with the typewriter he can transcribe much faster than any one
can send. To bring the sender's rate up to that of the receiver
abbreviated codes have been prepared. The receiver must
translate the code into English words, and transcribe these cor-
rectly capitalized and punctuated, upon the typewriter. He
takes, in this way, eighty or eighty-five words a minute. If
mistakes are made by the sender, the receiver is expected to
correct them as they come, and send a clean copy to press.
The work continues for hours without leisure for re-reading,
the pages being taken away to press as fast as they are fin-
ished. Yet, even during the performance of this astonishing
feat, the operator is able at will to think about the significance
of the despatches or to think of anything else he chooses. An
Associated Press man, who has worked for years in one of our
large cities, said to us : "I am in danger of allowing errors

could not have been successful^ carried on. Especial thanks are due to Messrs.
H. E. Jones, Assoc. Press, Cincinnati; Lot Lee, Assoc. Press, Indianapolis;
Supt. Miller, Western Union, Cincinnati; E. B. Cassel, Chief Despatcher,
Monon R. R., Bloomington, Indiana ; and J. E. Sullivan, Chief Despatcher,
Wabash Railroad, Peru, Indiana.

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 353

made by the sender to get into my copy, if I let my mind
wander ; but the truth is that in the last weeks, while taking
press, my mind has been most of the time at home with a sick
child."

B. How far can one ' copy behind ' in different stages of
his progress?

It should be explained that receiving is practically always
* copying behind.' That is, one does not, or should not, antici-
pate from part of a group of clicks what the rest will be ; for if
one guesses wrong, confusion of mind and error are likely to fol-
low. Beginners are prone to guess ahead, and must acquire the
habit of not doing so. Experts learn to wait. One expert
said, " It is more natural to read back." He was asked if 'read-
ing back ' was like counting the strokes of a clock just after it
is done striking. He replied, ' precisely.' 1

The answers to the second question were also concurrent.
(<z) The beginner must take each letter as it comes, i. e., he
can copy behind one letter. ($) Later he can wait for words.
(c) A fair operator can copy behind several words in connected
discourse. (<f) The expert prefers to keep six to ten or twelve
words behind the instrument.

A count of the number of clicks (dots and dashes) in ten
groups of ten words each, taken from a press despatch, gave
the following result: 220, 275, 172, 214, 189, 267, 303, 260,
196, 281 ; average, 237.7. The achievement of the telegrapher
in keeping correct hold of so long a series of sounds, and in
doing this with a constantly changing series is, without doubt,
one of the most remarkable feats of its kind. This is an ex-
ample of a skill not to be reached by forced laboratory practice,
but only by years of intense work.

C. What happens when you have to receive the discon-
nected words of a strange code or list of figures, such as bank
clearings or the like ?

The universal experience of operators upon this point was
expressed by one expert thus : " When I get a word indicating

1 If, however, the first words of a very familiar phrase occur, they may be-
tray even the expert into anticipating the rest of the phrase. This fact is a
significant illustration of the subjective solidarity of phrases. See below, p. 364.

354 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

that a list of figures is to follow, I sweat blood until I can catch
up." He said he could wait for six figures if they were in
groups of three separated by a comma, but if the figures were
isolated, he would want to be not more than three or four be-
hind. In a word, he could hold in mind forty to sixty or more
of the elementary groups of the Morse code, if these ' made
sense/ but only three or four, if wholly disconnected.

Note on the Reading of the Blind. To get cross light
upon some of the foregoing points, information was sought
concerning the reading of the blind, from Miss Nellie Love, an
expert teacher in the Indiana Institute for the Blind at Indian-
apolis. She reports as follows :

" (i) Upon what is the attention of the pupil fixed as he
reads?

Upon first reading a new selection :

(a) In a First Reader class of twelve every one kept his
finger on the letters, spelling each word either out loud or to
himself.

(b) In a Second Reader class of eighteen the attention of
all but three was upon the words. These three read to see what
the story was about.

(c) In the Fourth Reader class of seventeen the larger num-
ber gave attention to the words ; the others to the thought.

(d) In the next grade, a class of about the same size, more
regarded the thought, only three or four the words.

(e) In the highest grades the attention was upon the thought,
except when the words were unfamiliar.

" (2) How far does the pupil read with his finger ahead of
his voice?

(a) In First and Second Reader classes, not at all.

(3) In Third and Fourth Reader classes, most pupils keep
finger and voice together. Two report the fingers one word
ahead.

(c) In the highest reading classes the majority keep finger
and voice together. Several read three or four words ahead.
One pupil, a very bright boy, keeps a line ahead, eight or ten
words. He reads the end of one line with the finger of his
right hand and at the same time reads the beginning of the
next line with his left hand.

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 355

(d) In the advanced classes, where reading is not a special
subject, the best pupils keep finger and voice together. In each
class that studies reading as one subject, pupils who study each
day, read and study the lesson, and then are able to read
smoothly, rapidly, and several words ahead of the voice."

In all grades, sentences are read faster than disconnected
words, and disconnected words faster than disconnected letters.
The rates are not reported. All these results are closely anal-
ogous to those found among the telegraphers. Of course there
are no blind children who have attained a proficiency cor-
responding to that of the expert telegrapher.

III.

CONCLUSIONS.

The immediate conclusions from the foregoing data will be
given first; later (under IV.), an interpretation and discussion
of these conclusions in connection with related literature.

i. A Hierarchy of Habits.

One might perhaps suppose that receiving telegraphic mes-
sages is simply transliteration or, at most, transverbalization from
the code into the mother tongue. The operators reject this
view. The evidence before us proves that they are right in
doing so. Neither the letter curve nor the word curve nor both
together, account for the receiving curve1 except for a short
period (see Figure XL). Most plainly, the letter and word
curves fail to account for the receiving curve where it rises
rapidly from the plateau, while they continue their slight ascent.
From an early stage some curve or curves associated with the
combination of words in connected discourse must coalesce
wdth the letter and word curves to give as a resultant the receiv-
ing curve. At the period when the resultant curve is rising
rapidly, while the letter and word curves are rising slowly, the
higher constituent curve (or curves) must be rising rapidly.

What does this higher constituent curve represent in the

1 The connected discourse curve in Figure XI. will be spoken of as the re-
ceiving curve ; its constituent curves, as letter and word curves respectively.

356 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

learner? Certainly not merely nor mainly increased familiarity
with the meaning, structure or logical connection of sentences
in the mother tongue. When, for example, the learner has
rapidly shot up from a rate of eighteen to a rate of twenty-five
words per minute, no one can believe that he has made this gain
because of a sudden and enormous gain in knowledge of the
language he has used all his life. All the facts point to the
conclusion that the telegrapher must acquire, besides letter,
syllable, and word habits, an array of higher language habits,
associated with the combination of words in connected dis-
course. Mastery of the telegraphic language involves mastery
of the habits of all orders. In a word, learning to receive the
telegraphic language consists in acquiring a hierarchy of
psycho-physical habits. For a discussion of this conclusion in
connection with related literature see below, under IV., p. 360.

2. The Order of Learning the Habits of the Telegraphic

Language.

The synchronous curves of Table XI. and the experience of
operators agree in showing that from an early period letter,
word and higher habits make gains (a) simultaneously, but (b)
not equally.

(a) The simultaneity in these gains is shown in Fig. XI. by
the fact that from the point where the curves diverge, each con-
tinues to rise. This is perhaps to be explained by the fact that
from an early stage the learner practises with sentences, taking
them as slowly as necessary. In this way there is incidental
practice of every language unit and of every language unit in
its proper setting.

(#) The curves of Figure XI. show also, however, that for
many months the chief gain is in the letter and word habits,
that the rate of receiving sentences is, in this period, mainly de-
termined by the rate of receiving letters and words, and that
rapid gain in the higher language habits does not begin until
letter and word habits are well fixed. This objective result is
supported by the introspective evidence of operators. In the
first days one is forced to attend to letters. In the first
months one is forced to attend to words. If the learner es-

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 357

says a freedom for which he is unfit, suddenly a letter or word
which is unfamiliar explodes in his ears and leaves him wrecked.
He has no useful freedom for higher language units which he
has not earned by making the lower ones automatic. The rank
and file of operators are slaves to the machinery of the tele-
graphic language. They must copy close. They cannot at-
tend much to the sense of the message as it comes, but must get
its form, and re-read for the sense. Only when all the neces-
sary habits, high and low, have become automatic, does one
rise into the freedom and speed of the expert.

3. The Plateaus.

We are now prepared to offer an explanation for the salient
peculiarity of the receiving curve, — its plateaus.

A plateau in the curve means that the lower-order habits
are approaching their maximum development :, but are not yet
sufficiently automatic to leave the attention free to attack the
higher-order habits. The length of the plateau is a measure oj
the difficulty of making the lower-order habits sufficiently auto-
matic.

(a) The first ascent. No plateau appears between the learn-
ing of letters and of words, because very soon these are learned
simultaneously. However, as the letters are few, one is each
week able to give more complete attention to the mastery of syl-
ables and words as wholes. This perhaps accounts, in part, for
the rapid progress of the first weeks.

(b] The first plateau. For several months the learner is
compelled to attend almost exclusively to words. The number
of words which he has to learn in order to receive whatever
messages come, is great. The average amount of practice
which each word receives is therefore small, and the increase
in the average rate of receiving correspondingly slow. This
very slow increase of rate we have called a plateau. It contin-
ues until the learner has the necessary vocabulary so well
learned that he can have his attention free for something else.

Another retarding influence during this period is doubtless
the learner's slight hold upon the higher language habits. The
importance of this retarding influence in comparison with that

358 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

of an imperfect vocabulary, can not be determined without ad-
ditional investigation.

(c) The second ascent represents the acquisition of a new set
of language habits. This is a priori probable from the con-
sideration that in practice curves generally rapid progress ap-
pears when the developing function is in an early stage. We
are not, however, left with a probability. While the receiving
curve is rising rapidly the synchronous word and letter curves
are continuing their ascent slowly. We, therefore, know that
the learner is gaining speed by taking in some way increasing
advantage of word combinations. Part of the reason why he
improves so fast is, doubtless, that he has already been uncon-
sciously habituated for certain phrases and forms of word
combination in the period when he was attending mainly to
words. It may be that the rapid ascent of any -practice curve
represents mainly a quick realization of powers potentially
present by reason of preceding gradual and unconscious habitu-
ation. With the increased ability in taking sentences there
comes, without doubt, increased ability to take isolated words
and letters ; but, as one improves, the three curves diverge more
and more. This means that skill depends more and more upon
the acquisition of higher language habits.

(d) Only the first few months of the period during which
one is a practical operator, but not an expert, have been inves-
tigated experimentally. Our knowledge of this period rests
mainly upon the testimony of operators. Men of this rank, of
course, vary widely in skill and in rate of improvement. There
is, however, one essential point in which operators who are not
experts are more or less alike. They are all, in some degree,
tied to the mechanism of the language. They cannot copy far
behind. The mind must not wander far from the incoming
stream of words, even to dwell upon the sense of the words.
Few operators ever obtain complete freedom in the telegraphic
language. These few must earn their freedom by many years
of hard apprenticeship. Our evidence is that it requires ten
years to make a thoroughly seasoned press despatcher.1

1 We have shown above that receiving is not translating either letter by
letter or word by word into the mother tongue, but involves the use of a great

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE, 359

(e) The final ascent. The testimony of experts is that the
ascent from drudgery into freedom is as sudden as was the as-
scent from the first plateau.

Note on the Sending Curve.

Why does the sending curve have no such succession of
plateau and ascent as appears in the receiving curve ?

There is no plateau in the sending curve in the earlier part of
its course, because, as in the early part of the receiving curve,
the various habits involved are acquired simultaneously (com-
pare page 357), and there is no sharp ascent later, even when
one becomes an expert, because such an ascent is mechanically
impossible. At all stages one has in mind plenty of words
ready to be sent as fast as the motor habits will permit. At first
one is learning motor letter habits. Soon, however, also motor
word habits. The sending curve rises accordingly in a fashion
analogous to that of the receiving curve in its early stage. By
and by, however, a mechanical limit is reached. Sending is,
at the best, a slow business. A letter or digit requires from
one to six strokes. Spaces of various length must be allowed
for. One cannot utilize both hands and several fingers, as with
a typewriter. So, at less than fifty words a minute, a maximum
has been reached that cannot be surpassed.

4. Effective Speed and Accuracy.

(a) Effective Speed.

It has long been known that connected words can be read
faster than disconnected, and letters combined in words faster
than disconnected letters.1 The facts upon this point, old and
new, justify, we believe, the following conclusion : Effective

array of higher language habits— that telegraphy is psychologically a distinct
language, almost or quite as elaborate as the mother tongue. This view is sup-
ported by the fact that so long a time and such intense labor are required for the
mastery of telegraphy — an amount of time and labor which would, without
doubt, make the same men equally expert in any foreign language.

1 We dissent, however, from the view that it is only or mainly the logical con-
nection in sentences which accounts for the rapid rate in reading them. We
believe (p. 366) that there^are mechanical habits corresponding to often recurring
peculiarities of sentences. This is shown by the fact that a series of words
making no sense, if skillfully arranged in familiar sentence forms, can be read
far faster than a series of .words taken at random, and almost as fast as words
making sense. Almost, but not quite. A consciousness of the sense appears to
be still one factor in the affair.

360 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

speed depends, in a relatively small degree, upon the rate at
'which the processes dominant in consciousness occur; in a rela-
tively great degree, upon how muck t's included in each of those
processes. For further discussion see below, under IV. , 4. p. 374.

(#) Effective Speed and Accuracy.

The gain in speed made possible by adding mastery of the
higher language habits to mastery of the lower, does not lead to
less, but to greater accuracy in detail. We have found invaria-
bly that many more mistakes are made in receiving discon-
nected letters than in receiving, at a much more rapid rate,
letters that form words ; and that, in turn, many more mistakes
are made in receiving disconnected words than in receiving, at
a still rapider rate, connected discourse. The practical experi-
ence of the telegraph companies proves the same. Although
mastery of the higher order habits thus helps the receiver to ac-
curacy in details, it cannot supply his ignorance of details. If
a word not in his vocabulary comes as part of a dispatch, he is
very likely to get it wrong. If he is often found making errors
of this sort, it is proof that he needs a more extensive and accu-
rate telegraphic vocabulary. Such a man is trying to receive
faster than he can. He is trying to gain speed at the expense
of accuracy. This is not effective speed, as his superiors will
quickly let him discover. For further discussion see below,
IV., 4. p. 374.

IV.

DISCUSSION.

In the foregoing, we have given little more than a bare state-
ment of results. In the discussion of these results, we desire, first
of all, to give the plain meaning of the facts known to us. We
shall, however, use entire freedom in suggesting a wider circle
of interpretations for which the evidence is not made out. We
have, however, no interest in any theory suggested, except to see
it tried by facts and assigned its proper measure of probability.

i. A. Hierarchy of Habits.

A man is organized in spots — or rather in some spots far
more than in others. This is true structurally and functionally.

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 361

It is strikingly true of the various sense organs and their func-
tions. No less of the various parts of the central nervous system
and their functions. A man has some habits which are spo-
radic and isolated, some which are bunched together in loose
groups (such as the outlay of skills which make one a carpenter),
and then, some habits which are knit together into a hierarchy.

A hierarchy of habits may be described in this way: (i)
There are a certain number of habits which are elementary con-
stitutents of all the other habits within the hierarchy. (2)
There are habits of a higher order which, embracing the lower
as elements, are themselves in turn elements of higher habits, and
so on. (3) A habit of any order, when thoroughly acquired, has
physiological and, if conscious, psychological unity. The
habits of lower order which are its elements tend to lose them-
selves in it, and it tends to lose itself in habits of higher order
when it appears as an element therein.

There is reason to believe that proficiency in chess, geometry,
chemistry and the like, involves in each case the mastery of
habits which are associated in some such hierarchical fashion.
Leaving these slightly investigated fields, however, we turn
to that of language. The proposition that a language exists
subjectively as a hierarchy of habits, is supported by a consid-
erable amount of evidence scattered through recent psycho-
logical literature. This proposition is by no means identical
with the obvious truth that a language is, objectively consid-
ered, a system composed of various units — letters, words, sen-
tences, etc. The existence of the objective system is evident to
all who know the language ; the existence of a corresponding
system of subjective habits demands proof. Is there, for ex-
ample, a psycho-physically unitary habit corresponding to a
familiar word, or does the recognition of a word involve the
separate recognition of each letter? The latter view has been
held. It requires convincing evidence from experimental psy-
chology and psychiatry to prove that the recognition of a word
is ' eine gesonderte Funktion.' In like manner it will require
evidence not yet fully forthcoming, to show what higher lan-
guage units and what characteristics of spoken and written
language (e. g., cadence, sentence-length, etc.) are rep-
resented subjectively by distinct habits.

362 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

(a) Letters. — A letter (printed or telegraphic) presents to
sense a manifold. Recognition of the letter and recognition of its
elements are distinct functions. One may recognize the dash and
the dot of the telegraphic code after a little practice, and may
know that J = — . — . , without being able to recognize that
group of clicks when heard. To recognize the group as a
whole with maximum rapidity requires weeks of practice. On
the other hand, one may recognize a letter as a whole — for ex-
ample, in Old English type — but be wholly unable to reproduce
in memory the essential parts of which it is composed.1

(£) Syllables. — Hopfner, in his study * Ueber die geistige
Ermiidung von Schulkindern,' 2 finding that word errors are
more frequent than syllable errors, and that letter errors are
more frequent than errors as to parts of letters, remarks : " Silben
sind im Wort und Buchstabenteile im Buchstaben fester gefiigt
als Worter im Satz und als Buchstaben im Wort. Worter und
Buchstaben sind also ' sebstandigere ' Elemente."

This observation is doubtless correct. Syllables are, how-
ever, sufficiently * independent ' to make it worth while for
primary teachers to use the child's stock of known syllables in
teaching new words. Mr. Harter is of the opinion that a
learner of telegraphy pays little direct attention to the syllables
as such, but is really helped in the hearing of new words by
the presence of familiar syllables.

(c) Words. — A child or one suffering partial aphasia, may
recognize the letters of a word, but not the word as a whole. See,
for example, the case reported by R. Sommer,3 who concludes :
"Die Verbindung von Lautreihen zu Worter ist eine gesonderte
Funktion. Ein < Wort' ist schon deshalb nicht als * Lautreihe '
zu betrachten." On the other hand, children are frequently
taught to recognize words as wholes before they know the let-
ters of the alphabet. Decisive proof that the recognition of a
word does not consist in the successive recognition of its letters,
is afforded by CattelPs result 4 that a familiar word can be re-

1See Goldscheider and Miiller, Zur Physiologic und Pathologic des Lesens.
Zeitschtift f. klin. Med., Bd., XXIII., s. 131-167 (1893). Reviewed by Wai-
laschek in Zeitschtift f. Phys. und Psych, d. Sinnesorgane, VII., 228.

2 Zeitschriftf. P. und P. d. Sinnesorgane, VI., 217.

3 Zeitschrift f. P. und P. d. Sinnesorgane, V., 318.
»' «/%//. Stud., II., 647; III., 470.

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 363

cognized in almost the same time that it takes to recognize one
of its letters. This abundantly verified result one of the writers
has found true of many children who are in their second school
year.

Analogous facts appear on the motor side. One may be
able to produce the separate sounds of a foreign language with
considerable accuracy, as Karsten points out,1 and still may not
be able, without additional practice, to pronounce words. On
the other hand, we pronounce the words of our own language
with ease, but require special practice to produce the elementary
sounds composing them. Karsten puts the matter thus :

(3) Nach dem oben gesagten wird man nicht einwenden wollen,
dass, wer das bewegungsgefiihl fur das ganze hat, auch das fur die
einzelnen theile besitze und umgekehrt. Durch das erinnerungsbild
ist eine bewegung von anfang bis ende abgegrenzt, dauer und art der
mitwirkung aller in betracht kommenden organe fest bestimmt. Zwar
konnen wir eine bewegung absichtlich an irgend einem puncte ab-
brechen, aber diese abgebrochene bewegung ist dann eben nicht mehr
dieselbe, sondern eine andere, welche bei geniigender wiederholung
ihr eigenes erinnerungsbild entwickelt. Die bewegungen des arztes
beim operieren, des rnalers, des musikers sind mechanisch und raum-
lich alle enthalten in den einem jeden von uns gelaufigen bewegungen ;
doch gehort iibung, das heisst ausbildung der bewegungsgefiihle dazu,
um gerade eine bestimmte bewegung genau auszufiihren. Auch
kann man eine bewegung, die man z. b. mit fiinf fingern leicht macht,
nicht sof ort mit einem oder zwei fingern nachahmen ; das ware zwar
ein theil der friiheren, aber doch auch eine bewegung fiir sich, fur die
das bewegungsgefiihl erst eigens entwickelt werden muss. — Kurz das
bewegungsgefiihl kann etwas einheitliches sein, auch wenn die wirk-
liche bewegung compliciert ist, und einheitliche bewegungsgefiihle fiir
grossere lautgruppen konnen in der seele sich bilden getrennt von
denen fiir die einzelnen theile, aus welchen jene gruppen bestehen.

(d) Word groups. As certain letters often appearing in the
same order give rise to a unitary word habit, so several words
often appearing in the same order give rise to a phrase habit.
Such word groups sometimes come to have a unity almost equal

1 Sprecheinheiten ii d. Rolle in Lautwandel ii Lautgesetz; Proceedings
Mod. Lang. Assoc., Vol. III., 1887, p. 3.

364 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

to that of single words. As a rule, doubtless, the fusion is not so
close ; that is, we pass more easily than in the case of words
from the consciousness of the whole to the consciousness of the
parts. Nevertheless, the tendency of the first part of a familiar
phrase to suggest the rest,1 and the fact that everyone has not only
a characteristic vocabulary, but a characteristic outlay of word
groups, show that phrases exist .subjectively as unitary habits.
Furthermore, it has been shown that one who reads a language
with a certain skill is liable to make phrase errors as distinct
from letter or word errors.2

Paul3 points out that we have many word groups (e. g., auf
der Hand liegen) in which a word has ceased to be associated
with its ordinary meaning, in some cases (e. g., das Bad austra-
gen) so completely that it requires a knowledge of the history
of language to explain the connection between the meaning of
the phrase and that of the individual word. In such cases, the
language unit dominant in consciousness is evidently the phrase
and not the word.4

(e) Habits Corresponding to Characteristics of Words,
Phrases, etc. The language habits so far noted are specific
i. e., in each case a specific stimulus (letters, syllable, word
or group of words) leads to a specific reaction. It is, how-
ever, a fact of the highest importance that one's stock of specific
habits contains the material for innumerable other specific habits
(and also, some hold, for * generic' or ' plastic' habits). When
one has learned bat, cat, many, model, one has four specific
habits ; but one is within two steps (which may be taken in a
breath or only after deliberate pains) of a new habit corre-
sponding to mat. The first step is dissociation (in the manner
described by Martineau and James5) of the at from the first
two words, and of the m from the second two ; the second step
is the fusion of these dissociated habits, when they appear in
the order m- at, into one new specific unitary habit correspond-

1 See case mentioned above, p. 353.

2 Cf . Berger : Ueber den Einfluss der Uebung auf geistige Vorgange, Phil*
Stud., V., 175.

3Principien der Sprachgeschichte, 2 Aufl., 83.
4Cf. Cattell, Mind, XL, 64.
5 James, Psychol., L, 484.

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 365

ing to mat. (There is something arbitrary in the designation
of two steps in the making of a new habit out of old ones.
To ordinary introspection the process seems to have many steps
when it occurs slowly and painfully, and only one step when it
occurs in a flash, as when we recognize and adopt in an instant
a new slang word — mugwump, popocrat. The words dissocia-
tion and fusion only designate and emphasize two essential
phases of the whole process which ends in a new habit.)

In like manner, one's acquisition of these four words is par-
tial preparation for met, bet, cad, and also for bonnet, calico,
and for every word containing any syllable or letter learned.
Further, the trochaic rhythm of many and model may become
dissociated from these words, and may reappear as an aid in
learning other trochaic words.1

In the same manner, any element or characteristic of a
word group habit may become serviceable in the learning of
new groups. Doubtless, the primary effect of using a given
word group is to establish a quite specific habit. One can re-
read a sentence more quickly than one can read a new sentence
containing the same words in a different order. One can even
re-read a sentence more quickly if one follows the rhythm first
used. The dissociation of language elements from the specific
wholes in which they have occurred, and their use in the con-
struction or understanding of new sentences, are a task — perhaps
the most remarkable task of which men are capable. The
stupider or lazier one is, the less one has inclination or power
for this task. i3ut even the stupidest and laziest man meets,
with some measure of success, the conversational emergencies
that confront him. From his small language capital, there rise
substantially the right nouns, verbs, phrases, but's, ifs, not's, and
even the right inflections to denote the attitude and temper of
his mind ; and these elements fall together with amazing swift-
ness into sentences never before used by him. One who has
genius for expression differs from the dullard in having a
larger language capital, greater facility in dissociating the ele-
ments and characteristics, and greater facility in making new
combinations. Until we have had a great deal more research

1 Miiller und Schumann, Zeitsch.f. Psych, u. Phys. d. Sinnesorgane?J\. , 28of.

366 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

in regard to the higher language habits, conclusions in respect
to them must be proposed with reserve. At present the follow-
ing points seem probable :

(a) It is well known that the average length of sentence is
characteristic for a given author. In most cases, perhaps, the
author is unconscious of his sentence-length habit.

(3) A rhythm often used probably becomes habitual, apart
from any particular words, and is then an aid in reading and a
factor in making new phrases, sentences, and paragraphs, hav-
ing that rhythm.

(c) A certain order of the parts of speech (e. g.> * he walked
out of the way,' or * out of the way walked he ') often recurring
becomes habitual, determines the making of new sentences,
gives us a sense of ease in reading straightforward prose, and
a sense of shock at sentences like Browning's * Irks care the
crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?' — even
when, as in this case, the words are all familiar.

(d) A grammatical construction often used to express a cer-
tain feeling (of plurality, futurity, doubt or the like) comes to
be automatically associated with 'that feeling, apart from any par-
ticular sentence, so that either instantly and effortlessly sug-
gests the other, to serve as one of many elements in the reading
or making of a new sentence.1

In like manner we may suppose that every peculiarity of
style up to the structure and tone of a volume, corresponds to a
more or less perfectly fixed habit. An E. P. Roeish novel be-
trays in its author a habit on its way to becoming as specific as
sneezing.

Note on the development of new habits out of old ones.
The old theory that doing particular things gives 'general train-
ing' of body and mind is nowadays confronted with the view
that there is no such thing as 'general training'. The two views
are perhaps not so irreconcilable as they appear to be in current
psychological and educational discussions. The chief subjec-
tive effect of an act is doubtless its tendency to establish the
habit of repeating that act ; and, conversely, the best way to

1 For the discussion of the point whether grammatical habits are specific or
plastic, see below.

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 367

acquire skill in a particular act is to practise that, and not some-
thing else. But every bodily or mental process involved in an
act is practised, and through dissociation and reassociation may
appear in innumerable other actions. In the case mentioned
above (p. 364), the * fringes' of emotion and intention when the
four words were learned tend to [reappear upon repetition of
these words ; but may also, because of their exercise then, come
up to reinforce the set of mind in a subsequent attack upon the
multiplication table or the woodpile. When a boy drives the
last nail in a fence as carefully as the first he is not thereby
made ready to build a house, nor to codify the law of the com-
monwealth, nor to do anything else in the world so well as to
drive nails into that fence ; but his skill in nail driving will re-
appear when he undertakes carpentry ; and the set of mind with
which he drove them will reappear when he is a lawyer. We
may deny that Grant's study of algebra gave him a general
training of the mind that prepared him for the Wilderness, or
for anything else so well as for that algebra, and nevertheless
see that the mood of his hours with the algebra came up in his
4 We'll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.'

Professor Royce suggests1 that besides specific habits one
acquires generic or plastic habits, which lead not to a specific
reaction upon a specific stimulus, but to a certain sort of reac-
tion upon a certain sort of stimulus. He mentions especially
the habits corresponding to the rules of syntax as in this sense
generic. This view is attractive, and may be true. It may be,
however, that there is no such thing as a plastic or generic
habit, except in the sense that a habit may enter as an element
into many different processes. Whether or not there are generic
habits involved in the origination of higher mental processes, we
believe that all habits tend to become in the same sense specific.

2. The Order of Acquiring Habits which Constitute a

Hierarchy.

Every one knows that, in general, habituation in certain ac-
tions leaves us free for others. This principle is, however
empty and useless in a given field until we know what habits

1 PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, V., 118; Educational Review, VI., 212.

368 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

are to be learned there, and which of these must be learned
first, which second, etc. It is highly probable that in geometry,
chemistry or whist one must acquire a hierarchy of habits ; that
some of these habits should be learned before others ; and that
some of them may with advantage be acquired simultaneously.
Perhaps the most expert men have already felt their way to the
right methods ; but psychology and pedagogy would be greatly
enriched by explicit and verifiable knowledge upon these points.
Such knowledge the general principle stated above is impo-
tent to give. It can only tell the student to do first things first.
To discover what things are first in any particular field requires
painstaking investigation, or a consensus of the practical experi-
ences and intuitions of those who work in that field, or both.
Though no one can foresee the results of such investigations in
any particular case, there will be idlers in the psychological
market place, when the results appear, ready to say : " Nothing
new. We have known all along that some things must be
done before others."

In point of fact, teachers of reading are not agreed as to
the best order of studying the various language units. The
older custom was to learn first the letters, then many syllables,
then many words, and then at last to read sentences. In details
this method varied widely ; but its essential principle was to
master lower units first and use these in picking out the higher.
The newer custom is based upon an opposite principle. In the
* word-method ' the pupil is taught a word as a whole before he
knows any letter. In the ' sentence-method ' the pupil is con-
fronted with a short sentence before he knows any word or let-
ter. In the later methods the subsidiary language units are to
be learned incidentally, while the main attention is given to the
higher language units and to the sense.

It is proved possible to learn to read by the older or the
newer methods, and, indeed, by any method which brings the
pupil for a long enough time into contact with print. The mind
will find a method of its own. We believe, however, (i) that by
no device is it possible to gain freedom in using the higher lan-
guage tinits until the lower have been so mastered that the
attention is not diverted by them; and (2) that it is, never the-

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 369

) wise at all stages to -practise with the highest language units
possible, and thus learn all the units in their -proper setting.

The alphabet-spelling-book method makes sure of the first
requirement, but is grossly wasteful of time in postponing read-
ing exercises which involve simultaneous practice of all the
language units in their proper setting, and which are constantly
more profitable because more interesting. The new synthetic
methods gain these advantages, but lose a more necessary one,
unless the teacher realizes that the pupils must all the while be
getting the alphabet and vocabulary and making them automatic.
If this end can be achieved incidentally, well and good. If not,
it must be achieved by periods of practice devoted thereto. In
no case can making the language elements automatic be skipped.

Similar principles hold in arithmetic. It is a mistake to de-
mand of children a thorough memorizing of the number series
and of the fundamental tables before giving them any exercise
with concrete numbers and problems. It is a greater mistake to
spend the years when the plastic memory is at its best in number
exercises which are interesting, but which leave the children with
the alphabets of arithmetic imperfectly mastered. The high-
school boy who must halt in his mathematical work to remem-
ber the multiplication table, is enjoying the fruits of a pseudo-
freedom in the grades. There is no freedom except through
automatism. It is possible to avoid both the extremes men-
tioned. The work should be filled with concrete interest in
ways fully displayed in our modern elementary text-books on
arithmetic. But at all times the teacher should see to it that
there is thorough incidental practice of those number-relations
which should become automatic, and at some times there
should be direct hard work at memorizing those relations.

In addition to the evidence already presented in favor of the
foregoing view, two general considerations are submitted.

(i) It is quite useless to raise the question whether or not
children should acquire specific automatic habits. There is no
escape from such habits except by death. The Indian does not
escape. The wolf does not escape. Neither Shakespeare nor
Caliban escape. There is no question of escaping automatic
habits. The only real question is : Which ones shall we acquire ?

37° WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

The school and civilization answer : While it is possible, ac-
quire those habits which are the alphabets of learning and of
cultivated life. This is the first necessary step toward the free-
dom, adaptability, ingenuity, and efficiency which give superi-
ority to man.

(2) A school method must be judged by the moods and
tempers which it cultivates, not simply by what is learned, still
less by the momentary interest it arouses. If one forces mas-
tery of the multiplication table by methods which keep one-half
the school cowed and the other half rebellious, one has ob-
tained a useful result at disastrous cost. Better not know the
multiplication table than be thus morally maimed.

If, on the other hand, one anxiously converts all school
work into a round of entertainments, if one shields the pupils
from having at any time a sense of resolute effort with hard
tasks, if one keeps the pupils vibrating between excitement and
ennui as at a circus or picnic, what of the moods and tempers
thus cultivated ? To what set of character do they lead ? For
what occupation do they prepare? Every one knows. These
are the moods and tempers of the loafer, the tramp, the sport —
the idlers, rich and poor, who afflict society with their ineffi-
ciency and their consequent misery.

There is happily no need to choose between the galleys and
the circus as models for the school and home. There are many
schools and homes where hard tasks are performed in a good
temper ; where thorough drill does not arrest, but prepares the
way for higher development ; where children begin to do what
they must later do to succeed in any business — pass cheerfully
from interest in desired ends to a resolute drudgery necessary
for the attainment of those ends.

If this view of education is correct, the course of study has
no more important function than to make clear the essential
habits involved in the mastery of each school subject, and the
order in which these are to be acquired ; and the teacher has
no more important duty than to arouse in children such an in-
terest in some higher aspect of the subject, that they will wil-
lingly lend themselves to mastery of its details.

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 371

3. Plateaus.

Wide variation and sudden changes in rate of progress are
not peculiar to the learning of telegraphy. In general, it is in-
deed a -priori highly improbable that the rate of change in any
process will be constant. For such constancy requires an ex-
tremely improbable constancy in the many factors which unite
in determining the rate. As these factors increase in number
and complexity, the less likely they are to effect a constant rate.
Modern evolutionary science has emphasized the facts which in-
dicate that changes in nature are regular and gradual. Natura
saltum nonfacit. It is, however, now well-known that nature
does make leaps. It may even be that saltatory change is the
rule. The recapitulation theory invites us to picture the history
of each individual as a series of steps corresponding to the
stages in animal and racial evolution. No one has made out an
accurate time table for all these steps (or even ascertained ex-
actly what the steps are). But no one would claim that the
rate of progress through them is uniform. The development of
the body and the mind both show ' resting periods ' alternating
with periods of rapid change. We * perch and fly.' We live
for months or years upon a certain level of interests, efforts and
achievements, and then suddenly undergo a more or less radical
conversion. All things are become new. The old life sinks
into the vast subsoil upon whose surface, for a season, bloom new
forms of the life of attention.

The well-known examples of rapid change are, of course,
not cited as specifically analogous to the plateaus and ascents of
the telegraphic curve, but only to show that such alternations of
camping out and moving ahead are not exceptional or abnormal.
For specific analogies we must look to the history of analogous
acquisitions. In this promising field for research nearly every-
thing remains to be done. Preliminary inquiry has developed
the following provisional results.

(<z) Languages. As hitherto noted,1 in learning to read
(first year primary), and in learning a foreign language, one's
progress is analogous to that of the student of telegraphy. In

aLoc. cit., 52.

372 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

the latter case, especially, there is the same rapid improvement
at first, the same dispiriting level just below the ability to under-
stand ordinary conversation, the same rapid ascent into usable
knowledge of the language, and the same year long struggle,
seldom completed, before one has freedom in the language.

(b) English Composition. In the Indiana University, we
have each year several hundred students in conditioned English
Composition. All entering students are tested as to their
ability to write printable English. Those who cannot do so,
are required to take the conditioned English until they can meet
the test. A student may pass out of this work at any time.
The heaviness of the work, the discredit of having to take it,
and the special fee required, make the motives for getting
through very strong. The instructors in this work tell us that
the progress of most students is pictured in a general way by
the receiving curve. A few students pass out of the work
very soon. This generally indicates that they failed to do
themselves justice in the first test. In most cases, there is rapid
progress nearly up to the passing level, and then a long plateau
above which the student seems incapable of rising. In some
cases, where students were expected by the instructor to pass in
a few weeks, they have kept drudging away for the rest of the
year with slight improvement. Doubtless, in these cases, the
interference of established language habits is an important factor
in retarding progress.

(c) Chemistry. Several teachers of chemistry have re-
ported that the progress of students during the first year's work
in that subject is similar to that of the telegraphic student.
There is the same period of rapid improvement in the first
months, followed by a long period of slow progress. In the
Indiana University chemical laboratory the latter period has
long been recognized and named ' the period of depression.'
At one time it was supposed by the instructors that this period
of depression might be due to an inferiority in the latter part of
the laboratory manual, but further experience has shown that
this is not the case. An explanation of the chemist's plateau
analogous to that given for the telegrapher's plateau would be :
that on the plateau the learner is constantly hampered because

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 373

he cannot, on demand, remember any one of a large number of
elementary facts which he has once learned ; that the large
number of elementary facts which he needs to know, makes his
progress toward sufficient mastery of them very slow ; that a
rapid progress comes at last when he can turn his attention from
mastering the elements to a freer use of these facts in attacking
more complex chemical problems. The chemists whom we
have consulted incline to regard this explanation as correct.

(d) Miscellaneous. A large number of individuals have re-
ported analogous experiences in learning mathematics, music,
whist, chess, checkers, et cetera. In all these fields we find
one or more long discouraging levels, where practice seems to
bring no improvement, ending, at last, in the case of those who
persevere, in a sudden ascent. It is probable that in each case
one must acquire habits of lower and higher order, and that the
explanation for the telegraphic plateaus is the explanation for
the plateaus in these fields. Of course, the curves in these
widely differing fields must have different specific characters.
Each must be investigated for itself. In a time when some fear
a dearth of significant problems for psychological research the
prospect of such a field is inspiriting.

In general, we have here a point of view from which we
may discern a difference between the master and the man of
* all-round ' development, who is master of nothing. Both have,
from the informal experiences of life, some knowledges and
skills which fit them to undertake the mastery of a given field.
Both have developed these potential instruments of mastery,
have ' gone over ' the principal items of knowledge and * gone
through' with the principal forms of skill required. The mas-
ter has not stopped here. He has initiated himself body and
soul in the elements, so that after a time such things are to him
like letters and words to an educated man. They shoot to-
gether easily into new combinations. They are units of medi-
tation, of invention. Meanwhile, to the man who has only « a
good general knowledge of the field/ the feats of the master
are impossible and almost incredible. The master's units of
thought are each to him a problem. He must give time and
pains to each one separately. He cannot think with them. He

374 WILLIAM L. BRYAN AND NOBLE HARTER.

is necessarily a follower, or, if he essays the freedom without
the power of the master, he is worse than a follower — a crank.

4. Effective Speed and Accuracy.

There is scarcely any difference between one man and an-
other of greater practical importance than that of effective
speed. In war, business, scientific work, manual labor and what
not, we have at the one extreme the man who defeats all ordi-
nary calculations by the vast quantity of work he gets done, and
at the other extreme the man who no less defeats ordinary cal-
culation by the little all his busyness achieves. The former is
always arriving with an unexpected victory ; the latter, with an
unanswerable excuse for failure.

It has seemed to many psychologists strongly probable that
the swift man should be distinguishable from the slow by reac-
tion time tests. For (#), granting that the performances de-
manded in practical affairs are far more complicated than those
required in the laboratory tests, it seems likely that one who is
tuned for a rapid rate in the latter will be tuned for a rapid
rate in the former, when he has mastered them. Moreover (£),
a rapid rate in elementary processes is favorable to their fu-
sion into higher unitary processes, each including several of the
lower. Finally (c), a rapid rate in elementary processes is fa-
vorable to prompt voluntary combinations in presence of new
emergencies.

In face of these a -priori probabilities, eleven years' experi-
ence in this laboratory (the first three being spent mainly on re-
action times) has brought the conviction that no reaction time
test will surely show whether a given individual has or has not
effective speed in his work. Very slow rates, especially in
complicated reactions, are strongly indicative of a mind slow
and ineffective at all things. But experience proves that rapid
rates by no means show that the subject has effective speed in
the ordinary, let alone extraordinary, tasks of life. How is
this to be explained ?

The following answer is proposed : The rate at which one
makes practical headway depends partly upon the rate of the
mental and nervous processes involved ; but far more upon how

THE TELEGRAPHIC LANGUAGE. 375

much is included in each process. If A, B and C add the same
columns of figures, one using readily the method of the light-
ning adder, another the ordinary addition table, while the third
makes each addition by counting on his fingers, the three are
presently out of sight of one another, whatever the rates at which
the processes involved are performed. The lightning adder
may proceed more leisurely than either of the others. He steps
a league while they are bustling over furlongs or inches.

Now, the ability to take league steps in receiving telegraphic
messages, in reading, in addition, in mathematical reasoning
and in many other fields, plainly depends upon the acquisition
of league-stepping habits. No possible proficiency and rapidity
in elementary processes will serve. The learner must come to
do with one stroke of attention what now requires half a dozen,
and presently, in one still more inclusive stroke, what now re-
quires thirty-six. He must systematize the work to be done and
must acquire a system of automatic habits corresponding to the
system of tasks. When he has done this he is master of the
situation in his field. He can, if he chooses, deal accurately
with minute details. He can swiftly overlook great areas with
an accurate sense of what the details involved amount to — in-
deed, with far greater justice to details than is possible for one
who knows nothing else. Finally, his whole array of habits is
swiftly obedient to serve in the solution of new problems.
Automatism is not genius, but it is the hands and feet of genius.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE PSYCHOLOGICAL
LABORATORY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

AUTOMATIC REACTIONS.

BY DR. LEON M. SOLOMONS,

University of Wisconsin.

The experiments upon the time of automatic reactions, of
which I wish to give a brief account here, are an outgrowth in
part of the work on Motor Automatism published by Miss Stein
and myself in the REVIEW for September, 1896. I had three
main objects — to see whether the various stages of automatism
which we there distinguished had characteristic reaction times ;
to get evidence, if possible, for the theory advanced in that
article, that the feeling of personal agency accompanying a
movement is due primarily to the motor neurons of the cortex —
that is, that it is the absence of their activity which gives a
movement its feeling of impersonality; and third, to attack the
problem of the relation of attention to the different types of
reaction by studying reactions in which attention was totally
absent.

The experiments are not complete, and their evidence is not
as clear and convincing as it might, I believe, be made. But
since it is doubtful whether I shall be able to continue them in
the near future, and especially since some of the indications
may prove valuable suggestions to other workers in the field, I
think it advisable to give at least a preliminary account now.

GENERAL METHOD. The mode of distraction adopted was
the same as in the experiments on motor automatism — the read-
ing of light, entertaining literature. The stimulus was the
sound of an electric hammer. During part of the experiments
the Scripture reaction key was used. During the last part this
was changed, since some of the subjects found difficulty in

376

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY. ^77

maintaining the contact between reactions without interfering
with the complete automatism of the movement. I accordingly
changed to an Ewald key, but used a contact through mer-
cury instead of the simple metallic contact. With this key
a considerable unconscious pressure might be exerted by the
subject upon the key without breaking the connection, and yet
the reaction require no special effort. The mercury contact
had only a very slight immersion — never more than ^3_ of an
inch — and did not, I believe, appreciably affect the reaction
time, while it was of considerable assistance in maintaining con-
nections during the intervals between the reactions.

The chronoscope — placed in a separate room to prevent the
subject knowing when an observation was to be made — was
connected in the usual way, the stimulus closing the circuit, and
the breaking of the contact by the reaction opening it. Find-
ing it difficult to maintain an adjustment of the fall hammer
constant over long periods of time, recourse was had to a pendu-
lum control. This had the disadvantage that the time of the
control was greater than that of the reactions studied. But as
relative values only were desired, this was no real difficulty,
while the greater certainty of constancy of conditions from
month to month was a distinct gain.

The subject was instructed to keep his attention as closely
as possible upon what he was reading, and not to think of the
experiment. He was asked to introspect as carefully as cir-
cumstances permitted, but not so as to interfere with the autom-
atism. The subjects differed considerably in the ease with
which they acquired the ability to react automatically, but the
stages seemed to be the same in all.

At first the attention is all on the experiment, the subject
reading without understanding. Gradually the incidence of at-
tention shifts, and he is able to keep his mind on his reading
between reactions, but has to stop reading to react. The inter-
ference produced by this reaction becomes less and less, until
the various stages of automatism are reached and passed
through. Some subjects become automatic after very little
practice ; others require a good deal, and their results are more
valuable for the light they throw on the passage from voluntary

LEON AL SOLOMONS.

to automatic reactions, than for the passage from simple auto-
matic to subconsciousness.

At first the reaction times were studied by the usual method
of taking the average, corrected if necessary by throwing out
those with very large residuals. But during this process it was
observed that the small residuals were not, as they should be,
in the majority ; but that often, on the contrary, there were a
large number of large residuals of about the same value, with
few, if any, small ones. This showed that the average was
simply a mean between two reaction times of different value,
and, therefore, thoroughly misleading. Accordingly I adopted
the method of plotting the reactions, as one plots an error curve.
The resulting curve is, of course, of the same form as would be
obtained by plotting the residuals, the position of the Y axis
alone being changed.

The curves so obtained did not in general assume the form
of the theoretical error curve, but showed a grouping of the re-
actions about several points. It had been my intention to study
the effect of frequency, intensity of stimulus, etc., on the reac-
tion times, and I had arranged my apparatus with that end.
But finding the problem complicated by the reactions being of
mixed types, I thought it best to confine myself to my main
problem.

Owing to the uncertainty of the last figure of a reaction time
obtained in thousandths of a second, I plotted the curves, during
the course of the experiments, for hundredths of a second only.
Becoming satisfied, however, that this method failed to bring out
some important features of the reactions, I commenced a more
minute study, with various. methods of plotting. A comparison
of these results convinced me that the best method for these re-
sults was to let the ordinate corresponding to any time repre-
sent the number of reactions having a value within 2 a of that
time. This gives a curve the main features of which may be
seen at a glance, but which is, nevertheless, not misleadingly
simple.

It will be seen in the following discussion that I do not place
much reliance upon the lesser variations in the curves. They
;ire probably important, but the chronoscope is too inaccurate an
instrument to warrant reliance upon them.

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 379

THE TYPES OF REACTION. — My subjects, eight in number,
may be divided into three groups. Group one, consisting of
subjects G, B and D, required long practice before becoming
thoroughly automatic. They tended toward the auditory type.
That is, their thought is largely in sound terms, and their atten-
tion is readily attracted and held by sounds. The subject G
sometimes distracted himself by thinking of music he had heard.
Group two, consisting of subjects M, S, and De, were of the
visual motor type. They could not recall sounds at all. Their
imagery was all visual and motor. These subjects readily be-
came automatic and passed through all the stages of automatism.
Group three, consisting of subjects Ho and Ha, were inter-
mediate. They were poor visualizers, but their motor and audi-
tory memories were good. They occupied an intermediate posi-
tion as regards automatism. They found it difficult to keep the
attention from wandering to the experiment. Their automatism,
while in general apparently very good, was easily disturbed.
These two subjects experienced the most difficulty in maintain-
ing the contact during the intervals between the reactions.
Whether the correlation here appearing between the types of
imagery and the tendency to automatism is accidental or signifi-
cant, remains to be seen.

Fig. i presents a series of curves obtained from the subject
G. Each curve, except the first, represents the results of re-
actions taken at one sitting. The abscissa gives the time
of the reaction ; the ordinate, the number of reactions having
that time, or coming within 2<r of it. The curves are arranged
in time order, beginning at the bottom, and illustrate the progress
of automatism. The subject G did not in general react auto-
matically. He found it difficult to keep his attention away from
the experiment, and when he did the reactions were often vol-
untary. That is, he had to turn his attention to the experiment
when the stimulus came in order to react. He eventually be-
came fairly automatic, however. His imagery is auditory and
visual.

A glance at the curves shows immediately this characteristic.
There are a large number of comparatively quick reactions in
the earlier ones, then long reactions predominate, and then short

3So

LEON M. SOLOMONS.

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 381

LEON M. SOLOMONS.

FIG. 5. — This curve shows the distribution of 518 reactions taken from 5
different subjects.

ones again. All the subjects showed this peculiarity. The
reason is that at first the attention is on the experiment, and the
subject in a condition of expectation, and we therefore have
something near the conditions of the ordinary simple reaction.
Later he learns to keep his attention off the experiment, and the
reactions are slow. Then the path gets worn smooth by habit,
and the various stages of automatism commence, ending in a
very quick reaction.

The subject's notes amply confirm this explanation, if con-
firmation is necessary. G notes for the first curve, which rep-
resents the results of three days' observations during November,
that his attention was more or less on the experiment all the
time.

For Jan. 19 we have the note, " Attention somewhat on ex-
periment, but not enough to give any really voluntary reactions.
No very fast ones, as when attention is on reaction ; nor any
very slow ones, as when I do not react and then recollect my-
self." The results of self-observation are amply confirmed by
the curve.

Feb. 25 the reactions were judged to be about * in between
voluntary and automatic.' On Mar. 25 the automatism is con-
sidered fair, and on Apr. 15 ' more automatic than usual.'
On May 20 the automatism was judged to be very good, and he
expressed a doubt as to whether he heard the stimulus distinctly
before he felt the reaction.

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 383

It will be noticed that during the period between the reac-
tions in which the attention was on the experiment, and the ap-
pearance of good automatism, the bulk of the reactions are
above 290*7. After automatism sets in the bulk of the reactions
are below 2900-, and on May 20, when for the first time a doubt
appears as to there being a distinct interval between stimulus
and reaction, there are a large number below 230*7. The re-
sults from other subjects show that these peculiarities are
significant.

Fig. 2 shows a similar series of curves from the subject D.
Like G, the usual imagery of D is auditory and visual. She
became automatic much more quickly, however, though remain-
ing for a long time in the first stage. The first move represents
the result of the first day's experimenting. She had very little
difficulty in keeping her attention off the experiment, and after
a very little practice the reactions ceased to disturb her reading.
Nevertheless, it will be noticed that even in her case we have a
greater preponderance of short reactions in the first curve. The
next curve shown is for Mar. 2. Her report was 'Attention
first attracted by sound, reaction automatic.' The next curve
shown is for March 10. The number of reactions below 230*7
is now at a minimum. She reported the reactions as seeming
* perfectly regular and automatic.' ' She always heard the stim-
ulus first, and then the reaction followed, without an interval
between, or any movement of attention, or effort. March 17
she was asked to compare the interval between the sound and
the reaction, with that between the reaction and the click made
by the key on striking. She found it difficult, but thought the
second interval rather longer.

On March 25 I began giving the stimuli more frequently —
every 7^ seconds on an average, instead of every 15. The
subject's judgment was that the greater frequency increased the
automatism. In one sense this is apparently true. It should be
noticed though that in her case, as in that of G, the introduction
of the more frequent stimuli is marked by an increase in the
number of short reactions greater than that of subsequent dates.
I am inclined to believe, therefore, though they did not notice it
themselves, that the greater frequency at first had the effect of

3 §4 LEON M. SOLOMONS.

drawing their attention to the experiment a little, and that this
effect passed away later.

On April 14 she notes that in one place the reaction and the
stimulus seemed simultaneous, and that some of the reactions
seemed 'impersonal.' It will be noticed that corresponding to
this note we have a large number of reactions below 230, and
several in fact below 180. Impersonality was never noted by
her again, though on May 25 she again observed some reac-
tions in which stimulus and reaction seemed « almost simul-
taneous.'

It is to be noticed that D's reactions were nearly always be-
low 290. The long period in which the reactions were above
this, shown by G, is absent in her case^ owing apparently, to
the almost immediate occurrence of automatism. The subject
B, the third of this type, gave results similar to G. She was
a long time in becoming automatic according to her report, and
her reactions showed a majority above 2900- for a long time.
With D as with G, further, * simultaneous ' reactions were
noted with the reappearance in number of reactions below 230.

The indications from these three subjects are, then, that the
reaction time for automatic response to sounds begins somewhere
in the neighborhood of 290. A reaction time longer than this
indicates that some effort of attention or will is necessary. There
is no change in this subjective condition until we reach a
region below 230*7, when apparently a new type of automatic re-
action begins. To study this other type we must turn to the
records from other subjects. The exact limits of the first type,
as well as the significance of the different groups of reactions
indicated by the curve within this general type, had best be con-
sidered later.

As to the character of this group of subjects, supposing that
it does represent a type of person, there is not, I think, any good
reason for thinking the difference between them and others
other than one of degree. With time and proper methods they
will, I believe, pass through all the phases of automatism. I
made no special effort to hurry them, for I was more than will-
ing that some of my subjects should remain in this phase, for
its better study. Instead of trying to adapt the conditions of

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 385

the experiment to the habits of attention of the subject, I made
them the same for all subjects. Naturally the differing habits
of attention resulted in differing responses upon the part of the
subjects. As the practice was infrequent — I had none of my
subjects oftener than twice a week — these individual differences
had free scope.

Group 2, Fig. 3 shows a series of curves obtained from
M. M is of the visual motor type. The first curve, March 2d,
shows results of the first day. He reported no trouble in read-
ing during the reaction, but an undercurrent of attention on ex-
periment. His attention was attracted first by the stimulus.
The stimulus and the reaction sometimes seemed simultaneous.
The time between the stimulus and the reaction usually seemed
shorter than that between the reaction and the second click.

On March 9 he reports his reactions rather regular. The
stimulus comes distinctly first, then his feeling of reacting, then
the sound marking the completion of the reacting. On March
i6th, for the first time, some of the reactions seem impersonal.
In these impersonal reactions the second interval, that between
the feeling of reacting — a muscular feeling in arm or finger —
and the sound made by the key, seemed shorter than the first
interval. In a few reactions he can recognize the stimulus be-
fore the reaction, but in many he doubts whether he would
know the order of events but for former experiences. OK
March 3Oth nearly all the reactions feel impersonal. The whole
interval between the two sounds seems shorter, but the interval
between the stimulus and the reaction feeling is about the same
as that between the reaction and the second click. On April 6 the
reactions are still impersonal. He gets the stimulus by a memory
after-image. The reaction first attracts his attention, and then
he is aware of the whole thing at once, though in the totality
thus present the stimulus seems to be first. It seems to be a
* succession of things all at once.' In the latter part of the ex-
periment the reaction was sometimes all over before he knew it,
and the whole thing came as a sort of memory after-image.
May n, * sometimes the attention is first attracted by a funny
feeling marking the completion of the reaction, a restless nerv-
ous feeling. On May 18 he reported a curious feeling which

386 LEON M. SOLOMONS.

was also noticed frequently by S. He knows the stimulus has
come before he really hears it. It is a perfect imitation of an
hysterical anaesthesia with ' clairvoyant' tendencies. The ex-
planation is, presumably, that the sensory nerve current passes
over into a reaction before rousing its usual response in the
auditory centers of the cortex. The reactions on this occasion
were only>partly impersonal. They were frequently entirely
over before he knew anything about it. On May 25th this
characteristic was still more marked, being almost unconscious
toward the end. The reactions were only in part impersonal.
In some cases the stimulus and the reaction seemed all one ; in
other cases the reaction was almost simultaneous with the second
click.

It will be noticed in this case that impersonal reactions do
not appear until we have reactions below 180*7; that they are
not judged to be nearly all impersonal until the great majority
are below this point ; and that when this ceases to be the case
the reactions are again only in part impersonal.

Further, it will be noticed that the first type of simple auto-
matic reaction that predominated in the reactions of D and G —
that is, a personal reaction with the stimulus coming distinctly
and clearly first — is not noted after March Qth, when reactions
above 230(7 cease to be prominent. The indications then agree
with those obtained from D and G. The first type of automatic
reaction stops at about 2310-. The impersonal reactions begin
below 180*7. How about the interval? The reactions between
180 and 230 are sometimes characterized by ' simultaneous re-
actions,' but not always. When they first occur they have this
peculiarity. Afterward, though they are very distinct from
both the impersonal and the simple automatic, the}7 are difficult to
describe. The subject M, it will be noted, only observed really
simultaneous reactions once, though throughout the experi-
ments he noted reactions not belonging to the other types. D,
another subject of this group, only experimented once. Like
M, he became automatic very quickly. He reported many
* simultaneous reactions.' The other subject belonging to this
group, the writer, S, had a similar experience. I noticed
simultaneous reactions very frequently at first — over a longer

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 387

period than M and De, but relatively short — but very seldom
afterward. On two occasions this simultaneity was so marked
and striking that I stopped the experiment to find out the record.
Both showed reactions of 209^7. In general it is not possible to
get a judgment of the character of an isolated reaction — one
can only get a general impression of a number. Nevertheless,
though absolute simultaneity is not frequent, reactions which
feel very similar to these are frequent and perfectly distinct.
They are the quickest feeling reactions — unless we judge the
time by the interval between the two clicks. They are char-
acterized by uncertainty about the order of events, and a general
predominance in the mass of feelings composing the total reac-
tion— stimulus, movement, etc. — of the muscular and innervation
feelings. Before passing to the general discussion of the re-
sults, however, it will be worth while to consider briefly the third
group.

Fig. 4 gives a few curves from the subject Ho. Ho is a
poor visualizer, but has a good auditory and motor memory.
He was rather erratic in his reactions, sometimes being very
automatic, and at other times not so. The first curve shown is
far February 24th. By that time he had settled down to greater
regularity. He notes that his attention is first attracted by the
reaction. Also, that throughout the experiment there is a
slight feeling of tension in the arm. For March 4th he notes
some impersonality. March nth, sometimes simultaneous,
sometimes impersonal. On March 23d, "Not as automatic as
usual condition of expectation. Some simultaneous, very few
impersonal. Second interval most marked." On March 23d the
more rapid stimuli — every 7^ seconds — were first introduced.
With Ho, as with the others, their first introduction is marked
by a preponderance of shorter reactions. But Ho notes a dis-
turbance of the automatism, which the others did not. I be-
lieve the explanation is the same in all cases, but that only in
Ho was the disturbance great enough to be noticed. In this
case, whenever the shortness of the reaction is due to atten-
tion being on the experiment, the short reactions do not feel
impersonal. Simultaneous reactions are, however, noted,
though there are but two or three reactions within the interval
where they usually occur. Both facts are, I believe, significant.

388 LEON M. SOLOMONS.

The last reactions are noted as very impersonal. The first
interval seems the longer.

Perhaps the most important thing in these reactions is the
indication of a fourth type of reaction below 130. The subjec-
tive conditions corresponding to these low reactions do not seem
to differ much from those of the third type. They are, per-
haps, a little more strikingly impersonal, and the second inter-
val is still shorter. But these differences might appear in the
third type after practice had worn its path smooth and the sub-
ject had grown more accustomed to its observation. I am in-
clined to think, therefore, that the difference between the paths
indicated by these two groups of reactions does not involve any
difference in consciousness ; that the change is entirely in the
lower centers.

GENERAL DISCUSSION. — Until the facts are more clearly es-
tablished I do not feel justified in taking up the time of the
readers of the REVIEW with a full discussion of their signifi-
cance, for this would involve the presentation and examination
of a much larger number of curves, a very tedious discussion,
and, in the end, still much doubt and uncertainty. This would
be worth while only if no more conclusive evidence could be
obtained. But as I believe that more extensive experiments
will save this, the proper course seems to be to give only a brief
statement of the most general conclusions to which the experi-
ments have led me.

Above 290*7 we have reactions in which some element of
will appears. In the slowest there is an idea of the movement
about to be made. In those nearer to 300*7 there seems to be no
idea between the stimulus and the reaction — nothing but a feel-
ing of voluntariness, of somehow willing what takes place.
This is not the feeling of effort mentioned as one of the elements
of a sensory motor reaction in my paper on * Normal Motor
Automatism.'1 The feeling of effort does not appear in these
simple movements, unless the subject gets tired. It is rather a
portion of what we called the ' motor impulse,' and described
as " a melange of visual and kinsesthetic material, as well as
other elements not easily described, and, perhaps, really a direct

1 PSYCH. REVIEW, Vol. III., No. 5, p. 498.

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 389

consciousness of a motor current." The results of these reaction
experiments permit, I think, a somewhat closer analysis of this
motor impulse and the stages of its disappearance. The « visual
and kinassthetic material ' seems to disappear first, and then this
peculiar will feeling. My chief evidence for this view is the
statement of the subject G, on days when his reactions were
largely between 280 and 340, that between the stimulus and the
reaction there were * feelings,' but no ideas or readily describ-
able reactions.

Below 290*7 we have nothing left of the motor impulse ex-
cept the feeling of personal activity. In the typical reaction of
this class the subject is resting quietly, when his attention is sud-
denly attracted by a sound — or, rather, he suddenly hears a
sound, for there is no conscious movement of attention. Immedi-
ately after he feels himself react. Then he hears a click tell-
ing him that the key has been pressed down. During all this
time he has gone on with his reading undisturbed. He is con-
scious of what has happened, but that is all. These reactions
seem to correspond to the usual ' sensory reaction.'.

The next type, from about 175 to about 225, is characterized
by the prominence of the reaction feeling. When reactions of
this type first appear their distinguishing feature is the simul-
taneity of the stimulus and the reaction. The subject's attention
being fully on his reading, he is aware at once of a sound and a
movement. He finds himself pressing a key at the same time
that he hears a sound. Later he does not really hear the sound
at the same time as he reacts. He is suddenly conscious of
reacting, and later of two sounds. Of these sounds, the one
seems to be a memory after-image of a sound made before the
reaction, the other to be the sensation of a sound coming after
the reaction. The explanation of this change seems to me to
be this : In the first type the sensory current goes first to the
auditory centers, where it awakens a response, and then to the
centers, whatever they are, whose activity gives the reaction
feeling, or the beginning of the reaction feeling, and then out
to the muscles. In this second type the sensory current divides,
part going direct to the reaction center, part to the auditory
center, and rousing both to activity at about the same time. As

390 LEON M. SOLOMONS.

the new path gets worn less stimulus goes to the auditory centers,
and they respond only after some time. To put it another way,
with the establishment of the shorter path the attention gets
more completely away from sounds. Now, whenever we fail to
hear a sound immediately, and later turn our attention to it, we
get it by a sort of memory after-image. This memory after-
image has peculiarities of its own which enable us, or cause us,
to apperceive it as such, and project it into its proper time rela-
tions, or what knowledge and habit would indicate to be its
proper time relations. Thus, though the reaction is the first
thing to come into consciousness, we apperceive the whole group
of stimulus (perceived by memory after-image), reaction feeling
and final click, according to previous experience and our
knowledge of the particular circumstances. This view of the
relation between the two types is in entire accord with the fact
that subjects with active and sensitive auditory centers remain
so much longer in the first stage than those whose motor centers
are the more active.

In the third stage, the impersonal reaction, the last element
of the motor impulse, has disappeared. In this type the reaction
feeling is followed very quickly, if not accompanied, by the final
click. Sometimes the subject heard the stimulus very distinctly
before the reaction. Sometimes he is first conscious of the re-
action, and gets the stimulus by a memory after-image ; — but
there is no doubt in his mind that the stimulus came before the
reaction. What is the meaning of these observations? What
has happened when the reaction becomes impersonal? The
shorter interval between the reaction feeling and the final click,
as well as the longer interval between the stimulus and the re-
action feeling, seem to demand one, and only one, explanation.
In the previous types the beginning of the reaction feeling was
an activity in the cortex. In this the reaction feeling is purely
a sensation from the muscles of the hand and arm. The sen-
sory current must now go over into a motor reaction through the
lower centers entirely, or, at any rate, without awakening any
response upon the part of the cortex. To this extent then I be-
lieve that the theory advanced by Miss Stein and myself as to
the origin of the feeling of personality is fully confirmed by

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 391

these experiments. The reaction becomes impersonal when the
last center that contributes anything to consciousness drops out
of the sensory motor path, and this center contributes nothing
but this feeling of personality.

When we come to inquire more carefully into the identity of
this center difficulties arise. The reaction feeling is the same
in the impersonal and the personal reactions. It has changed
nothing but its orientation, so to speak. It is felt in a different
relation to the personality and the stimulus. The sensations are
the same. How is it then that in the personal reactions the
whole reaction feeling is timed by the part of it which simply
gives its personal coloring? This fact suggests the view that
this last center, which gives the personal relation, is a kinagsthetic
center, and includes a feeling of the reaction identical with that
furnished by return sensations alone. But this view in turn has,
it seems to me, grave difficulties. All the kinaesthetic part of
the sensory motor path seemed to have dropped out before the
first stage of automatism. Moreover, in the personal reaction
one is not conscious of both the reaction feeling and the return
sensations. It is necessary, therefore, to suppose that the two
fuse, though occurring successively. But if we admit that nerv-
ous disturbances separated by such an interval of time may fuse
into one presentation, the necessity for supposing the center giv-
ing the personal feeling to be kinsesthetic ceases. The most
natural supposition, then, seems to be that it is a motor center ;
and that its activity gives the personal feeling to the sensations
that follow. I do not mean that the activity of the motor cen-
ters gives a consciousness of personality alone. The feeling
that one has reacted is- not a feeling of personal activity plus a
muscular feeling. It should rather be said that when the sensa-
tions from an arm movement are -preceded by a discharge of
the corresponding motor cells of the cortex they are felt to be
•personal. The activity of the motor cells is thus responsible
for the resulting state of consciousness taking this form. The
impersonality of the reaction, or its personality, as the case may
be, is not part of the reaction feeling, but a peculiarity of the
whole state of consciousness in which the reaction feeling is rep-
resented in all its relations to the stimulus and the second click,

39 2 LEON M. SOLOMONS.

and to the reaction. It is this characteristic of the whole state
of consciousness that is determined by the presence or absence
of the activity of the motor cells.

As to the fourth group of reactions, if it exists, it must corre-
spond to a still shorter path. The neuron whose dropping out
marks the difference between this group and the preceding
apparently furnishes nothing to consciousness, and is pre-
sumably outside the cortex. On the other hand, though,
should it be thought that the feeling of personality comes from
a kinassthetic center, and that this is anatomically distinct
from the motor zones of the cortex, the way is open to regard
the fourth type as the first purely ' extra-cortical.' In the
present state of our knowledge of the finer anatomy of this sen-
sory motor path and the meagerness of these experiments it
would be unprofitable to discuss further the correlation of the
different types of reaction with known sensori-motor paths.

As to the third question, the relation of attention to reaction
time, these experiments show that all types of reaction are pos-
sible without the attention being on any part of the reaction —
in so far, that is, as we take the length of a reaction as an index
of its type. They further indicate that the will has nothing
to do with the ordinary reaction, its function being confined,
after a little practice, to placing the sensori-motor path in a
condition favorable to rapid reaction. The muscular reaction
is practically a reflex — as the Leipsic school contend — and the
sensory reaction is at least automatic.

Professor Angell's1 view that the ultimate effect of practice
is to reduce both types of reaction to the same time, seems to me
to be confirmed by these experiments. Professor Baldwin's
view, that the subject's habits of attention, as reflected in his usual
imagery, is an important factor in determining his behavior in
reaction experiments, seems also to be in accord, though my ex-
periments do not throw any light on the more specific sugges-
tions made by him as to the exact way in which these habits
influence the simple reaction.2

My observations on the earlier reactions, when the subject's

1 PSYCHOLOGIC AI< REVIEW, May, 1896.

2 PSYCHOLOGICAL, REVIEW, 1895, p. 259.

HARVARD PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY. 393

attention was still in part on the experiment, would lead me to
believe that the principal effect of attention in this case is to
bring the entire motor mechanism into a condition of heightened
sensitivity. As a result, when the stimulus comes, all the paths,
or many of them, are used. The reaction time is, of course, the
time of the fastest ; but the current also traverses the others.
On this account the reactions never feel impersonal, but do very
often feel ' simultaneous.' The motor cells always respond
before the return sensations from the reflex reaction have arrived,
and give the reaction a personal feeling, even though, in fact, it
is reflex. But the division of the current between the paths of
the first and the second type is the most favorable condition
for * simultaneity.'

Before closing, a few words may be said concerning the
smaller groupings shown by the curves. Though in the curve
representing a single day's reactions it is to be expected that
some of these groups are mere matters of chance, this explana-
tion will not hold for large numbers of reactions. In fact, a
glance at the curves will show a great deal of uniformity in
this respect, showing that even as few as thirty or forty reac-
tions will give reliable groupings. Especially is the location of
certain of the minima very constant from day to day. Appar-
ently the changes in reaction time due to practice, and even the
differences between one individual and another, are due pri-
marily, if not wholly, to the relative preponderance of different
groups, rather than to change in the time corresponding to the
same group.

Fig. 5 shows a curve obtained from the reactions of five
different subjects, during two weeks in May. I select this period
because both subjects and apparatus were fairly constant in their
behavior throughout it. It will be seen that the groupings are
by no means destroyed by this combination of the results from
several subjects and on several different occasions. More hetero-
geneous selections of results also continue to show the grouping
in a very marked manner, but not so satisfactorily as this.

It will be noticed that much of the grouping shows a large
?roup separated from its neighbors by deep minima, which is di-
vided in turn into two groups, separated by a much slighter

394 LEON M. SOLOMONS.

minimum. This smaller grouping I do not consider reliable, as
it may be largely due to the chronoscope. The larger group-
ings can hardly be so explained, and since they are not marked
by differences in consciousness they presumably represent dif-
ferences in the sensori-motor path outside of the cortex. The
detailed discussion of this subject, however, I reserve until I
can present fuller and more exact results.

In concluding, I wish to express my thanks to Professor
Miinsterberg and to my fellow-students in the Harvard Labora-
tory, for cordial cooperation and assistance.

RECOGNITION UNDER OBJECTIVE REVERSAL.

BY GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN,
Columbia University.

This research was carried on in the Harvard Psychological
Laboratory during the first five months of 1898. It was under-
taken for the purpose of determining the facts as to the relative
ease of recognizing objects when seen a second time, but under
various degrees and modes of turning or reversal in a plane at
right-angles to the line of sight. Knowledge of these condi-
tions has value and interest to psychologists on more than one
account, for the problem of recognition is inter-related with the
whole theory of space perception and with that of vision in gen-
eral, while the curious relations in which right and left are ap-
perceived by the subject are herein also implicated. The com-
parative ease and accuracy of the recognition of objects appear
to be the sole criterion by which the relative naturalness of see-
ing, so to say, may be reduced to figures and so to scientific
exactness, for we are all so fully accustomed to seeing things
in any possible mode or degree of reversal, both objective and
subjective, that comparison with a normal position in each case,
with judgments by various subjects and in very numerous cases,
is the only practicable means to reliable information on the sub-
ject. But in order that such recognitions may approach the
threshold difficulty many objects quite unfamiliar to the sub-
jects must be employed, yet objects sufficiently like each other
to allow of reasonable comparison. These conditions, of a very
large number of unique and unfamiliar objects easily made and
handled, and comparable in all respects, are well satisfied in the
choice made of the essential apparatus of this research, namely,
the blots of ink, whose usefulness in Psychology was suggested
by the writer in the REVIEW for May, 1897, p. 390, and illus-
trated and employed in a research into imaginations in the

395

396

G. V. DEARBORN.

American Journal of Psychology for January, 1898 (Vol. IX.,
No. 2, p. 183). In the present case these blots were made,
each unique, to the number of about four hundred, on bits of
white paper 4 cm. square and each attached to a card of thick
pasteboard of equal size and shape ; these were kept, arranged
in order, in long, closely-fitting metallic cases. The blot-cards
were numbered consecutively by figures on the backs, while the
four edges of the card were lettered respectively A, B, C, and
D, the arbitrarily chosen normal position of the blot or charac-
ter being that in which A was at the bottom or, when lying flat,
nearest the subject; similarly for the other letters, each repre-
sented a quadrant of reversal from the norm. The front and
back of blot 126 are here reproduced, actual size, as an example.

C.

front. J^cfC-

Besides this regular series of blot-objects, each quite unique,
there were employed twenty-one pairs of blots in which the
components differed only in that each was to its mate as the
right hand to the left, the so-called mirror-reversal. These
were numbered and lettered similarly to the rest, with an R pre-
ceding the number. These ink-blots, thus prepared and
marked for exact determination at all times and in whatever
position, constituted really the simple apparatus of the experi-
ments.

The schedules by which the characters were arranged in-
variably in series and sets of series, and in that order succes-
sively exhibited and judged upon, were made out by their
numbers alone — that is, without any regard whatever to the

RECOGNITION UNDER OBJECTIVE REVERSAL. 397

form or other quality of the blots themselves. They thus being
taken quite at random in preparing their order, there was no
possibility (because of their large number) that any differences
that might exist in their suggestibility, ease of being remembered,
similarity of successive characters, etc., should obtain, and so
vitiate their proper recognizability ; for « chance ' is in such a
case, in the long run, a better safeguard than any deliberate
selection by an individual could be.

To secure the requisite precision and a record of the times
of observation required for each judgment, a simple and ordin-
ary electrical apparatus was arranged, which may be described
as follows : On the subject's table convenient to his left hand
were fixed two keys, each actuating a pen tracing on a slowly
revolving smoked drum, the left line indicating always the ' yes '
judgments and the right the « no ' judgments. Between these re-
cord-lines, an inch or less apart, a time-line marking seconds was
traced by a similar pen worked by a Lough electric pendulum.
Thus in small space there was kept a complete record of every
judgment, both as to its quality and as to the exact time its judg-
ing required. Subjective notes were also regularly written with
the other records on the drum. Convenient to the right-hand
of the subject, and piled face-up in a frame made to fit, the vari-
ous blot-cards were successively exposed by the subject and
judged upon.

TABLE I.

SET V.

Series
41

Series 1
42

Series
43

Series
44

Series
45

Series
46

Series
47

Series
48

Series
49

Series
50

281

Rl66

Rl66l

299

306

316

320

327

334

341

282

282C

292

300

307

317

321

32iB

335

342

283

288

293t

293D

308

3o8C

322

328

328C

343

275B

Ri67

301

3°9

318

323t

323B

336

336D

276B

289

294

294D

310

Ri69

329

337

344

284

2840

295

302

3'i

319

324

330

330C

345

285

Ri68

RI681

303

312

Ri7o

Ri70l

338

338D

286

290

296

3°4

313

3I3C

325

325^

339

346

2796

291

297

305

314

3I4C

R32ii

332

332C

347

287

2870

298

2980

315

R35i

333

340

34oD

The 368 blots employed were arranged in successive series
of ten, with ten such series in a set, one set being the number

398 G. V. DEARBORN.

judged upon at each day's sitting. The plan being to expose
to the subject certain of the blots twice, or sometimes thrice, in
various quadrants of reversal, the five sets were arranged in a
manner best conveyed by the representation of an actual set-
scheme here. Cf. Set V., reproduced in Table I. This repre-
sents the invariable order in which the series of blots were pre-
sented to the subject, always with an accurate interval of three
minutes between the beginnings of the successive series. Thus
the time which elapsed between perception of the character in
its normal position and the judgment as to recognition was in
each case nearly constant. It will be observed that, with the
exception of Series 45, in which all the blots are new to the
subject as a test, 30 per cent, of the object-figures are repeti-
tions, a fact, of course, quite unknown to the subject, as were
all other details of the schedule. In this set Series 41 will be
seen to have its quota of repetitions like the rest, but judgments
upon the three have only secondary interest, and are not counted,
because seen perhaps days, instead of the regular three minutes,
before. In Series 42, then, it is evident that the second, sixth,
and tenth characters were repeated and quite inverted, as the C
in each case indicates. In Series 43 the first, fourth, and
seventh blots were repetitions ; but here the normal (A) positions
of the mirror-reversal were compared, as also is the case in
Series 47. In Series 44 and 50 the degree of reversal was 270°,
or three-fourths (D) ; and in Series 48, 90°, or the B reversal.
By such a degree of irregularity in placing the repetitions in the
series all chance of suggesting any regularity to the subject was
avoided.

The instructions given to the subject were as follows : ' ' Make
your judgments yes or no in answer simply to the explicit ques-
tion, Have you ever seen this blot before? Make your judg-
ments only when a feeling of certainty is in consciousness equal
to that attained from the comparison of two blot-characters, one
seen just before and the other never seen before. When ready,
make your judgment reactions with equal energy and prompt-
ness in all cases, so that the mere time-reactions, as a constant
function, may be disregarded. Let a quick double reaction on
a key indicate extreme certainty, and a prolonged pressure a

RECOGNITION UNDER OBJECTIVE REVERSAL. 399

proportional degree of doubt. Read or converse between series,
so as not to review in imagination the blots just seen. Report
all possible subjective notes of interest." Thus the subject knew
nothing of any reversals, of the number of repetitions in each
series, nor of the purpose of the research even ; he or she merely
answered yes or no to the question as to recognition, when
' certain ' of his or her judgment in that regard. Within the
period of three minutes no incentive to hurry was suggested.

TABLE II.

REPEATED BLOTS.

SUBJECT.

REVERSAL POSITION.

A.

B.

c.

r>.

R1A.

R'C.

Recognitions. Per cent.

61

30

51

16

54

57

I.

Whole No. cases.

33

33

97

19

37

14

Recognitions. Per cent.

33

24

39

15

45

25

Whole No. cases.

12

21

61

14

22

4

Recognitions. Per cent.

9i

73

76

60

73

40

3-

Whole No. cases.

12

15

4i

10

15

5

Recognitions. Per cent

62

25

29

40

28

•

Whole No. cases.

21

12

35

i

10

ii

Recognitions. Per cent.

91

17

53

75

55

40

•

Whole No. cases.

12

12

32

4

9

5

<

Recognitions. Percent.

55

33

43

50

o

Whole No. cases.

9

6

23

i

4

5

Recognitions. Per cent.

70

67

52

50

33

•

Whole No. cases.

10

6

22

i

4

6

3

Recognitions. Per cent.

o

17

33

o

o

Whole No. cases

3

6

9

3

6

0

Recognitions. Per cent.

•67

100

83

9-

Whole No. cases.

3

3

17

i

i

2

Average per cent.

70

43

5i

33

46

32

The seventy blot-cards required for one sitting being, then,
arranged in order on a table behind the subject seated at the
apparatus, the method of procedure was, in brief, constantly as
follows : The time-pendulum being in action, the first series of

400

G. V. DEARBORN.

ten blots was arranged according to the scheme for that set (as
exampled above) and placed in the holder face up, but covered,
before the subject, whose left hand covered the judgment-keys.
At a given signal, whose exact temporal position was carefully
marked on the time-line, the subject lifted the blank covering
card and exposed the first blot, reacted yes or no in the proper
manner when his judgment was made, turned the used blot-
card face-downward near by (so that marginal retinal images
would not interfere), then immediately proceeded to the next,
and so on through the series of ten. After an interval of three
minutes from the time of beginning on the first series the sec-
ond was begun, and so on through the set for the day. This
number of judgments, although occupying only thirty minutes,
was found quite sufficient for the best work of the subjects, they
generally reporting the judgments very tiring, especially those
who are * motiles ' or * audiles ' in imaginational type.

Nine subjects were employed in these experiments ; two of
these were professors of philosophy, and the rest students and
instructors in the Laboratory, one being a student of Radcliffe
College.

The figures which represent the more interesting part of the
results of the research are given in the accompanying Table II.,
useful as a matter of record chiefly. Altogether they represent
over 2800 judgments (and none too large a number) ; of these,
30 per cent, are on repetitions. In the tables, A indicates

TABLE III.

UNREPEATED BLOTS.

" RECOGNITIONS.'1

NON-RECOGNITIONS.

(FALSE. )

(TRUE.)

SUBJECT.

PER CENT.

CASES.

PER CENT.

CASES.

I.

21

126

79

466

2.

19-5

62

80.5

256

3-

51

133

49

126

4-

22

61

78

215

5-

27

52

73

144

5-

27

35

96

7-

24

32

76

lor

8.

16

10

84

54

9-

65.5

40

34-5

21

AV.

30-

70.

RECOGNITION UNDER OBJECTIVE REVERSAL. 401

normal position of blot; B, 90° reversal over toward the left;
C, inversion ; D, 270° reversal over toward the left ; RXA, erect
mirror-reversal ; and R^C, inverted mirror-reversal. The last
tabulation of figures (Table III.) gives the numerical details of
the judgments on the blots exhibited to the subject but once,
but judged as to recognition in the same manner as the rest.
Of this class there were somewhat over 2000 judgments, or 70^
of the whole number of exposures. It will be noticed from this
second table of result figures that seven of the nine subjects
judged that they recognized approximately one out of every five
of the blots which in reality they had not seen before, about
22<£ of their so-called < recognitions' of these unrepeated blots
being mistaken. Of the two remaining subjects, one (number
3), with 259 of this class of judgments, * recognized' over 51/0,
and the other (number 9), who, by the way, reported especially
* certainty in most cases,' thought that he recognized 65.5^ of
characters which he had never before seen. On the average
the percentage of false t yes ' judgments was 30^. The cause of
a part of this error rate is evidently to be found in the actual
formal similarity which some of these chance blots bear to each
other, a circumstance not, however, to be eliminated from any
set of objects of necessity so numerous ; indeed, in these charac-
ters this similarity is reduced to a degree which lends continual
interest to their use. Cases of great doubt were most often, and
not unnaturally perhaps, put on the ' no' line of judgments, a
4 doubtful ' key and record-line having been for a time employed,
but of necessity soon abandoned, because through its over-use
the research threatened to be vitiated.

Having now before us more or less complete the data of the
experiments, let us try to make more plain the circumstances to
which they relate.

The objective conditions of the research are obviously the
simplest which are logically possible for a comprehensive study
of the natures of reversal and of recognition, the mental con-
fusion of memory blot-images, arising from the large number
seen, serving only to reduce the stimulus to the threshold-
intensity — a requisite of the method here employed. Owing,
however, to this confusion, in the main the * feeling of recogni-

402 G. V. DEARBORN.

tion' was by no means regularly present in any degree, and
often not at all, recognition usually taking place by the sug-
gested association in the reviewing consciousness of some cog-
nitional fact that had formed part of the perception or feeling
present when the blot was first seen as the norm. Most often,
indeed, it was some precise fact, remembered in terms of num-
ber, or some extrinsic suggested resemblance, or even by some
wholly external complication whose relation could not perhaps
be traced. Very often the recognition depended on the recall
of some very small portion of the blot, such as a peculiar point
or knob, or some more than usually grotesque end or corner.
Though small, the characters were so rich in detail that often
the whole as such was not in any proper sense perceived.
Recognition, however, most often depended on apperception,
and not on any feeling of recognition, and could be classed as
of the mediate, rather than the immediate or general variety.

Some of the subjective notes as to the various methods of
remembering and recalling may in this connection have some
interest, although it was not easy to throw light on a process
which required only the brief times which the subjects usually
deemed sufficient for a * certain ' judgment of a blot. Four,
then, of the subjects reported that the characters instantly called
up actual objects by association, and that their recognition
occurred by this means. Two subjects, on the other hand,
reported that such products of imagination did not appear in
their cases. One subject (and he who made more judgments
than any of the others) reported a constant tendency for the
blots immediately to place themselves in certain classes as re-
gards general form of outline, proportional size of their various
parts, mode of shading, etc. Most of the subjects remarked
the immediacy of the judgment oftentimes (obviously often
being wrong cases of auto-suggestion), and in cases of great
doubt, that the ensuing confusion made matters worse and
judgment sometimes vain. Two subjects reported their method
to be to * count the tails ' or projections of the object. The two
subjects who made the greatest number of wrong * yes ' judg-
ments made likewise the greatest number of right * yes ' judg-
ments, one of these two being he who reported ' great certainty,'

RECOGNITION UNDER OBJECTIVE REVERSAL. 403

and the other a man known in his college for his self-asserted
unmistakability. The subject who made the smallest average
of recognitions was a man noted as an unusually partial ' mo-
tile,' who often reported it most difficult for him to recognize the
blots at all, although he made more judgments than any of the
other subjects save one. This subject, with two others, also
reported that he never apperceived reversal as such, while to
others it was regularly in consciousness when it occurred.
Although the same set of blots was judged upon by the same
subject in some cases several times on different days often a
week or two apart, no improvement was visible in the record of
such a set, and no suspicion ever entered the subject's mind
that this repetition was occurring. This was true in one case
where the subject saw the same set six times with no statable
improvement. Owing to this circumstance hundreds of blot-
cards sufficed where else thousands would have been required.
The time required for each of the more than twenty-eight
hundred judgments was exactly recorded ; but it has appeared
that so great is the complexity of the conditions subjectively
and objectively, especially as regards individual differences and
as to temporary mood, that nothing of interest in this direction
can be given in precise numerical terms. The reaction time for
the mechanical process of uncovering a blot, pressing the proper
key and overturning the blot-card when used, was, approximately
on the average, one second. The total times vary then from
almost this period to often eight or ten seconds ; the average
time required was not far from three seconds (and this when
nearly as many minutes was the outer limit). Length of
judgment time seems to have no constant relation to accu-
racy, owing evidently to the quickly-arising confusion on in-
trospection ; yet the most accurate judgments on the average
were kmade by the subjects whose time records are the most
irregular, as occasional retrospection on the occurrence of a
doubt would necessitate. The inevitable effort which most sub-
jects make to produce a rapid record, despite remonstrances,
did much here, as elsewhere in psychological 'experiments, to
reduce the accuracy of the judgments ; but as long as human
nature remains as it is it will be so.

404 G. V. DEARBORN.

The purpose of the research was to determine the relative
recognizability of objects erect and in various modes and de-
grees of reversal. Let us examine the results in this regard, and
try to suggest their meaning, psychological and physiological,
as far as may be. Of the blots repeated or reviewed in the nor-
mal or A-position, recognitions were on the average 7°^>> and
this almost exactly corroborates the average percentage of right
judgments as to unrepeated objects, 70/0 being there also the
nearest whole number — in other words, the average of recog-
nitions of erect repetitions and the average of non-recognitions
of unrepeated blots exactly prove each other. This 70^) is, then,
properly the standard of the research, with which the averages
under the various reversals are to be compared. This is the
proven general personal equation, so to say, of recognition of
these objects when repeated exactly, without any objective
complications. Using this, then, as the standard of loofi (A-
position, or normal) , B-reversal, or a quarter-turn (in a direction
opposite to the hands of a watch), gives 61.4^0 of recognitions ;
the C-reversal, or complete inversion, 72.8^ recognitions; the
D-reversal, or a turning of 270°, 47.1/0; the R*A reversal, or
erect mirror-position, 65.7^ ; and the RTC reversal, or inverted
mirror-position, 45.7^ of recognitions. In other words, it ap-
pears from the research (and this is the kernel of its interest)
that an object is recognized more readily when inverted than
in either of the two intermediate -portions of quarter-re-
versal^ and more readily than in the erect mirror-position or
that -position inverted — an object upside down appears more
natural than when turned on its side or seen in a mirror. Fur-
thermore, one-quarter reversal toward the left is more favorable
to recognition than three-quarter reversal (important only for
certain forms) ; while least favorable of the six positions com-
pared in these experiments is the inverted mirror-reversal, most
rarely encountered of them all in general experience.

These facts are simple, while their explanation in psycho-
logical terms is neither so easy nor so sure. Yet something in
that direction may be suggested here.

The great Law of Habit, individual and inherited, seems in
general to furnish sufficient reason why uncomplicated repeti-

RECOGNITION UNDER OBJECTIVE REVERSAL. 405

tion — that is, when the blot-object is repeated in the normal posi-
tion— should be more easily recognized than in any case of
several, this being the condition ordinarily in experience. Ex-
periments in which the experimenter wore for some weeks be-
fore his eye a lens which inverted his field of vision have proven
that it is comparatively easy to get accustomed to objective in-
version even of objects seldom or never ordinarily seen so re-
versed. Indeed, to the lowest orders of animal life inversion
must be the rule of their experience, to them making no differ-
ence. It is easy to conjecture that a sufficient degree of atavism
in vision is easily brought about even in cases like those of the
present research, making inversion relatively natural ; further-
more, it must be remembered, that the retinal image is an in-
version of the object, a fact adding little here, save of possi-
bility. It would be interesting to know from experiments if a
person unfamiliar writh either condition could not learn to read
print upside down more easily than print made from type turned
on their sides. At any rate, the perfect facility with which
printers read directly from the type in any position as ordinarily
set shows how easily reading under inversion becomes natural.

Again, on the other hand, vision of objects turned on their
sides (or one-quarter reversed) is very seldom experienced, in-
deed, and especially in the case of unfamiliar objects. Noth-
ing in organic structure or in physiologic habit affords practice
in this sort of recognition. The longer axis of many of these
blots runs vertically or else horizontally, and from the fact that
the right halves of both retinae are * supplied' by only one visual
center, the left, and vice versa, it is obvious that a quarter re-
versal of these objects would involve more new brain elements
than would their inversion, and so make them seem less familiar,,
often very likely, in the former case, stimulating both cortical
sight centers as not in the latter case ; at any rate, implicating
else unused * apperceptive cells* or regions.

As regards the apparent difficulty of recognition under three-
quarter reversal over that in the case of one-quarter left reversal,
it is pertinent, perhaps, that our almost universal habit in read-
ing is to begin at the upper left-hand corner of the page or card,
thence looking along the top ; and similarly more or less in per-

406 G. V. DEARBORN.

ceiving all plane representations. This firmly-fixed habit
doubtless holds in the perception of these blot-characters, the
spot receiving the focus of attention at first being undoubtedly
in general the upper left-hand quadrant of the object, or at least
so in some degree. A quarter-turn then would present for
recognition a more or less familiar percept, while three-quarters
reversal by the same principle would offer to the attention a
wholly new portion of the blot, a portion, in fact, at the first in-
stant of viewing, quite out of range of the habitual perceptive
field, and so, from this circumstance, less fully apperceived.

With the mirror-reversal, finally, all are fully familiar from
early and constant perception of the hands, feet and limbs in
general, and from considerable experience with the use of
mirrors, both natural and artificial. Here again habit affords
relations which our research only exemplifies. Here, too (and
more exactly"), the easily acquired habit of reading directly from
type is an instance and an illustration. Add inversion to the
condition of common mirror-reversal, and the most complicated
position of the six here studied is produced, a relation to the
subject practically never experienced under ordinary conditions.
Habit here has had no chance to produce an effect, and we
have found that the percentage of recognitions is in this case the
lowest of them all.

Further experiments should amplify these results, employ-
ing yet more involved relations between subject and object,
varying them indefinitely. Especially would it be of interest to
know if subjective reversal of various sorts would bring out the
same results as to the habits of our seeing. Indeed, subjective
reversal would seem to be a field fertile in many respects, both
physiological and psychological.

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS.

A LECTURE EXPERIMENT IN HALLUCINATIONS.

An experiment to illustrate a popular lecture must be striking,
quick and sure to work. As it is not always easy to tell beforehand
whether an experiment will answer these requirements, the following
scheme for the production of a hallucination of smell may be worth
recording. I had prepared a bottle filled with distilled water carefully
wrapped in cotton and packed in a box. After some other experi-
ments I stated that I wished to see how rapidly an odor would be dif-
fused through the air, and requested that as soon as anyone perceived
the odor he should raise his hand. I then unpacked the bottle in the
front of the hall, poured the water over the cotton, holding my head
away during the operation and started a stop-watch. While awaiting
results I explained that I was quite sure that no one in the audience
had ever smelled the chemical compound which I had poured out, and
expressed the hope that, while they might find the odor strong and
peculiar, it would not be too disagreeable to anyone. In fifteen sec-
onds most of those in the front row had raised their hands, and in forty
seconds the ' odor' had spread to the back of the hall, keeping a pretty
regular ' wave front ' as it passed on. About three-fourths of the audi-
ence claimed to perceive the smell, the obstinate minority including
more men than the average of the whole. More would probably have
succumbed to the suggestion, but at the end of a minute I was obliged
to stop the experiment, for some on the front seats were being unpleas-
antly affected and were about to leave the room. No one in the audi-
ence seemed offended when it was explained that the real object of the
experiment was the production of a hallucination.

Hallucinations of temperature or pain are easily induced by sug-
gestion in susceptible individuals by the use of magnets, though the ex-
periment is not suitable for lecture purposes. It is. of course, necessary
that the subject should have hazy ideas about magnetism, but it is un-
fortunately only too easy to find such persons. The 'magnet' need
not be magnetized, but should have plainly marked poles and the sug-
gestion be conveyed by suitable ' patter ', to use a conjurer's phrase.
-Sensations of heat may be produced by the north pole of the magnet,

407

408 MYSTICISM.

and cold by the south, or one pole may be made to give a tingling or
smarting pain in the right hand and side of the body, and the south
pole on the left, or any other such scheme not too complicated. The
illustrated magazine articles of the effects produced on hypnotized sub-
jects by Luys, with magnets and sealed tubes of chemicals, are useful
to reinforce the suggestions. Of course, the deception should be
thoroughly explained after the experiment, not only because otherwise
the subject sometimes complains of pain in the hand worked upon, but
also in order that the experiment may serve as a lesson to the sub-
ject no less than to the spectators.

Slight hallucinations of sound are easily induced; but I have never
succeeded in getting unhypnotized subjects to see red and blue flames
on the poles of a magnet, or in obtaining any similar hallucinations of
sight. Simple experiments in suggestion on persons in a normal state
are generally better for demonstration than the more striking results
obtained in hypnosis.

E. E. SLOSSON.

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING.

PROFESSOR HYSLOP ON MYSTICISM.

In the last number of THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW Professor
Hyslop criticises a paper on Psychology and Mysticism which I pub-
lished in the Atlantic Monthly, and have since reprinted as the last
essay of my recently published book ' Psychology and Life/ My
paper was for him ' one of the most amusing documents that he has
ever had the pleasure of reading.' I have not the slightest desire to
disturb this happy mood of amusement by a serious defence against his
attacks. A scientific defence or discussion must have as its aim that
the opponent shall understand and agree with me ; but I feel myself
so absolutely free from this ambitious aim that a discussion is really
superfluous. In regard to only one passage of my paper does he claim
that he does understand what I wish to say and would agree with me j
it is my reference to communication. "As to what Professor Muen-
sterberg may intend by this description of the communication of
ideas I can well imagine. But I can do it only by having some
knowledge of the process myself, and not from any statement that he
makes." And then he goes on to interpret my meaning in a way
which is, in every respect, the exact opposite of my thought, and which
would deprive my arguments of all meaning. If he had not found
anything in the paper which he believed himself to understand, I

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS. 409

should, perhaps, have taken the trouble to enter into a discussion that
he might feel that he understood me. But after this test case I
know that we think with a different logic, and I prefer that my state-
ments continue to be for him ' blank nonsense.' I, therefore, do not
argue, but wish merely to put straight a few facts which Professor
Hyslop mentions as if he objectively reproduced my own words and
statements, and where the reader of his criticism might believe that I
am truly represented.

Professor Hyslop says: u His reason for not making a personal
investigation into this question is that it is not ' dignified to visit such
performances ' as Seances ! ! " That is all, and what follows are merely
exclamations of contempt for such an utterance. My text sasy this :
" I consider it undignified to visit such performances as one attends a
variety show for amusement only, without attempting to explain them."
Is it really possible not to see the difference between my statement,
with which every decent scientist will agree, and his false denuncia-
tion, which must make me contemptible to every scientific man ?

Another illustration : " Professor Miinsterberg did not distinguish
between the relevancy of the various alleged phenomena that he was
criticizing ; table turning, telepathy, clairvoyance, hypnotism and what
not were lumped together with no more conception of their differences
than is usually displayed by the spiritualist himself." This is, indeed,
very bad on my part ; but the reader will become a little milder if he
chances to take the trouble to open my article, and convince himself
that more than half of the paper is expressly devoted to the clean
discrimination of these and similar conceptions, and to the disentangle-
ment of hypnotism from the rest.

A third illustration: I had said that up to the last summer vacation,
in which I read systematically telepathic and spiritualistic litera-
ture : " I had not really studied all the recorded Phantasms of the Liv-
ing and all the Proceedings of the Societies for Psychical Research,
and I am afraid I had forgotten to cut the leaves of some of the occult
magazines on my own shelves." Out of this material Professor
Hyslop makes a confession, on my side, that until the last summer
vacation I felt guilty of forming and stating opinions on this subject
4 before reading its literature.' Because I have not read 4 all the re-
ports' and ' all the proceedings' I have not read the literature. If I
really did not care to read the literature, why did I then subscribe for
the occult magazines on my shelves? And immediately after it, Pro-
fessor Hyslop says that he himself thinks that there are not twenty-five
volumes in existence on this subject that any sane man ought to read

410 PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE.

at all. As all the reports fill hundreds of volumes, he thus says clearly
that a sane man ought not to read them all ; and yet because I say that
I had not read them ' all ' he denounces me for confessing that I
formed opinions 4 before reading the literature.'

I do not care to go on ; the other remarks are in the same spirit.
Professor Hyslop says about me : u He thinks the scientist is trained to
an instinctive confidence in his cooperators ;" and he answers : " A man
who cannot protect himself against fraud must not expect his opinion
to be worth very much." I think both sides are correct here. I
think, indeed, that a scientist is trained to an instinctive confidence in
his cooperators, and I for one am inclined to consider in this sense
even my critics as my cooperators, expecting that in spite of disagree-
ment they will quote me correctly. But if the distortion transcends
certain limits, I think Professor Hyslop is right in demanding that the
scientist ought to discover it, and thus to protect himself in spite of
his instinctive supposition that such things are impossible.

HUGO MUNSTERBERG.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE.

The appearance of Professor Miinsterberg's book with the above
title calls attention afresh to the various points which have been criti-
cised as the chapters have appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and else-
where.

Professor Miinsterberg refers to my former reply to one of his
articles (not reprinted) as an unjust criticism, and one which leaves his
opponent still unreconciled. I hasten to assure Professor Miinster-
berg that his subsequent article on Education, reprinted in this col-
lection, fully grants all I ever thought of asking in that criticism, and
much more.

I do not think it wise, at present, to try to teach experimental
psychology in the high school. At the same time I wish to protest
against the fundamental position of this whole book, in the hope that
certain other points of difference may be as happily adjusted.

I am certainly in hearty sympathy with the great questions at
stake. Professor Miinsterberg is to be congratulated upon the whole-
hearted way in which he emphasizes the realities of life, of the will,
of feelings and their values, over against the mechanical, lifeless forms
of which we see so much in current psychology. But what higher
law makes it necessary to set these realities outside of psychology ?

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS. 411

Who determines the limits of our science, and says we shall not include
in it anything not fully explained by the law of causation ? Who says
the biologist may not stand face to face with the facts of life even
while he is a scientist ?

Undoubtedly the feelings of effort and strain connected with will
acts are sensations ; but, after taking them away, very much is left.
Why, then, is it necessary to step outside of our text-book of psychol-
ogy to say so, and to call upon the student to go to real life to see for
himself what mind is ?

The same is true of the emotions. The pleasures of expanding
chest and relaxing muscles as one watches a sunset are sensations ; but
something remains after these are subtracted, and psychology has a
right to call attention to the fact.

If necessary, in order to admit these subjects to psychology, I
should be willing to question the fundamental propositions in Pro-
fessor Miinsterberg's epistemology which makes it necessary for him
so to limit psychology. The world of things and the world of ideas
are not two sides of the same thing in any sense in which the world of
will and feeling is not also a side of the same reality.

All the history and traditions of American psychology call for a
study of real life. That is what has given psychology the place it has
always held in our colleges and universties; what gives it its firm
position among the sciences to-day. Psychology is dealing with real
life, and is able to make that life richer and fuller. Experimental
psychology's recent development rests upon that very fact.

No sensationalism or mechanical theory of association will ever
take the place of a Hopkins, a Porter, or a McCosh.

Professor Mtinsterberg's insistence upon the realities of the inner
life is but one sign of a returning of psychologists to real life. Let
us make our psychology broader and deeper, not give it up altogether,
if this, his new view, prevails.

We might go back to the old name, mental philosophy; or we
might adopt some new name, like ethology, which has been recently
suggested. But the word psychology has proved its right to remain.
In the minds of men at large it does stand for reality, and that is why
the world is turning to psychologists for solution of the problems of
life. We ought not to refuse to answer while we settle questions of
terms or the imaginary limits of our science.

CHAS. B. BLISS.
LEONARD'S BRIDGE, CT.

412 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

A REPLY TO "THE NATURE OF ANIMAL INTELLI-
GENCE AND THE METHODS OF INVESTI-
GATING IT."1

My first duty is to beg the reader's pardon for a certain personal
tone in this discussion. As Professor Mills has mentioned Dr. Thorn-
dike twenty-nine times in his article, this reply will of necessity con-
tain the word 4 1 ' oftener than one would wish.

There are two sorts of assertions in Professor Mills' article : first, a
number of important objections to a certain method of studying
animal psychology ; second, a number of attacks on my ' Experimental
Study of the Associative Processes in Animals.'2 The former I am
glad to have the opportunity to discuss, because they should be of real
interest to all comparative psychologists. The latter can be safely left
to the judgment of anyone who has read the monograph itself, and
will be taken up here only because that monograph has probably been
seen by only a few of the many who have read the attack upon it.

Let us turn first to the important objections to my method of
studying the formation of associations in animals. I say my method,
because it seems likely to be thought of chiefly in connection with my
experiments, though Lubbock used practically the same method with
insects. It is, in fact, odd that Lubbock's recommendation as to in-
sects was not sooner followed with mammals. He says, " In order to
test their intelligence, it has always seemed to me that there was no
better way than to ascertain some object which they would clearly de-
sire, and then to interpose some obstacle which a little ingenuity would
enable them to overcome" (Ants, Bees and Wasps, N. Y., 1896, p.
247). He used food as the ; object,' as I did, and interposed mechan-
ical obstacles as I did.

Professor Mills' weightiest objection is that, when confined while
hungry in such boxes and pens as I used, the dogs and cats were in a
4 panic-stricken ' condition and, therefore, temporarily lost their normal
wits. Now, it is true that in many of the trials with cats and chicks,
notably the first ten or twenty trials with each animal, there is often,
as I fully noted, great violence and fury of activity. And this might
be the result of mental panic, and so might be a sign of a loss of
normal mentality. But the animals (the dogs and some of the cats)
which did not display this excitement and fury did not display any
variation in the results toward more intelligence. Nor did the animals

1 By Professor Wesley Mills, pp. 262-274 of the May number of THE PSY-
CHOLOGICAL REVIEW.

2 Animal Intelligence, Monograph Supplement, No. VIII., to THE PSYCHO-
LOGICAL REVIEW.

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS. 413

which showed certain results in the experiments of which confinement
in small boxes was an essential feature show any variation from those
results in the experiments (see pp. 87-91 and 96 of the monograph
already cited) in which there was no excitement, no different activity
from that shown all the time. In these experiments the cats were in
the big cage which had been their home for weeks.

Furthermore, it seems unlikely that in the case of the animals which
had already been the subjects of two or three experiments, and which
had been in such boxes a hundred or more times, the violence and
fury of activity could have been the result of fear or in any way a sign
of its presence. For, as was stated in the monograph, such animals
which have been made during a number of trials to crawl into these
boxes which Professor Mills supposes were so disturbing to them,
habitually of their own accord 'went into them again and again.
Nor did they try to escape when I picked them up to drop them in.
In the experiments in which I moved the animal's limbs, putting him
through the movements, there was after from o to 12 trials no fear of
my handling. (See p. 68 of the monograph.)

In short, all evidences of panic may be absent without any
change in mental functioning, and the only cause of mental panic
which would seem probable, namely, fear, was certainly not present
in the greater number of the experiments. So I feel bound still to
maintain the account given in the monograph, and attribute the animal's
fury of activity not to mental panic, but to a useful instinctive reaction
to confinement. It should be remembered that even in the midst of
the utmost activity the cats would take instant advantage of any chance
to escape which appealed to their instinctive equipment (e. g., the
widening of an orifice). It should further be remembered that the
most violent animals did the most pseudo-intelligent acts. If any one
of the eight or ten psychologists and biologists who saw the experi-
ments in progress had seen signs of mental panic in the animals I
should have inserted this discussion in the monograph. But I venture
to think that if Professor Mills had repeated five or six of my experi-
ments he would have discarded this mental panic objection.

The next important objection is that the surroundings were unnat-
ural. I myself long since criticised my method on these grounds,1
and I am and always have been ready to admit that an animal may be
able to reason with certain data, to imitate certain acts, and yet be un-
able to reason with the data with which you confront him or imitate
the act you present as a model. For that reason I chose varied acts,
Science, Vol. VIII., No. 198, p. 520.

4H ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

very simple acts, trying each with different animals and making many
of them approach very closely to acts common in animal life, and
making others practically identical with acts which have been recorded
as proofs of high mental ability in animals (vide the experiments with
boxes C, D and G) . We have seen that so far as the mere being in
boxes is concerned the animals soon got used to it, did not fear it, and
presumably could and did use their mental powers while in that situa-
tion. If Prof essor Mills had specified some particular situation as un-
natural, and argued in concrete terms that its remoteness from the or-
dinary conditions of animal life made it unfit to call forth what mental
functions the animal had, I should here either try to show that it was
fit to call them forth or confess that from the animal's conduct in it no
conclusion could be drawn save the one that the animal's mentality
was such as was not aroused thereby. Even this one conclusion would
be valuable. Even if we had to say, ' all that these experiments prove is
that these circumstances will not cause the animal to manifest memory,
imitation, etc.,' we should be saying a good deal, for the advocates of
the reason theory have pretty uniformly given as evidence the reac-
tions of animals to novel mechanical continuances.

Professor Mills does not argue in concrete terms, does not criticise
concrete unfitness in the situations I devised for the animals. He
simply names them unnatural. Moreover, it would seem that he
makes this word face two ways. When talking of my experiments, he
uses the word in the sense of novel, unfamiliar to the animal. When
arguing that my conclusions are wrong, he uses the word in the sense
of beyond the limits of their mental functions, abhorrent to their nor-
mal intellection. Of course, the former may be true and the latter
false. The fact that cats are not ordinarily treated as mine were does
not imply that my cats could not and did not come to be at home in
the life I imposed on them to such an extent that they could use
therein all the general intellectual functions they possessed. Professor
Mills himself has based statements about the presence of certain men-
tal functions on the conduct of a kitten in gaining a certain resting-
place (in a bookcase, if I remember rightly), in spite of mechanical
obstacles interposed. The situation here coped with is as 'un-
natural' as that in a majority of my experiments.

The general argument of the monograph is used in all sorts of
scientific work and is simple enough. It says: "If dogs and cats
have such and such mental functions, they will do so and so in certain
situations and will not do so and so ; while, on the other hand, the ab-
sence of the function in question will lead to the presence of certain

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS. 415

things and the absence of certain other things." To provide the * cer-
tain situations' was the task my experiments undertook. It is mere
rhetoric to damn the whole argument with a word, * unnatural.' The
thing to do is to show the error in the logic or the disturbing factor in
each experiment, to repeat the experiment minus that factor, get oppo-
site results, and so refute my claims. Dr. Kline has in one slight
case gained results by the use of more 4 natural ' surroundings and his
results agree with mine. (See Am. J. of Psy., Vol. X, pp. 277—8.)
I may say here that Dr. Kline has in this article treated of fear and
novel surroundings as disturbing features in my experiments more dis-
criminatingly, perhaps, than Professor Mills, and that this paper is in-
tended to be an explanation which will satisfy his criticisms as well as
those of the latter.

Observational records are, as I said in the review in Science which
has already been quoted, of very great value ; but the fact remains that
the host of observations so far collected, including the large number
of Professor Mills' own to which he refers on page 264, had not pro-
vided us with agreement about the presence of a single general func-
tion in animal consciousness that was in dispute. I tried, therefore, to
devise situations in which the conduct of the animals might be really
illuminating. It would seem that Professor Mills allows that if the
experiments were only free from the disturbing factors we have been
talking about, the conclusions reached would be probably true, for he
does not criticise the logic of the deductions. Now these conclusions
are so far reaching that I am reviled for even pretending to have made
such important ones. But this goes to show just that the method will,
if we can show that these factors are not present, or can modify the
method so as to exclude them, get us somewhere psychologically. So
my general plea for experiments in animal psychology is that they at
least pretend to give us an explanatory psychology, and not fragments
of natural history.

Finally, just as in experiments like mine you may miss the truth
by some mistake you make in picking the circumstances, the situation
to test the presence of a function, so in the mere observation of the
habitual life of animals or the experimental regulation of their ordi-
nary activities, you may miss the truth by mistaking instinctive for
imitative acts, associative for rational acts, permanent associations for
memories. For instance, Professor Mills offers in his article, as a proof
of the presence of an imitative faculty, an act (p. 268) which might
very possibly have been the result of the instinct to follow common to
so many young animals, so far as one can judge from his account —

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

"a student of McGill University has communicated to me the fact
that a kitten which could not be induced to jump over an object placed
before it, did so only after seeing the mother do it, and after that there
was no more trouble in getting it to perform the trick." We shall see
that another observation, that of the dog and the tree, which Professor
Mills quotes to refute me, may have suffered in the interpretation.

Of course, it is clear that the psychological story told by correct
experimentation will not conflict with the story told by correct obser-
vations reported correctly at first, second or tenth hand. But I am
not yet sure that any trustworthy observation about the interpretation
of which there is general agreement, conflicts with the results of
my observations under test conditions in such a way as to render nec-
essary the presupposition that in them there was some vital flaw.
Such refutation of them may come, but Professor Mills does not seem
to have brought it.

So much in general defence of the methods I used. It may now
be permitted to mention some matters of detail: Professor Mills
finds in the printed report of my experiments signs of conceit and of
lack of 4 respect for workers of the past of any complexion/ For
psychological interpretations of the sort given by Romanes and Lindsay
I certainly had and have no respect, though, of course, I esteem them
for their zeal. But I cannot see that the presence or absence of me-
galomania in me is of any interest to comparative psychology. The
monograph in question was not a presentation of personal opinion, but
of certain facts, the accuracy of which, and of certain impersonal induc-
tions and deductions, the logic of which, should be attacked imperson-
ally. The question is whether certain facts exist and what they mean ,
and does not concern the individual psychology of any person.

Professor Mills' humor in making believe that because I character-
ize Lloyd Morgan as the ; sanest ' of comparative psychologists, I
think of them all as insane (p. 263), seems a bit disingenuous in view
of the fact that his article will probably be the sole source of informa-
tion about my book to a large number of people. Of course, when
I wrote ' sanest,' I meant sanest. Had I meant ' least insane ' I should
assuredly have so written. On page 264 our author says, < He ' (Dr.
Thorndike) ' comes very near to the belief that they are automata pure
and simple, though this he does not assert in so many words.' This,
I may be permitted to say, is an absolute misrepresentation. In every
associative process discussed in the book I find present as an impor-
tant element, impulses, and impulse I expressly define as ' the con-
sciousness accompanying,' etc. (p. 14). Again, I speak everywhere

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS. 417

of the pleasure resulting from the attainment of freedom, food, etc.,
as stamping in the connection between sense-impression and impulse.
So, also, I speak everywhere of the sense-impression as the starting-
point of the mental association. As a fact, mental processes are men-
tioned throughout the whole discussion. The one place where I
frankly offered opinion in addition to fact was where I also attributed
representations to animals : ' my opinion would be that animals do
have representations, and that such are the beginning of the rich life of
ideas in man' (p. 77). Again, after an attempt to ' describe graphic-
ally * * * the mental fact we have been studying,' I say (p. 89) : u Yet
there is consciousness enough at the time, keen consciousness of the
sense-impressions, impulses, feelings of one's bodily acts. So with
the animals. There is consciousness enough, but of this kind."

On page 264 Professor Mills talks as if I were trying to answer the
question as to whether the animal mind was comparable to the human
mind, and to answer it in the negative for the sake of exalting the
human mind above the realm of natural evolution. The reader of the
monograph will remember that one of the results of the study was the
attainment of a possible mental evolution of an entirely natural sort.
I never tried to answer the question, ' How far does the mentality of
a dog or cat equal that of man in general, genus homo,' for such a
question seems to me fruitless. It is like asking how far is 2 like x.
The mentality of man in general is an unknown quantity, has a lot of
possible values and so cannot be well used as a measure of anything.
Any answer to it will be partially false and partially meaningless.
Whether cats infer and compare, whether they imitate as present day
adult human beings known to psychologists do, whether they form
associations minus impulses of their own, are clear, answerable ques-
tions. Such I tried to answer. To say or to prove that the human
mind of Europeans of to-day comes by continuous evolution from the
animal mind does not make the latter any higher, endow it with a
single new function nor alter it one whit. The protozoa are not at all
different from what they were before after we call them the ancestors
of the vertebrates. And one is free, it seems to me, to find out about
questions of descriptive psychology, as well as of morphology, with-
out meddling with questions of classification.

On page 265 Professor Mills rebukes me for considering hunger
the strongest stimulus to animals. Of course, I did not so consider it,
and I am not aware of anything in the monograph which even looks
as if I did.

Again, on this same page he misrepresents me by quoting a sentence

41 8 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

without its context and, indeed, with comments which positively give a
wrong notion of the context. The sentence is : * the question of
whether an animal does or does not form a certain association requires
for an answer no higher qualification than a pair of eyes.' This sen-
tence, as anyone may see by reading pages 5, 6 and 7 of the mono-
graph, refers to the particular associations involved in learning to
escape from boxes. And whether an animal does or does not learn to
escape from a box certainly can be observed by anyone with a pair of
eyes. And as the text clearly states, it was just because I did not wish
to impose on any one my own opinions or even observations, because
I wanted to use a method which any one else could employ and gain
results which any one else could verify or refute, that I planned experi-
ments which depended, so to speak, on impersonal eyes, eyes in gen-
eral, for many of their results. I unhesitatingly affirm that so far as
the facts of escape or non-escape and the time records (and the sen-
tence concerns nothing else), Professor Mills or any one else would
have kept just the same records as I myself did — that his eyes would
have seen no more nor less than mine.

On page 267 I am accused of sacrificing particulars about facts for
the sake of rhetoric, again on the basis of an entirely misrepresented
quotation. On pages 38 and 39 of the monograph I say that henceforth
I shall frequently use the word ' animal ' or i animals ' when I mean to
make statements only about the particular score of animals which were
the subjects of my experiments, as " really I claim for my animal psy-
chology only that it is the psychology of just these particular animals."
After giving one reason for this verbal usage I add, " my second rea-
son is that I hate to burden the reader with the disgusting rhetoric
which would result if I had to insert particularizations and reserva-
tions at every step." Professor Mills quotes, omitting the first five
words, and giving the impression that I generally omitted details so as to
have good paragraphs or something of that sort, whereas the only ' par-
ticularizations' to which I objected were such as saying, Cats i (8— 10
months), 2 (5-7 months), 3 (5-11 months) etc., up to cat 13; Dogs
etc., etc., did not do so and so every page or two, when by means of
this little note upon verbal usage the reader could on each occasion
interpret the word « animals' to mean " the particular animals which
he observed, not necessarily all animals." The rhetorical excellence
thus gained requires absolutely no sacrifice of fact of any sort.

If I were sure that Professor Mills would enjoy a bit of jocularity,
I should reply to his explanation of the failure of my animals to imi-
tate, by his own failure to imitate Professors James, Ladd, Hall and

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS. 419

Cattell, by saying that it was a good explanation, that they, like him,
did not imitate because they could not. His whole discussion of my
views on imitation should, in fairness, be accepted only after a careful
reading of what the monograph said on that subject. There is room
in this reply for only one more comment, on another matter.

To prove that dogs have memory in the sense of the ability to
" refer the present situation to a situation of the past and realize that
it is the same" (the meaning taken in the monograph), Professor
Mills tells us of a dog which stopped at a certain tree, up which he had,
months ago, chased a cat, " looked up and behaved otherwise in such
a manner as left no doubt in my mind that he remembered the iden-
tical tree and detail of the whole performance." I suppose this
description of the effect on Professor Mills, beginning with the words
* behaved otherwise,' means that the dog barked at or jumped at the
tree, or behaved as he would if the cat were there. It must be con-
fessed that to a hardened disbeliever the argument, " the dog remem-
bered because he behaved so that I know he remembered," seems
hardly scientific ; but supposing that the description means what we
have suggested, it still does not prove that the dog felt a memory of
previous incident. At the table this morning I took hold of a cup,
raised it to my lips and drank, acted toward the cup just as I did a
month ago, but I had absolutely no memory in connection with the
act. Indeed, if the dog really remembered the previous chase, he
would have good reasons not to stop at the tree and act as if a cat
were there. Let us suppose that Professor Mills and his dog were
both out for cats ; that they chased a cat to a tree ; that the dog barked,
etc., at the foot ; and that Professor Mills, running up, shot his gun at
the cat. Next month they come along toward the tree. Now, suppose
that Professor Mills should run up and shoot his gun as he did the
other time. Would we think he remembered his chase of a month
before? No! we would think that he had gone daft, or had for-
gotten that the cat was there a month ago. Such an act would be the
natural result of a permanent association between the sight of that
tree and certain impulses, or of an ill-defined representation ; but it
would be one of the last things to expect as a result of a memory of
the previous occasion.

This reply should close with an apology. Discussions of method
and argument over results are likely to be less profitable and much less
interesting than new constructive work. This reply was, however,
necessary because of Professor Mills' eminence as an observer of ani-
mals, and because of the importance of getting at the truth about the

420 NOTES ON AFTER-IMAGES.

possible disturbing influence of fear and novel surroundings in certain
convenient and, if legitimate, illuminating experiments.

[NOTE. — On page 268 Professor Mills has put ' to the laws of
nature ' instead of ' to the laws of its nature,' which means something
rather different.]

EDWARD THORNDIKE.
WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY,
CLEVELAND, OHIO.

NOTES ON AFTER-IMAGES.
LOCATION OF AFTER-IMAGE.

The following Experiment I was made while I studied at Prince-
ton, January 26, 1895. With an ordinary students' stand-lamp, I closed
the left eye, shaded it with the hand, and gazed steadily at the flame
until an exceedingly strong image was secured. Then, closing this
eye and likewise covering it with the hand, I secured a strong image
with the left eye.

Then, with a large piece of cardboard the eyes were shaded from
the lamp-light and the after-image of the right eye was projected upon
the wall, which was of a light shade. While this image was comple-
menting from green to red, and at just the time the red was well pro-
duced, that eye was closed and the image of the left eye was thrown
upon the wall, which image was found to be green at the instant that
of the right was red. In like manner, when the image of the left
eye was complemented into red, and the image of the right eye was
at that time found to be green. Opening and closing the eyes
alternately, it was found that each eye had its own independent after-
image.

Experiment 2. — Proceeding as before in securing the after-images
opposite in color for the eyes, the left eye was closed and the image of
the right eye was projected on the wall. When this after-image had
changed to red I projected the after-image of the left eye upon that of
the right, that of the left at that instant being green. The combined
image appeared green. Upon closing the left eye, or upon shifting its
image to the left so as to make two separate images, it was found that
the image of the right continued to be red while that of the left was
green. The reverse was likewise accomplished. With sufficiently
strong images this shifting of images into and away from each other
proved an exceedingly interesting and beautiful process.

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS, 421

The above experiments, if taken alone, seem to indicate quite de-
cisively that the after-image pertains to the retina of the eye. Mr.
McCurdy, who frequently studied in my room, upon being informed
of this experiment, tried it and obtained the same result, and likewise
felt satisfied with the evidence of retinal location.

AFTER-IMAGE AND TEMPERATURE.

The following describes what was rather an experience than an
experiment, since it conducted itself, and that so impressively that I
was enabled to chronicle it in detail after going to my room.

It is necessary to explain that, while studying in Chicago, I was
accustomed to public speaking each Sunday evening, and finding that
a double bath — that is, a hot bath succeeded by a cold one — proved
beneficial toward reducing nervous excitement following on the effort
of speaking, and conducive to sleep, it was habitually practised.

On an evening in March, 1898, while lying in a bath as hot as I
could well endure, my eyes being closed, I noticed a very lively after-
image. I presume it had been caused by looking at the gas light in
the bath room, although unconsciously. Its peculiar shape and bril-
liancy attracted my notice so much that I became interested in its life
history. Its shape was that of a heart and its color that of the gas
flame recently lighted. Besides its peculiar form, another novelty was
the trimming of green globules which embroidered the image. While
attending this feature I became aware that the image, instead of
diminishing in intensity, as becomes the normal after-image, was grow-
ing more intense and brilliant. At the time I had become so warm
that perspiration stood out on my face and forehead. As I watched,
the globular fringe began to shift around to one side — the left side —
and to thicken there into a kind of knob. At about the same time an-
other small after-image of exactly the same color and shape as the
former image began to form in the right center of the latter. It must
be noticed here that the old image persisted in remaining the same
color and refused to complement itself. The second image grew
rapidly; and now a strange thing took place, namely, the small
image moved closer outside to the right of the older and larger, and in-
creased to about the same size. Then both images changed position,
rolled over, as it were, upon their sides, with their niches toward each
other. The green fringe of globules now concentrated in each image
at the niche and the two images began to coalesce. First, the mar-
ginal perimeters remained distinct between them, then merged into
one separatrix, but eventually disappeared, leaving but one after-

422

NOTES ON AFTER-IMAGES.

image, with a core, as it were, in the center. At this point the image
was much larger than the first image had been, and more intense than
any I had ever previously observed. And, strange to say, the color
persisted without complementing. That is, in general, for the
color had gradually shaded into a beautiful pink, while the center
was a sort of apple green. In fact, the appearance of the image
at its zenith resembled a large pink candy apple with its green
center toward the eye. At this time I was suffering from the heat.
Turning on the cold water, the bath began gradually to cool. With
the decrease of temperature the size and intensity of the after-image
reduced. By the time the bath was reduced in temperature so as to
feel decidedly chilly, it had entirely disappeared. The last glimpse I
got as it was fast paling — there was an orange colored daub across the
left center. When the water was really cold I not only could not get
a return of the image, but could get but a very poor after-image by
repeatedly gazing at the gas flame.

I judge from this experience that the high temperature of the
bath caused a rush of blood to the periphery of the body and so to the
end organs of the optic nerves, stimulating the retina, so that feeble
impressions were wrought up to remarkable intensity.

J. M. GILLETTE.

BIBLE NORMAL COLLEGE, SPRINGFIELD, MASS.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

Truth and Error, or The Science of Intellection. J. W. POWELL.

Chicago, The Open Court Publishing Co. ; London, Kegan

Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. 1898. Pp. 423.

It is a precious discipline for the schooled laborers in psychology
and philosophy that they must submit to learn from minds that obsti-
nately refuse to learn from them or their masters. Mr. Powell's book
has the freshness, suggestion, courage and masterful quality that we
associate with the thinkers who inaugurate ' periods ' and who are un-
oppressed and unchastened by a long dismal vista of strenuous and
largely ineffectual thought behind them. He has striking conceptions,
and often admirable expression, but he will not learn his a, b, c's.
He has the familiar refrain of condemnation for ' metaphysics' and
those who are deceived by words, but his own unguarded reliance on
words, joined with an arbitrary definition of them, is not encouraging.
For instance, ' metaphysics ' itself. " In modern times those who hold
that noumena are inexplicable, that is, unknown and unknowable
properties, call themselves ' metaphysicians.' " Mill, Spencer, Aris-
totle, Plato, Newton, Berkeley, Kant and Hegel, are freely refuted;
but the author's insight into other men's thoughts and methods falls
considerably below his confidence. The strictness and prudence of his
own reasoning — his philosopher's conscience about assumption and
assertion — mighfbe pointedly illustrated.

4 The war of philoso phy,' we are told, has been * between Idealists
and Materialists,' according, of course, to Mr. Powell's definitions.
" The philosophy here presented is neither Idealism nor Materialism ;
I would fain call it the philosophy of science." It is realistic in the
modern, and, one is tempted to add, in the scholastic sense. He takes
his first principles avowedly from empirical science and seems to be
untroubled by the scruples of epistemology. " I shall propound the
hypothesis that consciousness inheres in the ultimate particle, and at-
tempt to show that it \_i. e., the hypothesis] harmonizes the principles
of psychology." "An ultimate particle, and hence every body, has five
essentials or concomitants, these terms being practically synonymous.
* * * The essentials of the particle are unity, extension, speed, per-

423

424 LITERATURE.

sistence and consciousness, which are absolute. The relations that
arise from them, in order, are multeity, position, path, change and
choice, which give rise to number, extension, motion, time and judg-
ment, as properties that can be measured. It has been pointed out
that particles are incorporated in bodies through affinity as choice, and
by this incorporation the quantitative properties become classific
properties which, in order, are class, form, force, causation and con-
ception." Unfortunately one must content oneself with these quota-
tions. This philosophy of science is interesting ; and if somewhat re-
mote from both modern philosophy and science, it remains true that
the book abounds in suggestive statement and clever expression, and
furnishes striking illustrative passages to the student of that attractive
but undeveloped subject, the psychology of philosophic speculation.

D. S. MILLER.
PHILADELPHIA.

Human Immortality. WILLIAM JAMES. Boston and New York,

Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1898. Pp. i -f- 170.

This little book of Professor James' is the Ingersoll Lecture for
1898. The author seeks to answer two objections of modern culture
to immortality. The first of these is the proposition of Physiological
Psychology that thought is a function of the brain. This general
idea has been carried into detail by the hospitals and laboratories
which have located special forms of thought in special brain areas.
Professor James asks us to accept this result for the sake of argument,
and asks whether it compels us to surrender belief in immortality.
Most persons imbued with the ' Puritanism of science,' he tells us,
would answer in the affirmative. But this conclusion is not logically
coercive, because the physiologist assumes that the only kind of ' func-
tional dependence ' is production, and supposes that the brain produces
consciousness. But this overlooks 4 permissive function ' and ' trans-
missive function,' with which we are familiar even in the physical
world. Professor James' thesis is that when we say that thought is a
function of the brain, we are entitled to think of ' permissive ' and
' transmissive ' function. He considers the latter, which he illustrates
physically by the keys of an organ, which transmit the air from the
air chest through the pipes into the world, in certain special forms.
Suppose that the whole universe of material things is only a 4 surface
veil of phenomena' hiding the reality behind, or a dome refracting the
4 white light of eternity.' And suppose this dome, usually opaque to
the eternal light, could at certain places grow less so, admitting to this

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 425

world so many restricted rays. Just so our brains can be conceived
as thin places in the dome through which the genuine reality, the life
of souls, breaks through into this world in restricted forms of finite
consciousness, which would only cease in these special forms when
the various brains ceased to exist. Thus our conscious life would de-
pend on our brains, and yet an immortal life beyond the veil be possi-
ble. Professor James says in one of the notes that he takes the dual-
istic standpoint of natural science, because this objection arises on this
plane. From this standpoint, he says, if we reject the notion that the
brain produces consciousness, we have no other alternative but to
believe that consciousness preexists and is transmitted into this world
of phenomena by the brains which give it its finite forms. He then
shows that the idea of production is quite as metaphysical as the
idea of transmission, and finally gives certain positive advantages of
the transmission theory.

Several questions suggest themselves. There is space here only
for two. The first has reference to the idea of ; transmission/ If it
be admitted that thought is a function of the brain, and also that ' trans-
mission ' can be called a function, then Professor James might exclude
all other theories than production and transmission without any refuta-
tion, on the ground that they do not make thought a function of the
brain. But if the physiologist can reply that this idea of transmission
of preexisting consciousness by the brain does not make the former a
function of the latter, it would seem that we have given up the prop-
osition we were to have accepted, and the transmission theory would
have to hold its own against other theories which hold an absolute be-
ginning of the finite consciousness, such, for example, as those which
say that it is created either absolutely or through the generation of
parents. And if the brain passively transmits a preexisting conscious-
ness as a 'thin place in the dome ' lets in light, it would seem as
though it could not be said that thought is a function of the brain, if
function is to have any intelligible sense. If this theory does not have
the right any more than others to the support of the physiologist's
proposition, it must take its place in the arena with the others.

A second question is suggested by the author himself : How does
this theory help us to realize our finite and individual immortality?
Our finiteness seems to be a part of the warp and woof of our per-
sonality ; and if when the brain, the organ of this finiteness, vanishes,
our spirits revert to their original source, what is to become of our
personal immortality? Professor James admits that these are vital
questions, but declines to enter into the discussion of what he calls

426 LITER A TURE.

i these higher or more transcendental matters.' He merely says by
the way, that if, as the philosophers say, l all determination is nega-
tion,' it might prove that the loss of these particular determinations is
not a matter for regret, and that they are not worth keeping. But
what if all determination is not negation ? What if those elements of
our finite personalities are positive and worth keeping, and their loss
a i matter for regret ?' It would then seem that this theory would not
help us greatly in the question of immortality. If it is to be a valid
argument for immortality it would first have to prove that ' all deter-
mination is negation.' Nor does it relieve the matter that Professor
James says in a note at the end of the book that it is not necessary to
identify the preexisting consciousness, which this theory presupposes,
with the Absolute of transcendental idealism. Even though the
theory only requires that consciousness preexists * in vaster entities '
than our finite spirits, we lose ourselves just as much in the bosom of
these ' vaster entities ' as we would in that of the Absolute.

The second objection to immortality, for which there is little
space here left, has reference to the incredible number of beings which
must be immortal if we hold fast to our belief in immortality. Pro-
fessor James shows that this is a fallacy resulting from our failure to
realize the inner significance of these alien lives, which is as great for
them as that of our own for us. Moreover, we cannot say that God
has no need for these lives because we ourselves have not. If God
suffers us, surely we can suffer one another.

C. W. HODGE.
PRINCETON.

Essays on the Bases of the Mystic Knowledge. E. RECEJAC.

Translated by SARA CARR UPTON. New York, Charles Scrib-

ner's Sons. 1899.

This exceedingly interesting and suggestive book, which has been
well rendered into English, may be characterized as a search for the Ab-
solute through the mystic intuition. ' Reason is in possession of too
much light,' the author says in his introduction, c to be able to remain
quite at ease in the region of clear ideas, but not enough to know first
principles of actual knowledge. In this penumbra who can trace the ex-
act limit of perceptions and say where the true disappears in the prob-
able, where the probable vanishes in illusion?' The author holds the
common ground of mysticism with reference to the inability of pure rea-
son. It is impossible to grasp the highest truth by a rational act, or to
reduce it to the form of definite conceptions. The Absolute can only be

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 427

grasped by a species of inspiration, and the highest truth transcends
ideas and is only expressible in symbols. The author is at the same
time a positivist and an agnostic, and yet denies that science is the only
organ of knowledge. The ' Heart,' by which is meant a synthesis of
freedom or moral spontaneity and imagination acting under the regu-
lative categories of duty, constitutes an ultra- rational and ultra-scien-
tific organ of truth. The relation of mysticism to science, the author
argues, is purely negative. Mysticism, when it understands itself,
does not encroach on the territory of scientific knowledge. It admits
and leaves it to itself, and claims the power of discovering, through its
own organ, truths that are inaccessible to science. The mystical ob-
ject is not ontologically transcendent. The Absolute is nowhere but in
consciousness. But it is to be reached only by a consciousness raised
to a high degree of intensity, which, by an act of 4 excess' or k disin-
terestedness,' or ' self-alienation,' transcends its ordinary plane of in-
tellection and moral egotism, and in this act of ' transcendence' be-
comes, for the time, identical with the Absolute and attains to
supersensuous, absolute truth. This apprehension is not intellectual,
however, and cannot be represented in terms of ordinary knowledge.
It can only be expressed in symbols, and these must also be the crea-
tion of the excited consciousness in which the intuition takes place.
The mystical symbol cannot, therefore, possess universal value, like
the principles of rational knowledge. How, then, is mysticism to be
guarded against enthusiasm and subjective caprice ? A negative cri-
terion arises out of the relation of mysticism to science. Mysticism
must not enter the preserves of science. When it essays to occupy
fields open to science it becomes false mysticism and is to be con-
demned. But the most important criterion is positive. The i Heart'
must be impelled by the motives of pure morality, and the result of its
mystical act must submit to be judged by the laws of duty. It must
be tributary to the moral good. The author is here a disciple of Kant,
as he is Kant's disciple in accepting as final his condemnation of
metaphysics. This symbolic knowledge, though not amenable to the
tests of that which makes the claim of universality, is not without its
own appropriate canons of self-criticism.

The discussion of the book is divided into three parts. In Part I.,
entitled " The Absolute," the problem is how the Absolute is to be
apprehended ; the first chapter being devoted to various defective
mental attitudes toward the Absolute, while the second treats of the
mystic consciousness as the only organ for the real apprehension of ab-
solute truth. Part II., entitled " Symbols," treats of the mode of ap-

428 LITERATURE.

prehending and expressing the mystical intuition, while Part III.,
under the title of " The Heart," deals with the moral and religious
aspects of mysticism. It would be impossible, in the limits which
must be observed in this notice, to follow the author into any of the
details of his discussion. One is impressed with the general sanity of
the discussion and the fine irenic temper which pervades it, as well as
with the author's intelligent appreciation of the results of modern in-
vestigation. The book embodies an attempt to bring a very recalci-
trant theme within the sphere of critical treatment. The phenomena
of mysticism are treated mainly from the psychologist's point of view,
and it is from this standpoint chiefly, therefore, that the attempt is to
be judged. The psychological interest and value of the author's work
seem to me to be unquestionable, though the extent to which mystical
phenomena are open to psychological treatment is a question on
\vhich difference of opinion is likely to prevail. The proposal to sub-
stitute ' Mystic Positivism ' for rational theology or metaphysical
idealism touches some of the great issues of the ages. Whilst free to
admit my own scepticism as to the adequacy of the substitute and my
persistent adherence to a larger faith in reason, I am yet of the opin-
ion that the author has performed an important service to philosophy.
To one who is foolish enough in these degenerate days to be troubled
about the ultimate problems of life and destiny the book is refreshing
as well as illuminating. It proves that the search for the Absolute
has not yet become antiquated, and it leads one to think that philosophy
may possibly have something important to learn from the mystics.

ALEXANDER T. ORMOND.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.

Psychologic der Veranderungsaujfassung. L. WILLIAM STERN.

Mit 15 Figuren im Text. Breslau, Preuss und Jiinger. 1898.

Pp. viii + 264.

Ever since the acceptance of the dictum Semper idem sentire ac
non sentire ad idem reverimt (Hobbes), psychologists have been
searching the multiple variations which crowd in upon consciousness ;
and, of late, these empirical facts have had a semblance of scientific
treatment in the so-called * law of variety ' (Hamilton) or ' law of
relativity' (Wundt). Change as objective sequence, and change as
having meaning, have given no end of trouble to clear thinking,
whether in metaphysics or in science. The work under review pre-
sents itself with the avowed purpose of bringing together the facts
and meaning of change from the psychological point of view.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 429

Noting the historical and metaphysical importance of the concept
of change and its congeners, the author passes to the problem which
change offers to psychology, formulating it thus : " To exhibit all the
forms which the apprehension [Aufassung] of change can assume in
universal thinking (including the interrelations of them one to an-
other) and to describe the ideational contents of these various forms
of apprehension" (p. 5). Change has many different aspects: as,
quantitatively, the increase or decrease of substance, the heightening
or lessening the intensity of an experience, the enlargement or dim-
inution of its extensity, the improvement or deterioration in value,
and variation in rapidity of change; secondly, the type or quality of
change, as transition, transformation, interchange, beginning, progres-
sion; thirdly, the local direction of change, as movement, transition,
process, etc. In its highest orders change appears in the form of
development, history and mathematical functions. To this descrip-
tive problem there is attached another quite as important, which rep-
resents the last stage of differentiation that psychology reaches, viz. :
the causal investigation of the nature, origin, amount and law of the
apprehension of change (p. n).

This double statement of the problem is inadequate without a
definition of Aujfassung, the second member of the title. The author
finds difficulty in defining precisely what is to be included in this term.
His is distinctly not the problem of the * perception ' of changes, nor
of the effects of objectively changing stimuli upon the senses; but
rather of the manner how a certain form of our ideation and thinking
is constituted (p. 12 f.). Aujfassung implies the complex, discrimi-
native, psychical activity wrhich meets all varieties of stimulation and
issues in all forms of judgment (pp. 120 f., 138). The monograph is
thus an extended study of sensation, perception and mental activity as
complexly involving change, its fundamental thought being that the
active functioning of consciousness is the only hypothesis which offers
any aid for the solution of the technical difficulties involved in at-
tempts at harmonizing our varying experiences of changes (p. 255).
Changing, rather than constant, impressions alone are the conditions
for awakening this functioning (p. 140). In every paragraph, almost,
there is a steady mindfulness of this two-fold problem.

The monograph is divided into two parts. Part I. (pp. 19-73)
treats of ' the origin,' and Part II. (pp. 78-256) of ' the fineness of the
apprehension of change.' The former is purely qualitative ; the latter,
more quantitative in its treatment. In Chapter I. there is given a dis-
cussion of the sources of changes as found in Perception, involving the

43° LITERATURE.

psychological, rather than the punctual or mathematical, present in
consciousness. Fixed and gradually changing stimulations, and the
changes which the subject may induce in its own conscious stream and
in the members of its body, serve as the varied starting-points whence
change is apprehended. In every act of perception which is essen-
tially extended in time there is an intuitive apprehension of change.
Otherwise Reproduction and Comparison (Chapter II.) could not take
part in bringing about those ideas which have change as their char-
acteristic category. Feelings of recognition accompany these purely
intellectual processes (p. 54). The comparison of varying changes,
whether minute or extensive, is given a very high function, its greatest
importance being to promote awareness of specific stadia in any series
of changes which involves more than two members ; as, for example,
in the growth of a plant we are able to detect ' phases ' now and then.
This process is essentially involved in consciousness's recognition of
itself and its past. (In this process, also, S. finds ' the most important
psychological root' of the idea of Ding an sich., p. 67.) These
'phases' are resting-points, boundary lines, which are necessary as
soon as we attempt to fix the changes by thought, word or number
(p. 72).

The analytical distinctions not only aid the later examination of
the measurement of change, but the quantitative analysis tends to
complete and reenforce them. Part II. gathers, in critical fashion,
the results in this ' relatively young field of experimental psychology.'
Chapter III. describes the Technique concerning the few special pieces
of apparatus which have been used in measuring stimulus changes in
brightness and color, in pitch, intensity and direction of tones, in
pressure, thermic and other changes due to chemical and mechanical
stimulation. The mechanical devices used in the studies by Preyer,
Hall and Motora, von Frey, Seashore, Stratton, and by S. in his
earlier studies on brightness, movement and tones, are noted in this
connection. The latter part of this chapter discusses the two groups
of methods of getting at the fineness of discrimination of changes, viz. :
judgment and reaction. In this matter of method S. finds a field of
questions that is new and unexplored (pp. 102 f.), and offers sugges-
tions for reducing varying affirmative and negative judgments to quan-
titative values, which he regards as the more desirable results in ex-
perimental tests (pp. 97f-5 91)'

Chapter IV., entitled Psychical Excitability for changes and its
Laws, is by far the most important part of the monograph, both as to
bulk (pp. 119-256) and contents. Its first section is occupied with a

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 431

search for a technical term which shall be generic to sensibility and
discriminability. This term is Erregbarkeit (pp. 119, 124), which
means the collective reaction of the soul upon external stimulation.
The development of this position brings S. to a critical rejection of
Preyer's view that sensation is merely a function of stimulus changes
(pp. 144, 157 f.). The remainder of the chapter endeavors, by a
careful examination of the conditions of psychical response to external
objects (§§ 9—11), and later by a review of the modifications of these
conditions in the special senses as revealed by the somewhat conflict-
ing results of the experimental studies mentioned above (§§ 12—14),
to reach a special law generalizing psychical excitability to changes.
(It is noteworthy that S. does not find Weber's Law to have any great
bearing upon his problem, p. 131, note.) All senses, except that of
temperature, readily yield to the propositions to be mentioned later.
The perception of heat and cold and their changes seem to defy the
alleged uniformity of conditions for the apprehension of changes,
leading to a suggested hypothesis of heat and cold being relations
only. Experimental data in vision, hearing, pressure and the modi-
fications of constant and transition-sensations due to fatigue, surprise,
expectation, etc., are given a careful examination in the interests of
the special formula sought to generalize the facts of the variations in
the rapidity and other features with which stimulus changes affect the
perceptibility of those changes. By his earlier investigations S. has
entitled himself to this critical comparison of the data in this special
field (PSYCH. REV., II. : 313 f., V. : 98 f.). This composite review
is suggestive and appreciative, even when critical of the work of
others — which is by no means uncommon.

The ^ Hauptgesetz, mentioned above as the objective point of the
treatment of the quantitative values, is slowly reached and presented
in sections, pertinent to the specific conditions and the type of sensa-
tion and reaction. In the serial order its parts read thus : i. " It is not
the absolute value of the excitations always present in sensory nerves,
and radiating from there to the motor fields, to which motor nerves
respond with a reaction ; but it is rather the change in this value from
moment to moment " (p. 145). 2. " It is not the absolute value of the
stimulus affecting motor nerves which produces a movement, but it is
rather the change in this value from moment to moment" (p. 145).
3. (Physiologically) "A nerve stimulation may become a specific
cause for the performance of physical and psychical activity only when
the stimulation is a changing one." 4. (Or, psychologically) "A

43 2 LITERATURE.

sensation may become a specific cause for the performance of physical
or psychical activity only when it is apprehended in the process of
changing" (p. 158). 5. ' l The incitation to the physical or psychical
reaction varies directly with the rapidity of the change in the sensa-
tion" (p. 211). In a series of tone discriminations, varying from %
to 2 vibrations, lasting 2, 4, 6 and 8 seconds, S. found that the most
favorable time for detecting the amount of increase and direction of
stimulation was 6 seconds' duration (pp. 189-195). On this basis he
offers the law of the most favorable time for apprehending changes.
6. u If a changing stimulus is persistently observed, certain favorable
stadia will be found within the observation time in which the capa-
bility of perception (the tendency to complete a judgment — or motor —
reaction) is especially strong. Since, within such a favorable time
changes of varying rapidity can be perceived, the slower changes
which, up to that point of time have acquired only a lesser extent, are
relatively more favorably placed" (p. 211). 7. (In addition to 2)
u The greater the rapidity of change in the stimulus the greater is the
incitation to motor activity" (p. 213). 3 and 4 express the law of
change in its best forms. The actual experimental deviations from the
law, noticed at length by S. (p. 224f), must be omitted.

The law is less suggestive in its formula than in the discussions
which point the way to it. Its formulation is rather defective in being
so scattered. It remains isolated, finally, and is not exactly brought
into harmony with his problem as defined in terms of apprehension.
And, furthermore, the attempts at emulation are rather too pronounced.
On the other hand, in its review of the few experimental studies, the
monograph can well serve as a hand-book. The detailed analysis of
many facts and relations brings them up to the point where only special
investigation can carry them forward. This is one of the most valu-
able features of this very circumspect treatment of the problems con-
nected with the apprehension of change.

EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCHNER.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY.

Psychophysiologische Erkenntnistheorie. THEODOR ZIEHEN. Jena,

Gustav Fischer. 1898. Pp. 105.

In the rush to epistemology the serious student may well question
whether we are keeping ourselves aloof from a neo-scholasticism which
threatens scientific method, on the one hand, and disables the efforts of
thought by an apparent show of consistency on the other. Noetical
theories, once unknown and unsought, are now so common that they

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 433

even serve the purpose of setting up standards for giving advice.
Whether this highest court of Appeal in the kingdom of mind is not
deserving of far more respect than is, by popular consent, manifest,
can scarce be a matter of question. Consistency, however, is the chief
emblem of this bar, and the essay under review presents itself with
titular claims to a frank hearing. It reposes upon the earlier efforts of
its writer in the field of physiological psychology, and thus comes with
the promise and potency of unsuspected extensions in the domain of
theory of knowledge.

In all exploration, results are in primary demand ; and the author
has spared the reviewer much by bringing in one section (§ 22, pp.
100-103) a 'dogmatic resume' of his inquiries. Though opposed to
the very spirit of epistemology (which the author recognizes), he ven-
tures to give a succinct exhibition of the conclusions to which he has
been led in his analyses. Freely rendered, this ^Lexikon^ so zu sagen,
of his theory of knowledge runs about thus :

" Sensations [Empfindungeri\ and ideas [ Vorstellungen\ are
given to us." Both are summed up in the terms psychical processes,
or the psychical. Non-psychical is a meaningless term. Things, my
ego, alter egoes are ideas only.

On the basis of epistemological analysis each sensation is made
up of two components, the residual factor, or the reduced sensation,
and the v-component. [The ' v ' factor is the primary experience
derived from the activity of the sense-organs, as tactile, visual, etc.,
p. 22] . The former factors have reciprocal relations, which can be ex-
pressed by universal laws. The totality of these laws is designated as
the ' causal formula.' [This is the summary of the coordination of
tactile and optical series mutually dependent — e. g., in seeing my hand
movements and pen movements spatially and temporally connected.
This is the sequence of value to the natural sciences, p. 25.]

A certain group of sensations is designated as the group of v-sen-
sations. The residual factors of these sensations work first recipro-
cally with the residual factors of the other sensations which can be
expressed by the causal formula ; but, secondly, they react indepen-
dently upon these residual factors when they have undergone a change
through the residual factors of another sensation.

These reactions are not arranged according to space and time.
They cannot be expressed by the laws of the causal formula, but
rather, in their entirety, by other laws (uniform fusions) . The total-
ity of these lawful fusions is designated by the term parallel-formula
[z. e., changes in sensation-complexes that are simultaneous and not
successive, pp. 25-6].

434 LITERATURE.

The residual factor of a sensation, which causally effects in a cer-
tain degree and certain quality the constituent part of the v-sensation
is altered by the parallel-reaction of the latter. The process of trans-
ition is designated by the term v-change, or individualization, the
change itself as the v-component.

Epistemology is trying, with the help of natural science, including
psychology, to eliminate these v- components, and to present the resid-
ual factor itself [t. e., the ' object']. The idea of this residual factor
is the resultant idea, or the reduced sensation. (Hence) the method
of theory of knowledge is called ; reduction ' [Y. e. , thought must not
turn to 'things' as external, but continue a consistent analysis of sen-
sations, until it reaches that sensational quale which cannot be elimi-
nated, p. 31 f. This residue is the nervous system, at times fibers,
and again cortical centers, pp. 35, 59, 65]. The residual factors are
only to be ideated.

The v-sensations are arranged in complexes, which are commonly
called sensory nervous system.

All sensations are made up of v-components of a single complex of
v-sensations ; so far forth they are individually psychical ; the residual
factors can also be ideated only as psychical, but as universally-
psychical.

Since the idea of the individual ego is itself an idea resulting from
the process of reduction, the idea of a universal-psychical is neither
contradictory nor meaningless.

Sensations, in so far as they all possess v-components, are also
called object- sensations or stimulus-sensations.

With the omission of the v-components the object-sensation disap-
pears. Its residual factor must be ideated as abiding.

Every reduction factor transforms itself into so many object-sensa-
tions— t. £., is individualized just so often as it affects the v-sensation-
complexes and experiences their reactions.

All sensations are positively only in space, at the place of the
residual factor. Spatial and temporal series belong primarily to the
reduced sensations (i. e., the residual factor). It is influenced only
secondarily by individualization.

In like manner, the quality and intensity of object- sensations are
determined by the reduced sensations, and only secondarily by the
v-components. Theory of knowledge, in so far as it demands univer-
sal ideas of reduction, is trying, with the help of natural science and
psychology, to subsume the qualities and intensities under a single re-
duction-idea. As such a universal the idea of energy is to-day com-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 435

ing under consideration. The idea of mass, inasmuch as it is to in-
dicate more than a numerical factor, is contradictory or meaningless
[z. £., 'mass' does not carry one over into realism].

An affective tone, as a feature independent of the other charac-
teristics, does not belong to the reduced sensation.

The difference between ideas and sensations consists in sensuous

vivacity.

* * * * *

Object-sensations always require, for their individualization, con-
junction with ideas.

Ideas [like sensations] are simple or complex, individual or uni-
versal. [Ideas are only memory-pictures of sensations, p. 37.]

Ideas of Relation form a special group. They are just as depen-
dent upon the v-sensations as are the other ideas. Like all other ideas,
they are developed only from sensations.

Among these ideas of relation, those which have special epistem-
ological importance are the six categorical ideas [not in the Kantian
or Hegelian sense of the term ' category '] of likeness, similarity and
difference, persistency, change and interchange. [ /. £., upon the sole
condition of like sensations, simultaneous and in sequence, etc., the
child builds up these rational ideas, by extracting those elements
present in the varying sensation-complexes, pp. 7—15.] The relational
idea of causality is based upon the relational idea of change. The re-
duction ideas of epistemology are the most universal ideas of sensations
and sensation-relations.

In the formation of epistemological reduction-ideas the regulative
principle is so to plan the reductions that a general similarity appears
in the place of single similarities of the object-sensations and their
changes. Our reduction-ideas are subject to a progressive develop-
ment and selection, since object-sensations are never given us in their
totality.

Ideas of ideas, hence ideas of reduction-ideas, do not exist.

Those reductions which unite with the epistemological basis are,
in so far as the latter does not change, not further in need of reduction.

The causal changes within the v-complexes are often continued
through the reduction-factors of sensations which are closely connected,
spatially, with these v-complexes. They are designated as /x-sensa-
tions, and correspond to the motor system of our bodies. These
/^-complexes affect, in their turn, according to the causal formula, the
reduction-factors of ordinary object-sensations. These influences are
called 'actions ;' and they complete the circle of causal changes."

436 LITERATURE.

11 Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" is a ques-
tion pointing to an active field in philosophical inquiries. Ziehen re-
plies, as the newly adopted apostle of old, « come and see/ while he
attempts to draw noetical values out of Nazarene sensations, sensa-
tion-complexes and sequent images. If there is any virtue in the doc-
trine of sensation, as it has of late decades crept into science and phi-
losophy, then this essay is the most virtuous of all recent productions
which aspire to truth and consistency. The specific problem of epis-
temology is presented as the merely analytical * reduction' of the con-
tent of experience to certain forms, validated for the means and ends
of empirical sciences, especially of empirical psychology. * Reduc-
tion' may mean transformation, fusion, synthesis. In this writing it
is presented as the chief and, in truth, only means of noetical achieve-
ment (§8 pp. 31-35)- It purports to be such an analysis of sensa-
tions and the elimination of those accidental factors which leads the
naive thinker to affirm c things,' and the scientist to end with extra-
psychical forces. This gives rise to antinomies, which it is the special
problem of noetics to remove, and, in this instance, succeeds to the
satisfaction of one person in rendering all factors and processes psych-
ical. To this extent the author is almost mortgaged to a prejudice,
while the reviewer frankly confesses to the privileges in the very op-
posite direction — namely, that an objective, impersonal analysis of
psychical contents of the lowest, or, perhaps better, initial, order is
not paramount to the demands which can and must be made upon any
serious attempt to explicate the nature of what we men call 4 knowl-
edge.'

That the analysis here spread forth in an exceedingly abstract,
schematic, algebraic fashion is astutely regarded as adequate, may be
seen from the following passages, which well illustrate the flavor of
the essay, if not its detailed method of analysis :

"A special 'function of judging' does not exist." For cen-
turies, psychology, logic, and theory of knowledge have fruitlessly at-
tempted to find in the features of judgment what is here for the first
time clearly provided for in those preliminary fusional abstractions
which engage simple ideas. " There is still less occasion for accept-
ing other ' faculties,' beyond judgment * * * such as reason, the source
of syllogisms or intuitions, etc. Exactly at the place where philos-
ophy has so often ventured the leap from epistemology into meta-
physics, is the Calvary of the many ' higher functions of soul' ; here
lie the Ao^o? arid vou? and <pp6yqats and pavta and xiim? of Greek phi-
losophy * * * and the reasons and pure ego's and apperceptions of

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 437

modern philosophy. Tt is generally supposed that a connection with the
extra-psychical must be sought for in the highest psychical faculties.
This extra-psychical is a senseless term, and the highest psychical is al-
ready included in the formation of ideas [as detailed by the elaborated
schemata]. Right here is the principal divergence of this theory of
knowledge from the pathway of the earlier theories." The scope and
duty of epistemology are thus greatly modified and simplified. We
are no longer concerned " with finding the criteria of true judgment,
of certainty, or whatever one may term it ; but only with feeling our
sensations and ideating our ideas with others, and with forming new
combined general and relation-ideas, and among these specially reduc-
tion-ideas which correspond to the sensations. The only criterion is
the agreement with sensations, the fulfillment of the expectations
which become joined to the reduction-ideas" (pp. 85— 87) •

The somewhat more readily assimilated results of this 'new'
theory of knowledge, based upon and strictly held down to the
nervous system and its initial processes in consciousness, are neatly
presented in the closing section (pp. 103-105) which anticipates
(rightly) and attempts to set at rest k the almost instinctive objec-
tions* which are put to his analyses, i. If it is supposed that the
' residual factor' of this theory is identical with ' matter,' in the ordi-
nary sense of the term, it is replied that ' matter ' is a meaningless,
metaphysical dogma, and, strictly speaking, the ' residual factor ' is an
idea which we employ in order to reach universal laws relating our
sensations and ideas. The only aspect common to ' matter' and the
'residual factor' is 'change according to universal laws.' 2. If it is
presumed that one result of this reduction of things and ego's to a
world of purely psychical process is to undermine all laws from that
of gravitation to that of electro-magnetic light, the objector is told
that their validity remains unchanged. Their labels only are changed,
and our manner of speech is altered so as to avoid all contradictory and
meaningless terms. 3. If the critic fancies that inroads are thus made
upon the principle of psycho-physical parallelism, he is reminded that
' the psychical series alone is given,' and is the only view which avoids
the specious wit involved in the affirmation of two unlike but equally
persistent series (Cf. his Introd. to Phys. Psych., p. 3Oif. (Eng. tr.)).
4. Almost overcome, the critic finally gasps for the reinstatement of
'Metaphysics, the a priori, the forms of Intuition, the Categories!'
He is left to get his assurance in the reply that " no room remains for
them. We must limit ourselves to this procedure, to gather, com-
pare and then reduce ^sensations scientifically in order to attain the

438 LITERATURE.

universal ideas of their relations. This labor is divided between the
descriptive and mathematical natural sciences, psychology and theory
of knowledge. Metaphysics, just as religion, has been only the his-
torical precursor of these sciences. It would be better to relegate
metaphysics and its younger sister, metapsychic, among the fine arts."
5. ' And these circumlocutory designations ' — must we introduce them
into daily speech, instead of the simple terms of our mother-tongue?
— e. g., using i the residual factor of tree-sensation' instead of 4 tree '?
No. The exposition of epistemology is sesquipedalian for the very
prosaic purpose ; of keeping removed those so often falsely added
ideas ' of realities ! Thus the objector is bade to rest agnostically and
nihilistically on the quiet bed of positivism, which simplifies ends and
means without measure.

The spirit of this essay is extremely serious in its efforts to reduce
objects by a bare-handed treatment of sensations, which are now
identified with events in nerve fibers and ganglionic cells, and now
with events in consciousness. There is an avowed attempt to make
epistemology grow out of the soil of empirical psychology, as under-
stood by the author in his Leitfaden of some nine years ago, bien en-
tendu. What are the exact relations between the two branches of
thought is not readily ascertained. Throughout the entire exposition
in detail there is no advance beyond what ought to be treated under
psychology as it actually is understood by most contributors to this
field. Definite statements (pp. 4, n, 58, 61, 65, 74, 85) are not
steadfastly explicit upon this point. Psychology enumerates, analyzes
and exhibits the development of our complex ideas, while theory of
knowledge selects this or that idea, and presents the development of
that which is significant for its purpose, only in so far as empirical
psychology has not solved the problem. The basis of that selection,
as personal, or logical, or objective, is not made plain. Again
(p. 75), in tracing the formation of ideas of relation (which are not to
be identified with the concepts employed in logical theory) the
descent is made to the idea of ' sameness' as the given datum. The
' comparison' necessary, upon the repetition of similar sensations, is a
gratuitous assumption ; for it is frankly admitted that mere description
is all that can be undertaken in this region of the inexplicable. On
the whole, then, epistemology for the author means going back, here
and there, of his specific psychological conclusions and endeavoring to
make them intelligible by a further process of < reduction ' instituted
in securing them. In this sense the essay is radically defective in not
establishing, in a more clear-cut fashion, those differences in the two
disciplines of which he gives promise in the beginning.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 439

The tone of the work is not the most generous. It reveals an utter
complacency in its Berkeleian idealism upon a sensory foundation
(pp. 5, 59). The ingenuous, at times, and severely schematic treat-
ment sweeps aside, in almost ruthless fashion, i the insights' of other
thinkers and ; the demands' of the problem of thought and reality as
perceived by them. In the light of its initial claims perhaps this pro-
cedure is commendable. One feature of this analysis of knowledge is
to simplify to the grade of algebraic imagination the erstwile serious
tasks of philosophical reflection. Thus it becomes an exceedingly per-
tinent question to ask how this literalistic chart would fare when con-
fronting actual knowledge. Would one recognize and identify his
cognitions on the basis of the analytic and explanatory clues offered in
this essay? Indeed, there is lacking that admiration for the fact of
knowledge, even on a neuro-sensory basis, which every analyst ought
to feel. Another interesting feature in this essay is the attempt to
square its results with those of Kant's theory of knowledge, implying
the general validity of the Kantian position as an abstract expression 01
truth, which finds proper treatment only in the concrete (?) elabora-
tion of this theory of knowledge. (Cf. pp. 50 +,53— 57, 72—86.)
In this fashion there are repeated claims as to the exceeding advantage
of this exposition over that of others.

The central question, perhaps, incited by this attempt at a theory
of knowledge, which does not advance much beyond a detailed anal-
ysis of sensation-complexes (tactile, optical, and motor coming in for
almost exclusive attention) is this : Can an historical analysis of cer-
tain of our residual experiences satisfy even a scientific study of what
we find men calling ' knowledge' ? The Zielstrebigkeit characteristic
of every cognitive construction of an ' object' is a psychological ex-
hibit which the epistemologist is compelled to recognize. (Cf . Bald-
win, Ment. Develop., Soc. and Eth. Int., pp. 249 f., 377.) It often
is not the point from which, but the point to which, cognition tends
that is the essential feature. This is more than primary motor-reac-
tions (Ziehen., p. 875^)* and must be adequately recognized. Other
constructive tendencies might be pointed out which all cognition ex-
hibits, but of these the essay takes no notice. The benefits of the task
of this essay, then, is twofold : one, in indicating the fact that on
some assumptions a theory of knowledge leads itself into a blind-alley,
cutting off further philosophical progress; the other, a benefit in
awakening our thankfulness for being shown the limitations imposed
by its methods and content.

EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCHNER.

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY,

SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY.

44° GENERAL.

John Stuart Mill. Correspondence inedite avec Gustave D'Eich-

thal. Avant-propos et traduction par EUGENE D'EiCHTAL. Paris,

Felix Alcan. 1898.

The correspondence between Mill and D'Eichthal is in these pages
given to the public for the first time in a complete form. Many of
the letters had been published previously in the Cosmopolis ; additional
ones, however, have found a place in the volume, together with two
letters of Eyton Tooke to D'Eichthal. The friendship of Mill and
D'Eichthal, which continued through a period of some forty years or
more, presents many features of a most interesting nature, as disclosed
in this correspondence. To the student of psychology an opportunity
is afforded of noting the effect of an emotional temperament, as that of
D'Eichthal, upon a coldly intellectual nature, as that of Mill, and,
also, of observing the marked contrast between the French and Eng-
lish traits of mind. In these letters Mill exposes to a searching criti-
cism the doctrines of Saint Simon as expounded by D'Eichthal and
his friends ; there is, however, a growiug appreciation of the motives
and purposes of the Saint Simonian school, evidently induced by the
disinterested labors and self-sacrificing zeal of its members. While
criticising their methods, Mill had only words of praise for the high
humanitarian ideals of this school.

The strain of deep sentiment, which was a characteristic feature
of Mill's nature, and yet hidden from the view of the world, is revealed
in the letters which he wrote at the time of Tooke's tragic death, as
also upon the occasion of the death of D'Eichthal's father. The cor-
respondence, indeed, serves as a valuable appendix to the Autobiog-
raphy, inasmuch as it throws additional light upon the inner life of
the great logician, disclosing in that many-sided nature the elements
which prove his love of humanity as well as his love of truth.

JOHN GRIER HIBBEN.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.

GENERAL.

Social Automatism and the Imitation Theory. B. BOSANQUET.

Mind, No. 30, N. S., April, 1899, p. 167.

The writer aims to point out, in this way-side preface to a forth-
coming book, a fundamental error in the imitation theory of socio-
logical psychology as an attempt to reduce to principle the behavior of
individuals in a group. Secondary automatism suggests an analogy
which throws light on political philosophy. Social life is necessarily

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 441

and increasingly constituted by adjustments which have become auto-
matic, and are thus put beyond the range of discussion. In the re-
sulting economy of attention the social mind is set free for new ideas.
The routine of civic life, the use by the state of coercion upon the in-
dividual, and the function of punishment to awaken attention are ex-
plained in terms of this automatism. The biological principle of
4 short cuts ' is given application in tracing the transformations of
stimuli and reacting apparatus in the world of volition. In society
phenomena of identity and phenomena of difference are at once of
prime importance, as is evidenced by the principles of imitation and
invention, active under the forms of habit and accommodation. B.
finds that repetition and similarity are only superficial characteristics
of the true operative nature of social unity. No differentiation can
be got out of the tendency to reproduce a copy per se. To introduce
i invention,' as explanatory leaves an awkward dualism. Baldwin's
analysis of mental development is regarded rather as failing in its
resolute repudiation of this dualism. The root of this, and other
similar failures, is traced to a fallacy introduced by the influences of
the atomic doctrine of association, or the repetition of similar units.
Baldwin, in attempting to remould the theory, strains the idea of imi-
tation by extending it to cover volition — the passing of an idea into
fact, instead of limiting the process to mere reproduction of a copy.
Nothing of serious importance happens by genuine imitation. All
the business of society goes on by differentiated reactions. Every
man in society is what he is through a law or scheme which assigns
him an individual position, differing from all others, and identified
with them precisely through these differences, by which alone he can
cooperate with them. The error in question springs from working
with similarity instead of identity (of factors and processes). Di-
rectly we introduce identity, difference falls into its place as an in-
herent aspect of the principle. Every action, without any exception,
is, in principle, a difference within an identity. Relative Suggestion
is a more adequate view of identity than Associationism, and B. finds
in Baldwin's later writings a tendency toward the former.

EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCHNER.

The Nature of Judgment. G. E. MOORE. Mind, No. 30, N. S.,

April, 1899, p. 176.

This article suggests a theory of perception and knowledge which
has avowedly much in common with Kant, differing chiefly in substi-
tuting for sensations, as the date of knowledge, concepts ; and in re-

442 GENERAL.

fusing to regard the relations in which they stand as, in some obscure
sense, the work of the mind. The view which inclines to take the
categorical judgment as the typical form, and attempts in consequence
to reduce the hypothetical judgment to it, is attacked. A judgment is
universally a necessary combination of concepts, equally necessary
whether it be true or false. It must be either true or false ; but its
truth or falsehood cannot depend on its relation to anything else what-
ever— reality, for instance, or the world in space or time. Both of
these must be supposed to exist, in some sense, if the truth of our
judgment is to depend upon them ; and then it turns out that the truth
of our judgment depends not on them, but on the judgment that they,
being such and such, exist. The truth or falsehood of this judgment
must be immediate properties of its own, not dependent upon any re-
lation it may have to something else. The existential judgment,
which is presupposed in Kant's reference to experience, or in Bradley's
reference to reality, remains merely a necessary combination of con-
cepts, for the necessity of which we can seek no ground, and which
cannot be explained as an attribute to 4 the given/ A concept is not
in any intelligible sense an ' adjective,' as if there were something sub-
stantive, more ultimate than it. It is not a mental fact, nor any part
of a mental fact. Concepts are possible objects of thoughts ; they may
come into relation with a thinker ; and in order that they may do any-
thing, they must already be something. It is indifferent to their nature
whether anybody thinks them or not. They are incapable of change ;
and the relation into which they enter with the knowing subject im-
plies no action or reaction. It is a unique relation which can begin
or cease with a change in the subject ; but the concept is neither cause
nor effect of such a change. It is of such entities as these that a
proposition is composed. The difference between a concept and a
proposition, in virtue of which the latter alone can be called true or
false, would seem to lie merely in the simplicity of the former. What
kind of relation makes a proposition true, what false, cannot be further
defined, but must be immediately recognized. Existential proposi-
tions do not escape this description. We must regard the whole
world as formed of concepts, these being our only objects of knowl-
edge. Perception is to be regarded philosophically as the cognition of
an existential proposition, and thus it furnishes a basis for inference.
From this description of a judgment there must, then, disappear all
reference either to our mind or to the world. Neither of these can
furnish 4 ground ' for anything, save in so far as they are complex
judgments. EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCHNER.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 443

Time as related to Causality and to Space. MARY WHITON CAL-
KINS. Mind, No. 30, N. S., April, 1899, p. 216.
The phenomenal unity of different kinds of multiplicity is traced
to the relations of time as controlling the categorical relations of caus-
ality and space. Heretofore, time and space have been treated in the
same breath, much to the misfortune of each. Analogy is not taken
as a guide in the treatment of the categorical complexities involved.
The thesis of the paper is the assertion that time and causality are sub-
ordinate forms of the principle of the necessary connection of phe-
nomena, and that the third and coordinate form of the category is
reciprocal determination, not, as is often stated, space. Succession, and
not duration, must be admitted as constituting the nature of the tem-
poral manifold. The synthesis of manifoldness follows fundamental
distinctions, involving two sorts of necessity : first, the dependence of
synthesis in general upon ultimate unity ; and second, of the moment
upon the preceding moment. In this way it may be seen that time
really belongs among the categories, as the irreversible connection of
the irrevocable, relatively abstract manifold. The psychology of time-
consciousness verifies the metaphysical doctrine. The awareness of
more-than-one, possessing an inner connection, presents unanalyzable
elements given immediately in consciousness. The causality con-
nection is more easily applied to outer than to inner life, and thus
remains subject to the temporal sequence. The spatial sequence is no
fundamental category, or uniting principle, but itself one variety of the
manifold to-be-categorized. Space, as a sense-quality or a notion, is
clearly a construct of experience.

EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCHNER.
SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY,
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY.

U Education des Sentiments. P. FELIX THOMAS. Paris, Alcan.

1899, p. 287.

The author, who has appeared before the public in other writings
on philosophical and pedagogical subjects, presents us here with an
analysis of the sentiments and emotions with pedagogical hints and
suggestions as to the best methods of utilizing them. He combats the
tendency in education toward excessive emphasis of the intellectual,
and pleads the cause of the algedonic and volitional elements in our
nature. Intellectualism tends to destroy the will and the pleasure-
pain values of life. It is conduct and emotional value which makes
life worth living, not creeds religious, philosophical or scientific. Pain

444 GENERAL.

and pleasure depend upon the laws of vital rhythm. The appetites,
desires, anger, fear, play, instinct of proprietorship, love of domina-
tion, curiosity, sympathy, pity, social inclinations, self-love, etc., are
treated in turn.

The style is literary rather than scientific. Some very good sug-
gestions are made, and the author generally strikes the right keynote
in a happy manner. There is little justification for the neglect of
recent American contributions on the same subjects. There is a good
table of contents, but no index.

ARTHUR ALLIN.

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO.

II metodo deduttivo come strumento di ricerca. GIOVANNI VAIL ATI.

Turin, Roux, Frasati & Co. 1898. Pp. 44.
Alcune osservazioni sulle questioni di parole nella storia della sci-

enza e della cultura. GIOVANNI VAILATI. Turin, Frat. Bocca.

1899. Pp. 39.

These two papers are introductory lectures in a course on the His-
tory of Mechanics, delivered by the author in the University of Turin.
In the first Dr. Vailati discusses the value of the deductive method ;
he examines the history of discovery in mechanics, from Galileo
down, and insists that many of its more important laws ' would still
be unknown to man, at least in their generalized form, if he had not
at his disposal another method besides that of observation and direct
measurement.' Admitting the supremacy of induction, as a means of
scientific discovery, the author, nevertheless, points out the important
role that deductive reasoning has played from an historical stand-
point. He believes that Bacon's diatribes anent the sterility of Aris-
totle's dialectic and the syllogism, were called forth by the excessive
use of deductive methods in scholastic times, and would have been
modified had induction received proper recognition in those days.
The latter part of the paper is a discussion of the practical applica-
tion of the various forms of induction and deduction to the discovery
of scientific laws.

The second paper takes up the question of terminology in its re-
lation to objective truth and the history of scientific thought. Dr.
Vailati refers to the undue stress sometimes laid on the etymological
significance of a word. He denies the objective importance of the
distinction between definable and indefinable terms. The impossibility
of defining a term may be due to the simplicity of the notion, as well
as to its obscurity ; in either case it is a subjective factor that distin-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 445

guishes it from a definable term. The author works out for the bene-
fit of his pupils a number of well-known principles underlying scien-
tific discovery and the definition of concepts.

HOWARD C. WARREN.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.

Pensare senza coscienza. G. SERGI. (Reprinted.) La Rivista

Moderna, Vol. II, Fasc. I. 1899. Pp. 18.

This is an amplification and in some respects an advance on the
author's doctrine of the unconscious, as developed in his Psychologic
physiologique. Professor Sergi starts out with the view that conscious
thought is merely the last term in a series of unconscious brain states.
In support of this theory he cites, from his own experience and others',
numerous examples in which a problem has been solved or a train of
reasoning worked out to a conclusion while the mind was occupied
with something entirely different. In some instances the process ex-
tended over an hour, in others over a day, week, month or more. In
his own case he finds many instances of this unconscious brain work
proceeding during sleep ; at one time it was so pronounced that he grew
accustomed to read up the theme of any paper he was to write, and
then immediately dismiss the whole question from his mind, without
working out the plan of the paper ; in the morning he would begin the
writing at once with no hesitation or difficulty, the subject having
apparently been analyzed and arranged for treatment during the night.

Professor Sergi reviews the theories of Kant, Leibnitz, Hamilton,
J. S. Mill and Carpenter, on obscure ideas, subconsciousness and un-
conscious cerebration. He gives preference to Hamilton's view, that
4 latent agencies — modifications of which we are unconscious — must
be admitted as a groundwork of Phenomenology of Mind.' The
author, however, goes further, holding that this "unconscious cerebral
and physiological work constitutes the whole phenomenon, not merely
one side of it, and that the consciousness of the phenomenon is merely
its superficial revelation, which adds nothing to the essence and com-
pleteness of the phenomenon in question." He claims to solve the
problem of psychological dualism, by making the physiological pro-
cess the sole ' essence ' and the state of consciousness a mere ' mani-
festation'. In spite of the brevity of the paper and the lack of novelty
in its standpoint, it calls for attention on account or the new ob-
servational data which the author has brought forward.

HOWARD C. WARREN.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.

446 GENERAL.

Individual Memories. F.W. COLGROVE. American Journal of Psy-
chology, X., 1899; pp. 1-29.

This dissertation is based upon the returns of the Clark University
questionaires, and the results are presented in the usual form. 1,658
replies were tabulated upon a roll of paper one foot eight inches wide
and fifty-two feet long, after almost incessant labor for five months.
A second tabulation followed, grouping replies under more than sixty
different headings. We admire the patience of the writer's wife, who
did all this work, but we fail to discover any great value in the results.
Absolutely no attention is given to the degree of certainty of the
various conclusions; we are told that the males have the greatest
number of memories for protracted or repeated occurrences, people,
and clothing, and that they excel in topographical and logical memor-
ies, while females have better memories for novel occurrences and
single impressions, for Christmas gifts and dolls, without a single
figure to back up the important statement.

In the same way we are told that Indians find shorthand helpful
to memory, and so on throughout the various subdivisions under the
thirteen questions.

Nothing is said as to the class of people from whom the replies
were collected, the ages of those questioned, or about the seriousness
with which the answers were written.

C. B. BLISS.

Schmeckversuche an einzelnen Paplllen. F. KIESOW. Philos. Stud.,

XIV, 4, 591-615.

This article gives an account of experiments, a continuation of
work by Oehrwall, to discover whether or not the single taste papillas
reacted only to certain taste substances. Thirty-nine points on the
tongues of two subjects were tested. Of these, four gave no reaction
to salt, sugar, acid or quinine solutions ; seven others gave character-
istic tastes of each of the stimuli ; one reacted only to sugar and
another only to quinine. Of the remainder 19 + 5 ( ? = doubtful) re-
acted to sugar, ii -f 13 (?) to salt, 1 1 -f- 1 1 ( ?) to acid, and 6 + 8 (?)
to quinine. Mechanical and electrical stimuli were used by the author,
but the results are left for a later article.

SHEPHERD IVORY FRANZ.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 447

GENERAL.

Ueber die Auffassung einfachster Raumformen. RICHARD SEY-

FERT. Philos. Stud., XIV., 4, 550-566.

This research was an attempt to discover some of the factors in-
fluencing the accuracy of reproduction (judgment) of simple geo-
metrical figures. Various triangles were shown for a time under
different conditions, and, after a few seconds, the subject attempted to
reproduce the same.

The six following conditions were used : ( i ) Eyes fixed upon a
point within the triangle; (2) eyes followed a point which described
the sides of the (imaginary) figure; (3) the eyes were shut and the
finger was moved over the sides of the triangle ; (4) the triangle was
looked at and the eyes were moved over its contour as in (2) ; (5) the
eyes and finger were made to describe the sides of an imagined tri-
angle ; (6) the eyes followed and the finger described the form of a
seen triangle.

Owing to the varied ability and training in drawing, this simple
method (by drawing) of reproduction was not used. After the figure
was shown or felt, the subject was given a card on which was drawn
a base ; on this he was instructed to mark with a p'in the apex, and
from this point sides were drawn to the extremities of the base and the
angular errors were noted.

From the results of nine subjects the author concludes: (i) The
decisive factor for accuracy of reproduction of simple forms is not the
retinal image, but the sensation of eye-movements. The most exact
reproduction of such forms occurs when the eye sees the figure as a
whole and follows its outline. (2) Pure eye-movements without the
image of the form, are next for exactness of the reproduction. With
practiced subjects this kind of reproduction equals the first in exact-
ness. (3) The perception with fixed eyes is very puzzling, and suc-
cessful only for practiced .individuals. With unpracticed subjects it
is almost impossible to prevent the eyes following the outline of the
object. (4) Simultaneous movements of the hand and eye ('und des
Auges* not ' und des Armes\ see pp. 558 and 560) as a rule lessen the
accuracy of reproduction. Great practice of the muscles can increase
the accuracy. (5) The least exact method is reproduction from pure
hand and arm movements.

Horizontal and vertical errors in placing the apex of the figure
would give similar results. These errors the author has not attempted
to separate.

SHEPHERD IVORY FRANZ.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

448 VISION.

Bemerkungen uber Kinderzeichnungen. KARL PAPPENHEIM.

Zeitschrift fiir padagogish Psychologic, L, pp. 57-73.

This is a review of the different studies made of children's draw-
ings chiefly in America. It covers methods of study of children who
show special aptitude, the origin of types, the different stages of de-
velopment, the relation of drawings to memory, observation and lan-
guage. The use of drawing in the teaching of botany, geography
and zoology is supported.

Heredity and Environment. A Study in Adolescence. EDGAR

JAMES SWIFT. American Physical Education Review, 1898, pp. 8.
Reflex Neuroses in Children. EDGAR JAMES SWIFT. American

Physical Education Review, 1899, pp. 8.

The first address describes a series of questions asked of Reform
School boys, about the causes which had brought them into trouble.
The results, though not decisive, in many cases offer good suggestions
for further work.

The second address calls attention to the fact that defects of the
eye, ear, or nose, are often causes of dullness in school children.

C. B. BLISS.

VISION.

Wahrnehmungen mit einem einzelnen Zapfen der Netzhaut. G.

F. SCHOUTE. Ztsch. f. Psych, u. Physiol. der Sinnesorgane,

XIX., 251-263.

The author of this interesting paper shows, in opposition to Asher
(Ztsch. f. Biol., XXXV., 400), that it is perfectly possible to throw
upon the retina an image whose diameter is less than that of a single
cone. This is important, because it removes any doubt that may have
been felt as to the validity of the demonstration, by Hering and by
Konig, that a minute point of white light is not seen to be now red,
now green and now blue, as it falls now upon one and now upon
another of the retinal cones. This demonstration gives an experi-
mental death-blow to any three-fiber theory, and in consequence no
such theory has of late years been upheld by any one. Holmgren's
experiments of an opposite bearing have failed to win acceptance.

Schoute finds that he can distinguish no less than eight different
sizes in small bright objects when their images are, even the largest of
them, so small as to fall upon the top of a single cone. Such facts as
this have hitherto been explained by supposing that, though no differ-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 449

ence can be perceived in the images themselves, there is nevertheless
sufficient light in their diffusion circles to enable the judgment to dis-
tinguish between their different sizes.

Schoute shows by ingenious experiments that this is not the source
of the distinction, but that it rests simply upon the difference in the
amount of luminosity. Within the range of these small dimensions, a
given object cannot be distinguished from another which is both smaller
and brighter. If a larger amount of light falls upon a given cone, we
have no means of knowing whether it comes from a larger or from a
brighter object, but because we are far more interested, in general, in
the size of objects than in slight differences in their brightness, and
hence make a far greater number of judgments of this nature than of
the other, we here interpret an ambiguous difference in sensation as a
difference of that character which stands for more to us. (In these
small images we have also no means of distinguishing shape, and
hence all such objects appear to us to be of the simplest shape or
round.) The proposition is thus established that for images which fall
upon a single cone, the judgment as to size is determined by the
product of surface and intensity of light, as has been shown before, in
fact, by Ricio (Ann. d'Ottalmol., 1877)- Asher's error was an error
of method ; he looked at a minute object with a microscopic arrange-
ment of lenses, and found that for different degrees of diminution of
its image, it always appeared to be of the same size ; but this is merely
what was to be expected, in the light of present results, for the quantity
of light thrown upon the single cone was in each case the same.
Schoute makes the curious observation that when the image of an
object covers more than two cones, he has the distinct feeling of basing
his judgment as to size upon the pure sensation of extension, that with
equal certainty he feels that he is guided by difference in brightness
alone when the image falls upon one cone only, and that when it is of
just the size of two cones he finds his judgment wavering, so that he
cannot say with certainty whether he is judging of size from bright-
ness or from the extent of the image.

C. L. FRANKLIN.

BALTIMORE.

Subjective Colors and the After-images : their Significance for the
Theory of Attention. MARGARET F. WASHBURN. Mind, N.
S., 29, January, 1899.
Professor Washburn reports with admirable clearness the results of

a series of experiments upon the possibility of influencing the succes-

450 VISION.

sion of colors in after-images by the vivid image of a color. The
most important outcome of the paper is summarized in the statement
which follows :

The conditions under which the after-images were obtained were
those suggested by Helmholtz in the Physiologische Optik. The
subjects, of whom there were four, fixated, for twenty seconds, one
point of an upper window frame ; their eyes were then closed and
covered, and they noted the sequence of colors of the after-images.
The subjects were practiced until this order became invariable ; they
were then directed 4 by an effort of will ' to ' turn the image red all
through its course.' Similar suggestions were made in regard to blue
and to green. These suggestions were almost invariably effective,
either by intensifying c the traces of color already present in the field,'
or by lengthening or anticipating the time of a suggested color, which
normally occurred in the after-image series. Thus, a subject whose
ordinary sequence of colors in the series of after-images was c blue-
positive, green-positive, red-negative, dark-blue-negative,' when asked
to visualize red had the following series of color changes : 4 first, a
red image with dark lines, interrupted once by a momentary green
image; the dark lines then became bright and the red negative image
remained until the end of the series, traces of the blue appearing from
time to time.'

The most evident inference from these results is the identity, for
psychology, of percept and image — of sensations peripherally and
centrally aroused. These experiments, therefore, though so distinct
in subject-matter, strengthen the conclusions from Dr. Washburn's
earlier study of the effect of visual images upon cutaneous local-
ization.

The results are also considered in their relation to the doctrine of
attention. 4 The effort to call up subjectively a certain color meant,'
at least for the three subjects of moderate visualizing power, c simply
an unusually intense effort to attend to that color.' But the result of
this attention was an actual increase of the intensity and duration of a
peripherally excited sense-experience, and it follows that the "function
of attention is positive as well as negative, intensifying as well as
inhibiting."

A criticism is added of Wundt's theory that the frontal lobes are
an attention-center. Against this assumption it is urged that it ac-
counts for nothing which can not be as well explained 4 on the
hypothesis that the organ of attention is the cortex as a whole ' ; but
though the argument is well sustained it does not connect itself closely
with the experimental results.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 451

As a whole, the paper is an instructive illustration of the value of
the experimental results which may be obtained without the aid of
laboratory or of apparatus, by an investigator who is quick to appre-
hend a problem, accurate in defining it and ingenious in methods of
working it out.

Zur Kenntniss der nachlaufenden Bilder. A. SAMOJLOFF. Zeit-

schrift f. Psychol., XX., 2 and 3.

Samojloff experimented, at von Kries's suggestion, on the after-
images, from morning light-stimuli, with especial reference to the
points at issue between von Kries and Hess : the color of the after-
image and its relation to stimulation of the center of clearest vision.
The method and apparatus of the older experiments were completely
set aside, in order to avoid the sources of possible error suggested by
Hess. The color stimuli were given through openings of a revolving
desk, which formed the front of a ' dark box' whose degree of illumi-
nation could be regulated. The results confirmed von Kries's conclu-
sions ; the after-images of the yellow stimulus were blue, and those of
the blue were yellowish, that is, the after-images were negative, and
not in accordance with Hess's results. Positive experiments on the
stimulation of the center of vision also show results similar to those of
the earlier Freiburg experiment: in the vivid, even though inexact,
words of Samojloff uthe after-image overleaps the central region
around the fixation-point." It is shown that this is not a mere case of
obliteration of an after-image through the brightness of the fixated
point, for an equally intense light, illuminating the periphery of the
retina does not annihilate the after-image.

The writer calls attention to the close correspondence of his results
with von Kries's theory that the after-image depends upon the activity
of the ''Dunkelapparat* which is wanting in the center of vision; yet
he does not claim that these experiments furnish 4 rigid proof ' of the
entire lack of the '•Dunkelapparat* in this part of the retina.

M. W. CALKINS.

WELLESLEY COLLEGE.

PATHOLOGY AND NEUROLOGY.

L? Instabilite Mentale. Essai sur les donnes de la psycho-patholo-

gie. G. L. DUPRAT. Paris, Alcan, 1898. 8vo. Pp. 310.

The motive of M. Duprat's book is not so much psychological as

philosophical : his intention, in his own words, is less to write a book

of science than to consider scientific conclusions and to examine the

452 PATHOLOGY AND NEUROLOGY.

first principles of the science with which he deals in order to give it, if
possible, a philosophic foundation. In pursuance of this plan M. Du-
prat attempts to show the primacy which psychology has over physi-
ology in the study of mental pathology. The more particular pur-
pose of the book is to emphasize the importance of the concept ' men-
tal instability ' in psychical disease, and to relate all concrete mental
maladies to this as species to genus. No mental process can normally
occur unless there exist a principle directing the mental evolution,
which by its permanence resists the natural instability of the mind.
The more feeble the principle, the greater the distraction. Duprat's
book, then, occupies itself with collecting the various medico-psycho-
logical observations upon the diverse forms of psychopathy, and with
discovering in each of these forms a foundation of psychological in-
stability. In pursuance of this purely philosophical plan the book is
divided into three parts.

The first part, a general introduction to the rest, is concerned with
the mental processes as a whole, normal and abnormal, and attempts
to show that biology can go only part of the way in psychiatry, and
that psychology must do theg reater part of the work. It is impossible
to deny the existence of biological disturbances underlying psychic
ones, but there may at the same time be purely psychological causes
of psychopathies. The biologic centers are also psychic centers.

The second part occupies itself with the consideration of the vari-
ous psychopathic symptoms in detail, and attempts to find in each the
fundamental fact of mental instability. This root-malady is classed
according to its four aspects : instability of the intellect — incoherent
thought ; instability of the tendencies — the illogical rise of one from
another ; instability of the feelings — the rapid alternation from love to
hate, etc. ; and instability as action — aboulia, ataxia, etc. In the same
part of his work, after considering the particular mental diseases spe-
cifically, M. Duprat considers them as a whole, under the title ' path-
ology of personality,' and the alternations of this general psychopathy
according to sex, habit of life, and age. Here is included marked
mental stability — the stubbornness of melancholia, for instance —
which is shown itself to be rooted in the more fundamental disturb-
ance of mental instability.

The third and last part of the book is occupied with the practical
conclusions resulting from these conclusions.

The value of M. Duprat's book, as he himself admits, is purely
philosophic, and can have interest only for those interested in attempts
at logical classifications, and the inclusion of specific concepts under

NEW BOOKS. 453

one concept embracing them. This being the case, it is to be regret-
ted that M. Duprat has been unable to define his class concept of men-
tal instability in any definite way ; so that after following all the con-
crete mental pathologies through M. Duprat's close-written pages,
and learning that they are explained by one inclusive concept — men-
tal instability — we are compelled to ask, what is mental instability ?

D. P. BARNITZ.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

1 Zur Theorie der Nerventhatigkeit* Professor EWALD HERING
(' Akademische Vortrag'). Leipzig, 1899. Pp. 31.
This little pamphlet of Professor Hering, while not the product of
actual experimental research, has interest and value because it repre-
sents the opinion of a man who is, from his broad outlook, most com-
petent to judge in a case so long and actively controverted as is this
one. The writer in substance upholds the doctrine of the specific
energies of the various parts of the neural organism, following therein
especially J. Miiller, but he goes further (as the rise of the neuron-
theory necessitates), and strongly believes that not the cells of the
neurons only, but also the prolongations from these have forms of
nervous activity peculiar to themselves and to their respective uses in
the organism. " The activity of the neuron and of its fibers," he
says " may depend not alone, as some think, on the intensity but also
on the quality of its sort of stimulus, whether this come from its own
peripheral sense-organ or from a neighboring neuron." The physical
basis of the difference in function is deemed to consist in the various
forms of neural vibration which, with indefinite differences in the
neural substance chemically, is emphasized as the 4 inheritance' of the
neuron and its projections.

GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

NEW BOOKS.

Psychology and Life. HUGO MUNSTERBERG. Boston, Houghton,

Mifflin & Co., 1899. Pp. xiv + 282.
Criteriologie Generale, ou Theorie generale de la certitude. D.

MERCIER. Louvain, Inst. Super, de Philosophic. Pp. v 4-371.

6Fr.
Discorsi su la Natura e sul Governo dei Popoli. F. P. C. SIRA-

GUSA. Palermo, Virzi, 1899. Pp. 410. L. 5.

454 NEW BOOKS.

The Messages of the Earlier Prophets. F. K. SANDERS and C. F.

KENT. Second ed., New York, Scribners, 1899. $1.25, net.
The Psychology of Reasoning. A. BINET. Trans, from zd French

edition by A. G. WHYTE. Chicago, Open Court Co., 1899. Pp.

191.

It is well to have in English this new edition of Professor Binet's
well-known book — one of the first publications of this prominent
French psychologist. Its positions are too well known to require
statement. The translation is very well done. J. M. B.

Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie. P. BARTH. Erster

Teil, Leipzig, Reisland, 1897. Pp. xii -f 396.

Mainly a historico-critical review of sociological theories. Ex-
tended notice of this important work is reserved until the appearance
of the later parts. J. M. B.

La Psicogenesi della Istinto e della morale secondo C. Darwin. P.

SCIASCIA. Palermo, Reber, 1899. Pp- xv + J7^' L. 4.
Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on some of Life's

Ideals. WM. JAMES. New York, Holt, 1899. Pp. xi -f- 301.
Marriages of the Deaf in America. E. A. FOY. Washington,

GIBSON for Nolta Bureau, 1898. Pp. vii -f 527.

A valuable statistical study, with conclusions on the inheritance
of deafness, etc., having important general bearings.

J. M. B.

Personal Competition. C. H. COOLEY. Vol. IV., No. 2 of Eco-
nomic Studies, American Economic Association. New York,

Macmillans, 1899. Pp. 173.
Les Transformations du pouvoir. G. TARDE. Paris, Alcan. 1899.

Pp. x + 266.
Worterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe und Ausdriicke. R. Eis-

LER. Dritte Lieferung, Empfindung to Geschichtsphilosophie.

Berlin, 1899, M. 2.

As this important Worterbuch proceeds, both its excellences and
its defects appear. It is made up mainly of citations under each
head of definitions by various authors. It attempts no critical or defi-
nitive settling of meanings. It gives no equivalents in other languages.
Its greatest defect is its extraordinary limitation in the matter of literary
citation — limitation to German sources. Of English and American
writers since Hamilton and Spencer, we have noticed in the psycho-
logical articles of the three first Lieferungen : one reference to James,
one to Stout, one to Baldwin, and none to any other English or Amer-
ican writer except Bain ; and this, after looking up several of the most

NEW BOOKS. 455

important psychological topics. The compiler seems limited, in his
citations of both French and English authors, to works which have
been translated into German. Wundt is the authority quoted under
all the headings. When completed, the work, which is a perfect mine
of citation from German writers, will be given full notice in the RE-
VIEW. J. M. B.
Nervous and Mental Diseases. H. CHURCH and F. PETERSON.

Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders, 1899.

A remarkably able and valuable compendium. The Neurology is
written by Dr. Church and the Psychology by Dr. Peterson. It is
fully illustrated and the cuts of apparatus have great interest to the
psychologist, to whom indeed the entire book should prove of very
great value. We hope to print a detailed expert review.

J. M. B.

The Metaphor : A Study in the Psychology of Rhetoric. G. BUCK.
Inland Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan, no date.

Geschichte des Lebensmagnetismus und des Hypnotismus von den
dltesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart. H. R. P. SCHROEDER.
In 12 Lieferunden. Parts I.— V. Leipzig, Strauch, 1899. Parts
M. i each.

Das Hypnotische Hells eh- Experiment in Dienste der naturwissen-
shaftlichen Seelenforschung. R. MULLER. I. Band, das Veran-
derungsgesetz ; Band II., das normale Bewusstein. Leipzig,
Strauch, 1899. Pp. viii -f 168, and 169-322. M. 5 and 4.

Beivusstsein und Hirnlokalization. W. v. BECHTEREW. Deutsch
von R. WEINBERG. Leipzig, Georgi, 1898. Pp. 50. M. 1.50.

Suggestion und ihre sociale Bedeutung. W. v. BECHTEREW.
Deutsch von R. WEINBERG. Vorwort von P. FLECHSIG. Leipzig,
Georgi, 1899. Pp. iv -f- 84.

Mathematical Contributions to the Theory of Evolution, VI. Gen-
etic (Reproductive) Selection. Inheritance of Fertility in Man
and of Fecundity in Thoroughbred Race Horses. K. PEARSON,
A. LEE, and L. BRAMLEY-MOORE. Philos. Trans. Roy. Society
of London; London, Dolan & Co., 1899. 35. 6d.

Des Religions Comparees, au point de vue Sociologique. R. DE LA
GRASSERIE. Paris, Giard et Briere, 1899. Bib. sociologique
intern., No. xvii. Pp. 396. 9 fr. or 7 fr.

Interpretation Sociale et Morale des Principes du Developpement
Mental. J. MARK BALDWIN. Paris, Giard et Briere, 1899. Bib.
sociologique intern., No. xviii. Pp. vi + 580. 12 fr. or 10 fr.

456 NOTES.

Naturalism and Agnosticism. JAMES WARD. Gifford Lectures,
Aberdeen, 1896-1898. London and New York, 1899. Pp. xviii
-f- 302 and xiii -f- 294. $4.

NOTES.

DR. A. E. LOVEJOY has been appointed assistant professor of
philosophy in Stanford University.

From Comte to Benjamin Kidd ; the Appeal to Biology or Evo-
lution for Human Guidance is the title of a book by Robert Mackin-
tosh, to be published immediately by The Macmillan Company.

PROFESSOR A. H. KEENE, F.R.G.S., late Vice-President of the
Anthropological Institute of London, has written a work on Man,
Past and Present, which will be published in the United States by
The Macmillan Company.

DR. D. S. MILLER, formerly of Bryn Mawr College, is to give
courses (see the Harvard 4 Announcement ' in this issue of the REVIEW)
in the Harvard Philosophical Department during the coming year,
Professor James being away on his * Sabbatical ' vacation.

WE regret to record the death of Professor Ludwig Striimpel, of
Leipzig. He had reached the age of 87 years.

AMONG psychologists and philosophers summering abroad we note
President Patton and Professors Gardiner, Howison, Bliss.

PROFESSOR JASTROW is to return to his work in the University of
Wisconsin in September.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR F. KENNEDY has been made full Professor
of Philosophy in the University of Colorado.

P. H. HORNE, a graduate of and instructor in the University of
North Carolina, has been appointed instructor in the department of
philosophy in Dartmouth College.

ON page 288 of the May number of the REVIEW, line 2 should be
4 asserts that there is an instinctive fear of a cat.' The title of the
article should be ' The Instinctive Reactions of Young Chicks.' On
page 286, in the last line, ' prooning ' should be ' preening.'

EDWARD THORNDIKE.

VOL. VI. No. 5. SEPTEMBER, 1899.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW.

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. (I.)

BY W. P. MONTAGUE.

Instructor in Logic, University of California.

I.

De Anima, an Anima Sit.

Modern philosophy, both empirical and transcendental, has
manifested a growing hostility toward all doctrines may
be labelled ' scholastic.' Substance in general and soul-sub-
stance in particular are concepts that are peculiarly and essen-
tially scholastic, and as such they have fallen into pretty general
discredit with the thinkers of this century. Herbart and a few
others have, indeed, favored the hypothesis of the ' something
I know not what ' as the basis and support of our mental life,
but these defenders are few and their theories of the soul
have not greatly influenced the psychology of to-day. In-
deed, it is just the very question of ' how to get along without
substance ' about which all the tendencies of modern specula-
tive philosophy may be said to center. Pre-Kantian and ancient
thought accepts the conception of substance ; modern thought
rejects it ; and philosophy, since Hume and Kant, can be under-
stood as a series of efforts to explain phenomena without referring
them to substance or substances. In the place of the indefinite
something called substance Kant put the definite nothing, or ding
an sich, leaving, as the only tangible subject matter of metaphys-
ics, phenomena and the laws of phenomena, Content and Form.
Given these two categories as the data of speculation, the ques-
tion naturally arises as to which of the two is to be regarded as
primary. Is it form or relation-stuff, or, on the other hand,
is it content or sensation-stuff in terms of which experience is

45^ W. P. MONTAGUE.

to be described? The answers to this question are to be found
in the two schools or tendencies of apriorism and empiricism.
Both apriorist and empiricist are united in repudiating the no-
tion of substance, and both join in attacking materialism and
agnosticism, or, indeed, any doctrine which does not bow down
to the all-sufficiency of the two categories of form and content.

This attitude of philosophy is thoroughly in keeping with the
spirit of the age, recognizing, as it does, the importance of util-
ity and economy alike in' the conceptional as in all other spheres
of action. For note : Spinoza found that he can get along
with one substance instead of two ; Kant reduces substance to
shadow, while his successors, with a still greater ardor for con-
ceptual economy, attempt to do without even the shadowy ding
an sich. " Give us form and content, or even pure form alone,
and we can deduce or explain everything," cry the post-Kan-
tian idealists.

" Give us content and form, or content and the fictions due
to habit (which latter are themselves mere facts or phenomena),
and we can unify or describe everything," cry Hume and his
disciples — each school endeavoring to economize by doing with-
out some conception deemed necessary by a preceding school,
and each justifying its omissions on the ground of the inutility
of the discarded category. As a consequence of this wise fru-
gality we find that the modern as distinguished from the ancient
criterion for accepting or rejecting a new hypothesis consists
wholly in the utility or non-utility of the proposed conception,
and not in its inherent rationality or irrationality.

Since this is so, it is fitting that in attempting to reinstate the
conception of a substantial soul we should begin by assur-
ing ourselves that there exists a genuine need for some such
conception. Are we able to explain mental phenomena
without the hypothesis of soul ? is this hypothesis of any
use to philosophy or psychology ? Now the various depart-
ments of philosophy have all shown their eagerness to an-
swer in the negative. " The soul monad is not what morality
and religion demand. It is not required by metaphysics or
epistemology." But psychology, in particular, has outstripped
the other philosophical sciences in the vigor and frankness with

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 459

which it denies and repudiates the existence of soul-substance.
We have in fine the gladly acknowledged paradox of a * psy-
chology without a soul.' There are, it is true, no end of sub-
stitutes for the old substantial soul, ' formal unities,' ' concrete
totals of experience,' * unique centers of perception and activity,'
besides all sorts of ' Egos ' transcendental and otherwise ; but
no one of these has either the virtues or the vices of the medi-
aeval soul-substance.

Since it is in psychology that the complete uselessness of
the soul is supposed to have been most clearly demonstrated, it
will be well for us to undertake our task from the psychological
standpoint rather than from any other. We begin then by in-
dicating the facts which would seem to us to necessitate the ac-
ceptance of the theory of soul-substance as a sine qua non of
modern scientific psychology.

Psychology has for its subject matter states of conscious-
ness as such, i. e., thoughts, sensations, feelings, etc., consid-
ered as 4 facts ' and not as « values ' — mental content viewed
apart from its normative worth. The same phenomena of con-
sciousness which, when treated from the point of view of worth
or conformity to ideals, make the subject matter of the norma-
tive sciences of Logic, Ethics and ^Esthetics, when treated
merely as facts form the subject matter of the descriptive sci-
ence of Psychology. It is for this reason that psychology
occupies a unique position among the sciences. It is, or at
least it ought to be, a strictly descriptive science ; at the same
time all its data have a normative aspect. As a descriptive
science it is bound to repudiate final causes and to recognize
only efficient causes ; and yet there are scarcely any mental
sequences which can be understood apart from teleological —
i. £., normative or unpsychological considerations. Take, for
example, the following mental sequence

a /3 f

Considered ideologically the causal law of this sequence is
obvious ; but the same sequence considered psychologically is

460 W. P. MONTAGUE.

by no means so easy to deal with. The Law of Identity or the
dictum de omni can have no direct meaning for psychology, and
so when we seek the cause of the inevitable succession of the
mental state f upon the preceding states a and /5 we are in a
quandary, and are apt to explain the sequence on some such
grounds as the possession by the individual thinker of certain
organic dispositions, certain brain conditions which respond with
mechanical necessity to particular stimuli. In short, we are in
duty bound to suggest any explanation whatever, no matter how
complicated, so long as it be not the natural explanation of the
teleological Law of Identity operating on a rational mind. It
must once for all be understood that every fact, mental as well
as physical, has an efficient cause ; and it is the business of all
descriptive sciences to seek out these efficient causes by the
method of Induction. The flowers are what they are, not be-
cause of the delight which they give, but simply because of cer-
tain material conditions, to ascertain the nature of which is the
business of the descriptive science called botany. The final
cause is quite outside the world of facts, and never, except in-
directly, is it of the least use in scientific explanation.

The mental world offers the spectacle of a seeming con-
formity to teleological norms ; indeed so strongly is this evidenced
that when, after a long train of reasoning, we, as psychologists,
are forced to say that the various rational ideals by which our
reasoning has been governed are absolutely and utterly in-
effective, and that not one single act can be said to have its true
cause in any rational consideration ; when I say we are forced
to acknowledge this, we seem to ourselves to commit an ab-
surdity, the absurdity namely of endeavoring to make mental
phenomena amenable to the canons of descriptive science.
What indeed remains to psychology if final causes are banished?
How few and of what a low order are those mental sequences
in which we can get even the smallest glimpse of the mechan-
ical or efficient causes which are to explain them? While on
the other hand, it is equally true that if we do not give up final
causes, we admit the impossibility of a science of psychology.
To say that a final cause can in itself be a vera causa in pro-
ducing any effect in the world of phenomena is, from the point

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 461

of view of the modern scientist, exactly the same as talking
about noisy triangles or yellow lies. The two spheres of
mechanism and finality of ' fact' and ' value,' of ' description'
and * appreciation,' of ' Madam How ' and ' Lady Why,' are
and ought to be separated with genuine Cartesian rigor.

Now grant all this, and we can see at once that the psycholo-
gist has upon his hands a first-rate mystery of the highest order
— the great and ever-present mystery of

THE SEEMING EFFICACY OF FINAL CAUSES IN THE WORLD
OF MENTAL FACTS.*

The existence of this mystery cannot be doubted, and the
need of its solution is so pressing that until this need is satisfied
the psychologist has no right to dignify his study by the name
' science.'

The methods of solving this mystery are five. In the first
place, we may hold that it is the efficient causes which are fic-
titious, and that final causes rule the world and the details of the
world that everything happens because of its fulfilling some
rational end and for no other reason whatever. Teleology of
this extreme type is, indeed, logically conceivable as a means
of explaining the seeming communication of the two worlds ;
but inasmuch as this theory precludes not only descriptive psy-
chology, but any descriptive science whatsoever — /. e.9 any
science which seeks for the how of a process rather than for its
possible why — it may here be passed over.

The remaining four methods of grappling with our problem
are the several doctrines of ' materialism,' * occasionalism/
' parallelism ' and * spiritualism.'

Just as the theory of absolute teleology mentioned above is
possible only if science is abandoned altogether, so its counter-
part materialism is incompatible with a belief in the meaning
or significance of any phase of experience. Take, for example,
the case of a sequence of psychical states culminating in a ra-
tional ' conclusion ' : just so soon as we deny that the conclusion

JThis puzzling phenomenon of the apparent interaction of two totally in-
commensurate orders of experience is, of course, not confined to psychology,
but it is nowhere else evidenced with such unambiguous clearness.

42 W. P. MONTAGUE.

was reached because of any logical significance or teleological
reference contained in the premises — and this denial we as ma-
terialists are bound to make — then indeed the meaning of the
conclusion — /. £., the conclusion itself — has simply vanished.

In a = 3, b — c : therefore a = c, to a really consistent ma-
teralist the * therefore ' which precedes the conclusion is out of
place. It is not because a and c are both equal to b that they
are equal to each other, but because the psychophysical nature
of the individual who thinks the sequence happened to be so
constructed that the mental states a = b, b =; £, a = c, suc-
ceeded one another with mechanical necessity. But if the con-
clusion a = c is due to mechanical causes, and in no sense to the
law of identity, then all meaning is gone from the syllogism.
In short, materialism contains its own disproof in that a rational
demonstration of the materialistic thesis would be inconsistent
with a view which denies significance to final causes ; for any
rational demonstration depends for its validity on final causes —
that is, on teleological rather than mechanical consideration.

Leaving these two extreme methods of accounting for the
seeming efficacy of final causes, we come to the remaining
three doctrines, which in their several ways endeavor to com-
promise the matter. Let us begin by considering the theory of
Occasionalism.

The advocate of occasionalism grants the existence of both
efficient and final causes, grants also the fundamental difference
between them, and boldly asserts that notwithstanding the fact
of incommensurability the two realms of mechanism and teleol-
ogy, of matter and mind, do actually interpenetrate — by the aid
of a miracle. Every time that the rational sequence of ideas is
influenced by the material world, and every time that material
events are made to conform to rational law, then is a miracle
performed by God. Occasionalism has the merit of recognizing
the three great truths which are the data of our problem :

1. The full significance of the separation of Finality from
Mechanism.

2. The equally evident truth of the reality of both worlds.

3. The apparent influence which they occasionally exert
upon each other.

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 463

Notwithstanding the credit due to occasionalism for its frank
recognition of the difficulties of the problem, the theory itself is
impossible as a serious doctrine, at least for contemporary
thought. Not only have miracles gone out of fashion, but also
the very notion of a miracle is entirely negative as a scientific
explanation. The scientist rejects occasionalism and all kin-
dred doctrines, not so much on account of their probable falsity,
but rather on account of the certainty of their uselessness to
science even if proved true. Occasionalism and a science of
psychology are mutually exclusive, and to presuppose the mir-
aculous— z. £., inexplicable character of what is to be explained
— is at best an unfruitful method of procedure. In view of all
this we are justified in clearing the field of all hypotheses ex-
cept those of Parallelism and Spiritualism.

The parallelist holds that mind and matter are two separate
worlds parallel to one another, and that they never come in
contact any more than do two plane parallel lines. As for the
4 psychologist's mystery,' — viz., the apparent contact of mind
and matter — it is accounted for by an established harmony due
either to a divine person or to natural evolution. This is the
doctrine which in one form or another is the basis of whatever
is best in modern psychology. Clearly formulated by Spinoza
and Leibniz, it remained for Kant to establish it upon a sound
epistemological basis.

The great scientific advantages of this theory of psycho-
physical parallelism are easily brought to light by comparing it
with the three rival methods just treated. It resembles the ab-
solute teleology of the first method in so far as it leaves to the
world all its significance and meaning, but it differs from that
method in not rejecting true scientific or mechanical explana-
tion. And, again, it is quite as scientific as materialism without
at the same time sacrificing all norms and ideals to a blind me-
chanical fate. While, thirdly, as compared with occasionalism,
it is equally frank in recognizing the distinction between finality
and mechanism, yet it substitutes for a series of miraculous acts
on the part of the Deity a single miraculous construction of the
universe, which is obviously a great gain in conceptual economy.
Take, for example, the case already given : a syllogism contain-

464 W. P. MONTAGUE.

ing universal truths is uttered by an individual man. The pure
teleologist denies in toto the psychological or descriptive side of
the process ; while the materialist, if consistent, must deny that
the conclusion was due to any rational or logical causation
whatever. The occasionalist refers the mystery to a miracu-
lous interference ; but the Parallelist at once undertakes a dual
investigation which has for its ends (i) a logical or normative
explanation of the syllogism, and (2) a mechanical or descrip-
tive account of the how of the process, /*. e., a statement of the
psychophysical conditions existing in the organism of that par-
ticular individual which enabled the psychophysical event called
the * conclusion' to follow with mechanical necessity the psycho-
physical events called the ' premises.'

It needs, however, only the most casual glance to see the im-
measurable superiority of parallelism as compared with the
other methods. If parallelism is to yield to any rival hypoth-
esis, certainly that hypothesis can only be the hypothesis of a
soul-substance.

Let us now turn from the strong points of the parallelistic
doctrine to some of the difficulties connected with the theory.
In the first place, we are struck with the fact that parallelism,
when taken seriously as the ultimate explanation of our prob-
lem, presents us with a universe which is extremely and dis-
agreeably artificial. Parallelism in the theistic or Leibnizian
form would have us believe that the Deity went to an infinite
amount of apparently needless labor to get the atoms so arranged
that they should be in exactly the right position in the brain of
every future thinker or speaker to accompany mechanically his
particular utterances and the complicated, because teleological,
sequences of those utterances. It may, indeed, be urged against
this objection that its cogency is purely emotional and not log-
ical ; and, furthermore, that it is no more than the objection to
which any theory of preordination is exposed. Now it is true
that the objection of artificiality is not a logical objection. It is,
after all, a healthy common-sense bias in favor of simplicity,
rather than a reasoned conviction of its truth, which leads us to
look askance upon the possibility of the ultimate validity of any
needlessly artificial hypothesis. And Leibniz's monadology, in

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 465

spite of, or perhaps because of, its wonderful ingenuity, is a
doctrine which it is morally impossible to accept. We feel, in-
deed, that Leibniz himself, had he been the creator, might very
well have overcome the difficulty of connecting mind and matter
by copying from the clock-maker ; but although we may believe
that Leibniz, or, for that matter, any one of us, might have
adopted this plan of creation, we know all the while that God
did not and could not. And really to suppose that he did, is
to take our own abstractions too seriously. Nor can it be urged
that the preestablished harmony is no more artificial than the
common and reasonable notion of predestination, for the latter
simply implies the divine authorship of a concrete world of souls,
while the Leibnizian doctrine implies a divine fitting together of
two human abstractions. But if we turn away from such peculi-
arly artificial anthropomorphism, we come at once to the other
horn of the parallelists' dilemma, we have, namely, the task of
giving a naturalistic in place of a supernaturalistic account of the
origin of this wonderful harmony. Perhaps, as one psychol-
ogist has expressed it, we are justified for methodological pur-
poses in regarding the atoms as * having conspired together ' to
form combinations and sequences , which) although conducted en-
tirely on the mechanical -plan, shall yet Jit in so nicely with the
teleological world of mind as to appear to influence and be
influenced by it. There is perhaps no logical ground for re-
jecting this conceit. We cannot say that such a blind atomic
conspiracy is infinitely improbable for the reason that the dis-
tinction between the probable and the improbable becomes
meaningless when, all data being transcended, it is applied to
the universe as a whole, Von Hartmann to the contrary not-
withstanding. Nevertheless, despite the advantage of this
theory as a working hypothesis, I must again fall back upon
the ignoble refuge of common sense, and appeal to our emotional
prejudice against such artificiality as is manifested in this ac-
count, as sufficient reason for rejecting it as an ultimate solution
of the ' psychologist's mystery.'

Let us see, however, whether the modern doctrine of evolu-
tion can offer a less unsatisfactory method of explaining the
genesis of a parallelistic world. Can it be shown that the

466 w. P. MONTAGUE.

joining of mind and matter in the living organism is an aid in the
struggle for existence? If so, we have a fairly reasonable
theory, and a theory that is in harmony with the Darwinian
spirit of the times. The seeming artificiality of the two
previous types of parallelistic cosmogony is no longer a draw-
back to the theory itself, for we have the simple knowledge that
parallelism is a * survival of the fittest,' and that a psychophys-
ical organism, — /. £., a brain or nervous system — has outstripped
both the purely physical and the purely psychical forms of ex-
istence. Now if this claim can be justified, parallelism has a
very strong case. But can it be justified? Let us remember
that mind and matter can never have influenced one another, for
the very reason that they are parallel and incommensurate.
There is a certain formation of matter, to wit, the brain, which
happens to harmonize with thought — i. £., to act as if it were
affected by final causes ; and, again, there is a certain kind of
mind-stuff that acts as if it were influenced by physical causes.
But if mind and matter are really parallel, if they never affect
each other, how can the principle of natural selection aid us in
accounting for the origin of their harmonizing in the living
being? From the point of view of matter, consciousness must
be regarded by the parallelist — as by Huxley — as an epifhenome-
non, a phenomenon which is absolutely without effect in the
material world. We are automata endowed with consciousness —
*'. £., endowed with the power of looking on at the actions per-
formed by our bodies. But if consciousness and matter in
general are helpless to affect one another, it follows that -par-
ticular types of consciousness and of matter (e. g. , a mind ap-
parently conforming to mechanical laws or a brain apparently
conforming to teleological laws) will be equally helpless to aid
or to hinder the actions of their counterparts. If consciousness
is a mere spectator, we may for a moment suppose it to be ab-
sent. What change would then result? No change at all.
The world would proceed exactly as before ; human bodies
would walk and talk and go through all the multitude of appa-
rently rational actions, and indeed, according to Huxley and the
consistent parallelist, there would not be the slightest difference,
from a factual standpoint, between our living world and a world

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 467

which was absolutely without life — a world which lacked the
epiphenomenon of consciousness. To return then to the point
at issue : we see that although a brain might very well be a sur-
vival of the fittest, the joining of brain to consciousness could
never be such a survival without allowing — contrary to hypo-
thesis— that consciousness is a true cause and not an epiphe-
nomenon in the material world.

But supposing that we waive all the difficulties attending the
naturalistic as well as the supernatural theories of the origin of
parallelistic harmony ; suppose, I say, that we waive all objections
to the genetic side of the matter, and pass to a consideration of the
logical consistency or possibility of this alleged harmony. We
are told that mind and matter do not really influence one another,
that they are parallel and that the causal law does not bind them
together. Inductive science has furnished us with a grandly
simple test, which is expressly meant to be applied to all such
cases as this ; we have only to use the three following rules in
order to determine whether or not two things are causally united.

Let the two phenomena be A and B ; then the rules may be
expressed thus :

1. When A is absent B must be absent.

2. When A is present B must be present.

3. When A varies B must vary proportionately.

Now, if mind and matter should ever be found to fulfill
these three conditions, would it not be a scientific duty to regard
them not as parallel and sundered., but as reciprocally influenced
by one another? As a matter of fact, we do find a class of
cases which fulfill these three conditions, namely, all cases of
individual life. And inasmuch as life, so far as we know, is
never unindividualized, we are justified in saving that all life is
an example, and the only example, of a causal relation between
mind and matter — between the realms of teleology and mechan-
ism. Whenever there is life then it holds true that

i. Absence or cessation of consciousness involves (or is in-
variably accompanied by) the absence of certain material con-
ditions or brain processes ; and conversely, when these brain
processes are-interrupted consciousness ceases.1

1 About the precise nature and location of these processes little is known,
but of their existence there is no question.

468 W. P. MONTAGUE.

2. Presence of consciousness implies the presence in the
brain of the mentioned processes, and conversely.

3. Qualitative and intensive changes in consciousness imply
and are implied by corresponding changes in the brain, which
are respectively qualitative (t. e.9 structural) or quantitative (t. e.,
functional).

Must we not then admit that all life is an example of caus-
ality between mind and matter, and that when the parallelist
denies this causality he repudiates the canons of inductive
science ? If it is really true that in life these two great orders
of events — the mechanical and the teleological — fulfill all the
conditions of reciprocal causality, it becomes a scientific impos-
sibility to regard them as parallel solely because they appear to
us incommensurate.

But suppose it be objected that this criticism is based upon a
naive misapprehension of the parallelistic thesis, the whole
force of which depends upon the truth of the (purely apparent)
causality between mind and matter which we as critics of par-
allelism have been at such pains to establish. I answer that the
distinction between actual causality and the illusion of causality
exists only when the conditions for inferring the causality are
imperfectly fulfilled. When two things act to some extent as
though they were causally related, then we may with propriety
hold that the causality can be either seeming or real ; but when
all the conditions for a valid inference of cause are fulfilled
then we can no longer entertain the possibility of a causality
merely seeming the result, let us say, of a parallelism between
the two events. In short, although parallelism might very well
counterfeit a causality only -partly verified, it would be impossi-
ble, or at least infinitely improbable, that a perfectly verified
causality was the result of a parallelism, however elaborate, at
least in a world in which there was any approach to what we
call the < uniformity of nature.' The truth of this can be seen
by a brief examination into what it is that gives cogency to the
third canon of inference stated above. When two events are
observed to be present and absent together at once, there is a
certain probability that they are causally connected ; when they
are observed as mutually present and absent on ten occasions,

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 469

we have a probability of their being causally connected which
is ten times as great as the first ; and so when they are present
and absent together on an infinite number of occasions there is
an infinite probability — 2. £., a certainty — of a real causal con-
nection between them. Now any continuous quantity can be
regarded as containing an infinite number of discrete quantities ;
and so a continuous variable — say, a curve — contains an infinite
number of separate variations : hence when two continuously
varying processes of events agree with each other throughout
the probability that they stand in a causal relation is infinite
and equivalent to certainty ; and the third rule of inference is
simply the continuous or infinitely repeated verification of the
conditions of the first and second rules.

If, then, the canons of inference hold good, parallelism
must be rejected.1 Mind and matter do really influence one
another wherever there is life ; indeed life may be roughly de-
fined as the single known condition for the existence of an order
of events which is neither purely teleological nor purely me-
chanical, nor yet a harmonious parallelism of both, but rather a
perfect interpenetration of mechanism and finality, of solid fact
and airy meaning.

The fact of correspondence could, on account of the ( equa-
tionlessness ' or complete lawlessness of the curves, never be
referred to a parallelism — /. e., to a prearrangement on the part of
Nature or God — but only to a continuously operative causality.
It is this latter type of connection that unites the mechanical
and teleological orders of experience.

Notwithstanding the various objections which have so often
been urged against psychophysical parallelism, the theory has
taken such firm root and in such high places that I venture one
more attempt to show the difficulty inherent in the conception.

1Two phenomena or two sequences of phenomena which fulfilled only the
first and second criteria of cause — which implied merely the presence and absence
respectively of each other — might very well be parallel, and only appear to be

A-

causally related. They could be symbolized thus :^ . On the other hand,

two sequences which in addition to the characters of the above pair exhibited
the phenomenon of concomitant variation, could only be regarded as reallv
causally connected ; and they could be symbolized by two concomitant but infi-
nitely variable or ' equationless ' curves.

47° W. P. MONTAGUE.

A mechanical world in so far as it is mechanical is a world
of quantities ; and a teleological world in so far as it is teleo-
logical is a world of qualities. The one is continuous^ the other
is discrete. Given any two pure quantities, and there is also
given an infinite number of intermediate quantities ; while, on the
contrary, between any two pure qualities there is given no inter-
mediate excepting the quite formal unity of the perceiving con-
sciousness. Of course, we never get pure quantities in the phys-
ical world, nor pure qualities in the world of mind. The science
of Mechanics cannot be reduced to geometry, because the discrete
positions and masses of the moving bodies are just as important
factors as the continuous distances through which they move.
And analogously we can never reduce epistemology or logic to
a completed system of mutually exclusive or absolutely discrete
concepts or categories. It was this latter ideal which Hegel
thought he had attained in his Logic ; and the attempt to express
all mental life as a dialectical product of the 'Idea and its Other,'
of identity and difference is as grand and as impossible as the
complementary attempt to express all material bodies as the
product of a continuous space or continuous ether. Neverthe-
less, in spite of the failure to separate things into pure qualities
and pure quantities, it remains true that qualities as such are
related in only two ways, while quantities as such are related
in an infinite number of ways. Any quality A has its formal
opposite not-^4, while of the quantities two only stand to each
other as opposites, viz., zero and infinity; and the only way in
which a quantity can be ' turned into its opposite ' (without in-
troducing any qualitative determinant, such as difference in sign)
is by combining it with zero or infinity. To make a change
in a quantitative system which should be adequate or parallel to a
change in a qualitative system would involve an infinite increase
or decrease of the energy or quantitative value of the system.

Take now the typical case of a qualitative change. I make
the successive judgments : ' Man is mortal,' * Man is not mor-
tal.' The conceptional universes of consequences which follow
respectively from each of these assertions are mutually exclusive
— are qualitatively different. Now, according to the parallelist,
there were two material systems accompanying these two men-

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 471

tal systems, and when I changed from judgment number one to
judgment number two, material system number one made a cor-
responding change and became material system number two.
And as the two changes were parallel to one another, the
measure of the change — /'. £., the ratio of the second state to the
first — must be the same in both cases. Consequently the change
in the material or quantitative universe must have been infinite,
as otherwise the differences could not correspond with nor par-
allel one another. But surely it is preposterous to suppose
that the physical world makes these tremendous jumps in quan-
tity whenever any one divides a universe of discourse into A
and not A. And yet if we leave it to itself, cut off from any
causal connection with and yet exactly corresponding to the
world of concepts, that is just \vhat must happen. But, as a
matter of fact, what does happen in the physical world when
there is a change in the conceptional world? I say * Man is
mortal,' and a certain brain-state and consequently a certain
modification of the entire material universe are present at the
moment of my utterance. I now change the judgment to * Man
is not mortal,' and simultaneously the material universe changes
also, but changes almost infinitesimally instead of infinitely.
The addition of the word ' not ' is accompanied by the tiniest
and most insignificant of changes in the world of matter, al-
though it completely reverses my conceptional universe. If,
instead of the word * not? I had put a nonsense syllable of three
letters, the physical change would have been equally great,
while the conceptional change would have been absolutely nil.
Indeed, if we are to continue to hold to the parallelistic theory,
we must once for all give up the idea that the energy of the
effect varies quantitatively with the cause. The change from a
brain state accompanying the rational affirmation of a judgment
to the brain state accompanying its negation is primarily a quali-
tative change, and as such can only find its sufficient reason, its
vera causa in the qualitative — t. £., conceptional — change that
occurs in the mind. In short brain-states, like all the other
quantitative or continuously changing elements of the mechan-
ical world, no matter how cunningly arranged by a Leibnizian
god, would be of themselves infinitely lacking in the power to

47 2 W. P. MONTAGUE.

keep up with the absolute or qualitative changes involved in
reasoning.

Every one will grant that psychology has for its object matter
a process that has a double aspect. Each psychical event is both
&fact and a meaning. Must we not, however, go even further,
and admit, on the strength of our criticism of parallelism, that
psychical events do not have even these two aspects purely dis-
tinct? Neither thefact — i. £., the actual presence of the feel-
ing— on the one side, nor its meaning and significance on the
other, are able to be understood apart from one another. There
is no fact of consciousness which does not, even in its mere
brute presence, imply some meaning ; while, again, there is no
meaning or judgment so universal and so thoroughly ideal that
its utterance by an individual does not to some extent particu-
larize or individualize it. In short, it is not only true that norms
and facts influence one another, but each norm is itself to some
degree tainted with fact; and conversely, each fact is qua fact to
some degree dignified with an ideal significance. Mediateness
and immediateness are, in spite of their opposed and incom-
mensurate natures, matters of more and less.

But, one may well ask, What has all this to do with the con-
ception of a substantial soul ? Suppose all consciousness is a
continuous sequence of events of such a nature that mechanical
and teleological orders of existence persist both collectively
and individually in exchanging salutations and in deferring to
each other's laws ; grant that this insufferable state of things
exists, and that on account of it psychology is impossible for
the simple reason that a psychological law could be nothing but
a preposterous blending of physics and epistemology : does
it therefore follow that we should add to the confusion occa-
sioned from a mixture of two incommensurates by proceeding to
introduce an unknowable tertium quid? Because matter and
mind interfere with each other in consciousness, are we to in-
voke a substantial soul as an aid to comprehension? I answer,
yes ; it is logically necessary to call in a third thing, a thing,
moreover, about which we know very little, precisely in order
to explain this interpenetration of the material and the teleolog-
ical which is the everyday mystery of consciousness. Our jus-
tification for this step is the following axiom :

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 473

When two things, A and B, are related to each other, there
is implied by that relation the existence of a third thing or
medium, X, whose nature is * individual'' or ' simple"* and dif-
ferent from either, though homogeneous and commensurate with
both.

When A and B are * attributes' then ^Twill be * substance/
The paradox implied in the notion of substance is simply this —
a substance (X) cannot be a phenomenon or attribute (A, B,
C, • - •) ; it cannot add to the qualitative content, to the ' what-
ness' of the object, and is, therefore, in one sense nothing ; while
on the other hand, inasmuch as the attributes or phenomena
cannot exist or be understood in themselves, either singly or
collectively, it follows that they must have their real being in a
substance which underlies and connects them. To put the
thing in the modern and expressive terminology of Mr. Brad-
ley, every object is composed of a * that ' and an indefinite
number of * whats.' What the ' that ' is we cannot easily say
for the very reason that it is not, properly speaking, a ' what,'
but a 'that'; it is the subject of which qualities can be pred-
icated and which de facto is not itself an ordinary predicate.
But it by no means follows ; that the inherent difficulty of de-
scribing the 'that' justifies a denial of its existence. Each
' what ' carries on its face its own inadequacy to stand alone or
to explain its relations to its fellows ; and the reality of the ' that '
— the reality of substance — is not only given immediately in ex-
perience, but can be indirectly or mediately inferred by reflec-
tion upon the imperfection and unsubstantiality of the attributes.

Now mind by itself cannot explain matter nor matter explain
mind ; therefore the proved fact of their relation can only be un-
derstood by regarding them as attributes of a substance, a soul,
whose nature if understood would explain their mysterious con-
nection. As said above, the soul could be provisionally defined
as " that which made final causes efficient in the material world ;
and conversely, as that which enabled efficient causes to pro-
duce teleological effects or meanings."

We have now, I think, set forth all the conditions of our
problem and the negative or indirect reasons for solving that
problem by the theory of soul-substances. From the outset we

474 W- P- MONTAGUE.

have tacitly assumed that * mind ' and ' matter ' were synonymous
respectively with ' teleology ' or * finality ' and ' mechanism '
or * efficiency' ; the reasons for this assumption being the advis-
ability of keeping clear of the issue between cosmological real-
ism and idealism. All esse may be -percifi or it may not ; for
our purposes the important thing was to distinguish between
-percifo which was mechanical and percifi which was teleo-
logical. Consequently the most ardent Berkeleyan would have
no right to rebel against speaking of matter as real if the term
matter were simply used as a generic term for all those events
and sequences of events which conform to mechanical or factual
-as distinguished from teleological or normative laws.

After having pointed out the equal reality and mutual incom-
mensurability of these two orders of experience, together with
the indubitable fact of their apparent influence upon one another
throughout the domain of life or consciousness, we next consid-
ered the five methods of solving this problem of a seeming rela-
tion between two incommensurates. These methods were :

1. Absolute teleology, which denies the existence of material
or mechanical sequences.

2. Materialism*, which denies the existence of mental or tele-
ological sequences.

3. Occasionalism, which admits the reality of both mind and
matter, but explains their interaction by a series of miracles.

4. Parallelism, a doctrine which, like occasionalism, admits
matter and mind as realities, but explains their apparent inter-
action as an illusion produced by a naturally or supernaturally
established harmony.

5. The theory of the soul — a theory which holds that mind
and matter are the two real aspects or attributes of a single sub-
stance in virtue of which they can and actually do interpenetrate.

Thus far we have accomplished half of our appointed task :
we have shown the inadequacy of the two attributes of mechan-
ism and teleology to explain their own blending in the concrete
sequences of consciousness ; and we have, therefore, been driven
to infer the existence of a tertium quid — a soul-substance —
which so far has only been— -functionally defined — z. e., defined
in terms of what it can do. It now remains to determine, so far

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 475

as possible, what the soul-substance is, and until this is done
we have no right to distinguish the soul conceived as substance
from the soul conceived as ding an sich. Indeed, the valid and
positive notion of substance differs from the negative and useless
notion of the thing-in-itself solely in virtue of its complete fulfill-
ment of a set of requirements which are only partially fulfilled
in the concept of a thing-in-itself. These requirements are three
in number, and may be stated as follows :

1. A substance must, in order to be defined, possess an in-
telligible essence or character — a mode of its own — distinct
from the attributes.

2. This ' substantial form,' or essence, must be related to
all the attributes as genus to species.

3. And also to each attribute as species to genus.

The significance of these requirements may be best illustrated
by observing what results if we omit any one of them. Suppose
we omit the first requirement ; we are left with the undefined
that, the ding an sich. It is the genus of the attributes, because
all qualities have the character of being presented or of existing ;
while, again, existence is itself a * somewhat* different from any
or all qualitative determinations. That which constitutes the
difference between the hundred real and the hundred possible
dollars is not to be denied, although it cannot be described.
' Existence ' is then both genus and species ; and to find the form
of existence the ' whatness ' of the < thatness ' would be all that
was necessary to change the conception of the ding an sich into
the conception of substance.

Suppose, however, that instead of omitting the first require-
ment we omit the second. We should then have in place of a
generic substance simply an additional and merely specific at-
tribute. If, for example, it is said that the soul is neither material
nor ideal, we may know in advance that it can never explain as its
logical derivatives the attributes of materiality and ideality. In
excluding the attributes from its own ungeneric nature it excludes
also the possibility of explaining the relation between them. It
is the omission of this second requirement that marks the imper-
fection of such systems as that of Thales. Water is not the sum-
mum genus, consequently it cannot be the absolute substance.

476 W. P. MONTAGUE.

Finally, if we attempt to get along without the third require-
ment ; if we say that the soul is nothing but mind and matter ;
that it has no new quality, no differentia of its own — we have
pure phenomenism or positivism, a doctrine which holds that
the substance of a thing is merely the sum of its attributes. In
short, to omit this third requirement is to give up the conception
of substance altogether.

These three requirements for a valid or adequate concep-
tion of substance are implicitly recognized in all metaphysics ;
but in St. Thomas's conception of God and in Hegel's concep-
tion of the Begriff,1 the recognition is clear and explicit, so
much so that one might almost say that the problem of the Ab-
solute appears for these thinkers as neither more nor less than
the problem of substance as above defined.

We are now in a position to understand the nature of the
last half of our task. Once having justified our right to be-
lieve in a soul-substance as existing, we must further proceed
to define our ding an sich, to fill in the blank which is as yet
only determined functionally — as an unknown locus of known
relations. In a later paper I hope to show that the moral
consciousness affords a valid and unique instance of what is
required for the adequate definition of substance ; and that in
moral sequences we find a type of causality that is at once
mechanical and teleological, while yet differing from both
exactly as the common limit of two separate series differs from
those series.

In this paper I have attempted only a demonstration of the
existence of a genuine need for a soul-substance from the
point of view of descriptive psychology, and a vindication of
the right to hypostasize such a conception as soon as it shall be
properly defined.

1 See particularly Hegel's chapter on Kraft und Verstand, in his PJtanom-
enologie des Geistes.

THE REACTION TIME OF THE EYE.

5

BY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR RAYMOND DODGE.

Wesleyan University.

The reaction time of the eye has an unique significance for
the physiologist and the psychologist, partly on account of the
peculiar half unconscious character of the eye movements and
the consequent general bearing upon the problems of reaction,
but more particularly because every change of direction of the
line of regard is fundamentally an eye reaction.

For the proof of this proposition I am compelled to refer
the reader to the original discussion,1 where will be found as
well the proof of the fact which makes it important, viz. : In
jevery change in the point of regard in a complex field of
vision the eye distinguishes nothing during the actual move-
ment. That this statement seems to be contradicted many times
daily suffices to explain how the erroneous conceptions of the
eye movements could have remained unchallenged so long and
how so many false interpretations could have clustered around
them.

Important as these facts are for the general theory of
physiological optics, they have as well a very interesting
bearing on the physiology of the eye in reading, whose prob-
lems gave the first cue to their discovery. On the one hand,
they explain the regular alternation of pause and movement in
the reading eye, to which attention has recently been called
almost simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic.2 On thej
other hand, the experimental demands in the apparatus for the \
study- of reading can only be satisfied when the eye reaction is
understood and measured.

1 Erdmann und Dodge, Psychologische Untersuchungen Uber das Lesen.
Halle, Max Niemeyer, 1898. S. 68-76.

2 Op. cit., Kapitel I. E. B. Huey, Preliminary Experiments in P. and P. of
Reading, Am. Jour, of Psy., July, 1898. P. 583.

477

478 RAYMOND DODGE.

The most favorable conditions for the exposure of letters,
words, etc., will naturally approximate the conditions of the
normal pauses of the eye in reading. Simplicity in the experi-
mental conditions, however, demands that indiscriminate change
in the point of regard should be eliminated.

In all previous experimental work where exclusion of the
eye movements was essential, recourse was had to illumination
of very short duration.

Helmholtz, Aubert and others used for illumination an elec-
tric spark, whose duration Helmholtz estimated at a fraction of
a thousandth of a second. Under less exacting conditions it
has been customary to use intervals varying from i to 10 thous-
andth of a second, assuming that the movement of the eye dur-
ing such small intervals of time could be disregarded.

The fact above referred to, that the eye can perceive nothing
in a complex field over which it sweeps during the movement
itself, evidently prevents any compromising effects arising from
a movement begun before or simultaneously with the exposure ;
and makes it possible to use an exposure whose duration is
limited only by the time which would permit the eye to begin
and carry out a new movement after the exposure had begun.
Such a lengthening of the exposure as this would permit, not
only reduces the mechanical difficulties of exposure appara-
tus, but has the more important advantage of adequate stimula-
tion. Equally desirable in view of the interest that has sud-
denly sprung up in the psychology of reading is the adoption of
a generally accepted interval of exposure, by whose use the re-
sults of different investigators may be made comparable.

It is in the interests of such a standard exposure that I have
thought it best to present results of measurements in a short
paper independent of their general theoretical bearing.

The strained conditions and consequent inevitable func-
tional disturbances which all attachments to the eye must pro-
duce, render all results with such appliances open to serious
criticism ; while the general discomfort of such methods neces-
sarily limits their applicability. These mechanical difficulties
led to the discovery of a purely optical method which, in spite
of the rather clumsy apparatus at our command in Halle, was

THE REACTION TIME OF THE EYE. 479

so satisfactory that I have used it, with some modifications of
detail, in the following measurements.

In general the method is as follows : A stimulus f, ca-
pable of variation and accurate measurement in duration, is
thrown on the blind spot of an eye at rest. Since any slight
movement of the eyes will bring it into view, the natural move-
ment, which follows some peripheral stimulation e?, will bring it
into view, provided its duration is sufficient. The necessary
duration of the stimulusy, which will just permit the observer to
see it after the cue for movement is given, is evidently the reac-
tion time of the eye.

As the aim of the Halle measurements was solely a negative
one, viz., to determine a maximum safe exposition time, we did
not feel warranted at that time in constructing the special ap-
paratus required for a more accurate measurement.

In designing a pendulum tachistoscope for some general
work at the Wesleyan University Laboratory I incorporated
the special features necessary for satisfactory measurements of
the eye reaction. The essentials of the apparatus are as follows :
A heavy second pendulum resting on broad knife edges and
swinging through 90°, carrTes two large disks on its axis, one
of which is temporarily fixed, while the other may be rotated
and clamped at any point. The smaller disk has a radius cf
12 inches; the larger, of 16.5 inches.

One inch from , the periphery of the smaller circle is drawn
a fine black arc, concentric with the disk, which, when viewed
through a blackened tube and a horizontal slit in a black screen,
placed immediately in front of the disks, appears as a short
vertical line as long as the horizontal slit is wide. This serves
as the primary point of regard, and would not change its appear-
ance, even during the oscillations of the pendulum, if the arc
were long enough. The arc is, however, so short that before
the pendulum has completed ^ of its excursion, after release,
the primary point of regard disappears ; and at the same
moment there appears a similar short line, which serves as the
peripheral stimulation, made by a concentric arc y& inch from
the periphery of the smaller disk. The excursion of the eye as
it looks from the disappearing primary point of regard to the

480 RAYMOND DODGE.

appearing peripheral stimulus, is a double sine of ^ inch in
length, corresponding to an arc of about 3°, when the axis of
rotation of the eye is 16 inches distant from the disks. Four
inches from the primary point of regard in the larger and mov-
able disk is cut a circular slit, l/& inch wide, concentric with
the disk. Through this slit a strong light corresponding to
f falls on the blind spot when the eye is at its primary position,
and becomes visible only after the eye moves.

The reaction time of the eye is evidently measured by the
necessary length of the arc corresponding to the stimulus^/".

In the Wesleyan apparatus this is measured in .01" by direct
reference to the vibrations of a tuning fork, registered on the
periphery of the inner or fixed disk.

The whole apparatus has a delicate levelling adjustment, and
the oscillations of the pendulum are consequently constant.

Since the release of the pendulum, although practically
noiseless, is nevertheless usually perceptible as a slight jar,
the result of the eye movement is not registered on the first
oscillation of the pendulum, but 'always on the second. The
observer only answers the question whether the bright stimulus
was seen or not seen. The record is ignored in the calculation
if the observer was conscious of false movements or imperfect
fixation.

The results of the experiments are given in the following
tables. Observer J^ is Mr. E. M. Quittmeyer, class of 1899,
Wesleyan University, an honor student in philosophy.1

Observer D is the writer. A long series of preliminary ex-
periments gave for each experimenter the probable upper and
lower limits of variation from the true reaction mean.

The succeeding experiments were made in blocks of ten, in
which 'f was given an arbitrary duration. A sufficient num-
ber of such blocks of experiments was made to give D 100 ex-
periments each, when '_/"' had the values 160, 170, 180 and
190 0, after the cue for movement had been given. J§L niade 50

1 Mr. Quittmeyer's services in the experiments reported are more than the
faithful work of a careful observer. Many of the details of illumination are
due to his suggestion, and if a number of circumstances had not conspired
to prevent it, it was intended that he should make the report.

THE REACTION TIME OF THE EVE. 481

experiments each when *y ' had the values 150, 160, 170, 180
and 1 90*7.

The lower limits were determined by a larger number of
trials, as they were of peculiar importance. No attempt was
made to determine accurately the upper limits beyond which no
negative answers were given. As is general in reaction studies,
the maximum records have very little meaning, owing to the
complex conditions which determine them.

In a very large number of experiments J<J/s lower limit for
(f was 140*7. Z?'s lower limit for ' f ' was 150*7.

4,

f= 150 160 170 180 190

seen =2 6 31 41 44

not seen = 48 44 19 9 6

The mean reaction time evidently cannot be reckoned as an
arithmetical average of all the reactions, but must be given as
that value which l f ' must have in order that just as many re-
actions should lie above as below it. This will be the case when

%
seen = — . From the above data it is evident that the mean re-

2

action of J^Mies between 160 and 170, and must have a value of
167.6*7.

D.

f = 160 170 180 190

seen = 15 41 58 73

not seen = 85 59 42 27

The mean reaction time of D lies consequently between 170
and 180, and has a value of 175.8*7.

It is evident that the time interval thus measured does not
correspond exactly with the reaction time as ordinarily under-
stood. In addition to the peripheral and central processes,
which theoretically make up the true reaction time, the eye re-
action includes two other processes : first, the slight movement
necessary to bring the light on to a sensitive part of the retina ;
and secondly, the duration of that stimulation necessary to pro-
duce a sensation.

RAYMOND DODGE.

Of these the second is well known to be only a fraction of a
thousandth of a second, and may be disregarded.

The first is apparently more important ; but, according to
the known rapidity of the movement of the eye, must be much
smaller than the mean variation, since the eye moves through
5° in 10-15 0;1 while the stimulus '/"' touches a sensitive part
of the retina and appears as a bright band before the eye
has moved i° in 30'. Moreover, this small lost movement is
scarcely to be obviated by any mechanical means, since it
represents an excursion of a point on the cornea of about .on
inch, an excursion which even the most delicate mechanical
attachment could scarcely reduce.

If we attempted any correction for these constant errors, it
would reduce the mean reaction time about 6<r.

4J. to 162*7.
D to 170*7.

The minimal reactions, however, signify more for the de-
termination of experimental conditions than the mean reaction
time. In view of the foregoing measurements, I feel justified
in making the general recommendation that whenever practic-
able the exposures in the psychology of reading, as well as
elsewhere, where a maximum constant exposure is desired,
which is still too short for a change in the primary point of
regard, be given a uniform duration of .1".

Undoubtedly a slightly longer exposure might be used in
most cases ; but, in general, I believe it to be advisable to use a
duration so small that it may remain constant, while the ease
with which .1" can be measured and controlled is perhaps an
added argument in its favor.

There is a difficulty in the above method that makes it use-
less for unpractised observers ; this is the general inability to
keep the eye fixed when expecting a peripheral stimulation.
It, however, is the most accurate optical method when one has
become master of the eye movement, since a very slight move-
ment is enough to bring the bright light into view.

1 Lamanski, Bestimmung der Winkelgeschwindigkeit der Blickbewegung.
Pfliiger's Archiv f. d. g. P., II., p. 418-422. Dodge, Anhang zu psycholo-
gische Untersuchungen iiber das Lesen.

THE REACTION TIME OF THE EYE. 483

A much simpler method is recommended when the aim is
merely to control the time of exposure, or to demonstrate to a
class that within the given exposure no movement of the eye
takes place. Under these conditions it is only necessary to
expose two letters for the interval in question, far enough apart,
so that when either one is fixated the other is not recognizable.
If one is exposed at the primary point of regard, only a move-
ment can make the other visible ; and unless it is possible,
after repeated trials, to see both, the interval of exposure must
be too short for the movement in question. If the attempt were
made to determine the mean reaction time by this method, the
corrections for the time of movement of the eye would assume
considerable importance, and would demand special measure-
ments.

A STUDY IN THE DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL
RELIGION.

BY PROFESSOR GEORGE ALBERT COE.
North-western University.

Up to 1891 the history of psychology contained no example
of the systematic application of empirical methods of research
to the religious phenomena in the midst of which we are living.
Since that time, however, President Hall and several of his
pupils, notably Professor Starbuck, have published significant
contributions upon certain branches of this subject.1 The chief
result is the establishment of definite correlations between relig-
ious experience and adolescence. The conclusion most thor-
oughly worked out is that the period of greatest religious trans-
formation for both males and females is, in general, the period
of physical transformation from childhood to adult life. Another
important generalization is that what is called conversion is
only one of many forms in which a normal adolescent religious
change clothes itself. From the case in which childhood re-
ligion grows mature without special agitation, to the cases in
which conversion takes place amid volcanic outbursts of emo-
tion, there is every grade and variety of disturbance, though
with the same general outcome when adolescence is over.

These differences have never been satisfactorily accounted
for, and indeed the question has hardly been raised except for
the sake of hazarding a guess. "The explanation of sudden
conversions," says Bain, "is no doubt to be sought in some over-
powering impression upon the mind that supplies a new and
energetic motive to the will, thereby initiating a new line of

!G. Stanley Hall: The Moral and Religious Training of Children, Ped.
Sem., I., 196!? . ; E. D. Starbuck: A Study of Conversion, Am. J. Psy., VIII.,
268ff., and Some Aspects of Religious Growth, Am. J. Psy., IX., yoff. ; A. H.
Daniels : The New Life, Am. J. Psy., VI., 6iff. ; J. H. Leuba : A Study in the
Psychology of Religious Phenomena, Am.J. Psy., VII., sogff. See also Luther
Gulick: Age, Sex and Conversion, Association Outlook, Dec., 1897.

484

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 485

conduct. * * * Such changes occasionally happen, but not
without terrific struggles, which prove how hard it is to set up
the volition of a day against the bent of years."1 Here all sud-
den conversions are lumped together as though they were all
of one type ; all are declared to be accompanied by' terrific
struggles, and all are explained by a single circumstance.

Equally incomplete is the explanation of Nietsche when he
snarls at Christianity because, as he thinks, it is not in contact
with reality. He declares that Christianity cultivates " an
imaginary psychology (nothing but self-misunderstandings, in-
terpretations of pleasant or unpleasant general feelings, — for ex-
ample, the conditions of the nervus sympathicus^ — with the
help of the sign-language of religio-moral idiosyncrasy, — repen-
tance, remorse of conscience, temptations by the devil, presence
of God").2 Doubtless this statement contains some truth; yet
it is as inadequate to explain the broad variety of experiences oc-
curring under Christian influences as it is to explain the whole
sphere of perception, normal and abnormal together.

Here and there a more probable hint has appeared. Thus,
Havelock Ellis makes the remark that a sudden explosion of
suppressed hypnotic centers is ' the most important key to the
psychology of conversion.'3 Leuba, speaking of the conver-
sion of John Wesley, throws out this hint : " An interesting re-
mark can be made here concerning the influence of suggestion :
it is as the change that God works in the heart is being described
that the very same transformation takes place in Wesley."4 The
same writer also remarks that " the particular forms in which
affective states dress themselves are functions of the intellectual
atmosphere of the time." 5 This is undoubtedly a hopeful clue ;
but when the same writer goes on to affirm that joy " is never
altogether wanting, and is always violent during the first hours
or days that follow,"6 he misses an essential fact. Starbuck
was, I believe, the first writer to give adequate recognition, with

Emotions and Will, 3d ed., N. Y., 1876, 453^
2Antichrist, Works, N. Y., 1896, XL, 253.
3 Man and Woman, 2d. ed., Lond., 1898, 292.
4Psy. of Relig. Phenomena, Am. J. Psy., VII., 340.
5 Id- ,357-
•Id., 351.

486 GEORGE ALBERT COE.

empirical data, to the marvellous varieties that cluster about
such terms as conversion. He advanced a step toward their
explanation, also, when he showed that something more than a
conscious exercise of either intellect or will was central in
adolescent conversions.1 He came still closer to the problem
when he found imitation, example, etc., presenjt as motives in 15
per cent, of his cases.2 Nevertheless, a moment's reflection
upon the capacity of the average person to tell the truth re-
garding his own motives will reveal some insecurity in these
results and bring up the whole question of the best method &f
getting at the facts. Another clue emerged in Starbuck's ad-
mission that < much depends upon temperament.'3 Yet this
clue has never been followed up. In fact, this same writer,
commenting on some of his cases, confesses that some religious
experiences < seem to come in the most unaccountable ways.'4
Now, I venture to believe that, if we could secure sufficiently
full information as to the conditions, every one of these cases
could be accounted for.

The present study, accordingly, is an attempt at a more
complete analysis of individual cases than has heretofore been
attempted. If we can lay bare the factors in a few cases that
are fully accessible, the information thus acquired may after-
ward be of service in interpreting the broader differences of
sects and religions. To forestall misunderstandings, it may be
well to state at this point that the phrase ' the dynamics of per-
sonal religion ' is not intended to convey, and cannot properly
convey, any metaphysical meaning. The problem concerns the
concomitance of certain groups of phenomena and nothing more.
The question of divine influences in the mind of man and in his-
tory must stand in exactly the same position at the end of such
a study as it does at the outset. Any one who prefers to do so
is at liberty to interpret every result as a description of the mode
of God's working in the world. Nothing in the study itself has
any logical tendency to undermine this belief.

Our task consists in looking for coordinations between spe-
cific inner states and tendencies and specific external circum-

1 Am. J. Psy., VIII. , 292. *Am. J. Psy., IX., no.

2 Id., 281. *Id.,8i.

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 487

stances. We are confronted at the outset with the problem of
how to secure adequate data. In previous studies in the psy-
chology of religion reliance has been placed upon the question-
naire method, which consists in securing from many persons
written answers to printed questions regarding their experiences.
This is doubtless a satisfactory method of securing certain facts ;
but our inquiry calls also for information which the writers of
such papers ordinarily do not and cannot possess. Accordingly,
my question list was so constructed and the answers so used as
to make the latter not merely a record of certain facts, but also
a reflection of the personality of the writer. These answers
were also supplemented in various ways : First, personal inter-
views were had with a large proportion of the persons examined.
The cross-questioning which these interviews made possible not
only cleared up doubtful points in the papers, but also elicited
many new and important facts. Second, a large proportion of
the subjects were placed under careful scrutiny by myself and
others, with a view to securing objective evidence as to tempera-
ment. These observations were guided by a carefully prepared
scheme of temperamental manifestations. Third, interviews,
based upon the same scheme, were had with friends and ac-
quaintances of certain of the persons under examination.
Finally, in order to get at the facts of suggestibility, hypnotic
experiments were made upon all the important cases that were
accessible. Fuller description of some of these methods of
gathering data will appear later.

The number of persons examined was 74. Of these, 50 were
males, and 24 females. Nearly all are college students who
are healthy in both mind and body and have had the advantage
of positive moral and religious training. Nearly all are just
past, or are just passing out of, the adolescent period. The
average age of the men was 24.7, and of the women (one case,
65 years of age being excluded), 22. Though this narrows
the range of observation of temperament chiefly to the forma-
tive years, it brings these compensating advantages : the near-
ness of the chief religious experiences, the habit of introspec-
tive analysis specially characteristic of adolescence; and the
na'ive and spontaneous expression of personal facts. Again, a

GEORGE ALBERT COE.

large majority of the subjects were brought up under the influ-
ence of the Methodist Church, which lays great stress upon
personal religious experiences. The opportunity to study the
effects of suggestion was therefore excellent. In general, in
spite of some limitations of the field of observation, the differ-
ences in both type of religious experience and type of mental
organization were many and great. The accessibility of the
material, moreover, and the opportunity to observe, ask ques-
tions and experiment repeatedly — these easily outweigh all the
limitations. It is, indeed, not easy to see how a more satisfac-
tory set of cases could be secured.

Let us now turn to the variations in religious experience
from individual to individual. The chief one, and the one
with which this study is occupied, is in the degree of abrupt-
ness of religious changes. One person reaches a higher plane
of the religious life by a process of development scarcely ruffled
by excitement ; another attains the same state by passing through
a mental cataclysm. Some elements of the explanation lie on
the surface. For instance, the striking changes occur chiefly
among denominations that definitely aim to secure them. Fur-
thermore, these denominations have discovered many of the
conditions favorable for producing such changes, such as a par-
ticular type or particular types of preaching and appeal ; the
use of music, particularly of certain kinds ; intense social feel-
ing fostered by meetings ; the provision of external acts, signs
or instruments — such as rising for prayers or to indicate de-
cision, going forward, the altar, the mourners' bench — all of
which evoke expression of the inner state and thereby intensify
it ; and, finally, the fitting of all the conditions together so as to
produce a climax or a series of climaxes. What we need to
determine next is the mental mechanism to which all this ap-
peals, and also the reason why it fails of its result in many
cases in which the conditions give hope of success. For it is a
matter of everyday knowledge in revival churches that of two
persons brought up in the same manner, and apparently meet-
ing the same conditions, one may experience a brilliant conver-
sion, while the other may experience no such states at all.

In order to secure definite ground for an hypothesis on this

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 489

point, the persons under examination were divided into two
groups : those who had experienced a marked transformation,
and those who had not. The fact that religious changes show
all degrees of rapidity and of emotional intensity made it neces-
sary to draw this line with great care. In every case, there-
fore, which the papers left in doubt, a personal interview was
had. Striking transformation was defined to the subject as a
profound change, which, though not necessarily instantaneous,
seems to the subject of it to be distinctly different from a pro-
cess of growth, however rapid. As soon as the subject grasped
this definition, he was requested to classify himself, and his de-
cision was accepted as final.

In the second place, a cross division was made on the basis
of predisposition of the mind toward such experiences. Let us
call this basis ' expectation of transformation.' A careful study
was made of the home influences, the general church environ-
ment and the specific circumstances surrounding the religious
awakening. Here, again, much had to be drawn out by personal
interviews. A considerable number of the subjects had been
taught that one who has been religious from childhood does not
need a marked conversion. Others indicated that their thoughts
were never turned strongly in the direction of conversion. All
such were classed as not expecting a transformation.

Combining these two modes of division we secure two posi-
tive classes for minute study — those who expected a transforma-
tion and experienced one, and those who expected, but failed
to experience. In the working out of this scheme a third division
was found necessary in order to tabulate cases in which these two
classes overlap ; for a number of persons who experienced a
marked transformation were unsatisfied and sought for some-
thing more without securing it, while others were satisfied, but
sought for a still higher experience in vain.

To do justice to the case, it is necessary to note the caution
that was exercised in making the classes. For example, in the
class of those who expected but failed to experience there are
included none who did not distinctly declare that they sought
an experience without finding. Most, if not all, of them had
subsequently learned how to be religious in spite of this disap-

49° GEORGE ALBERT COE.

pointment, yet the struggle in a large proportion of the cases
had been acute.

From theology the suggestion may come that possibly these
persons did not really surrender themselves to God. But an
a -priori assertion, or rather guess, like this ought to have little
weight as against the following : All the evidence of the facts
goes to show that those who were disappointed had put them-
selves in the same attitude of will as the others : furthermore, a
large majority of the disappointed ones are now living positively
religious lives in the evangelical sense of religious.

These two classes were next examined with respect to tem-
perament. This was a laborious and perplexing undertaking,
both on account of the unsatisfactory treatment of temperament
by writers on psychology, and because of the complexity of the
facts to be observed. It is easy for any psychologist to give
a classification of temperaments that can be brilliantly illus-
trated from history, but it is quite another thing to devise a
method for [grouping the persons one comes in contact with.
At the present day two classifications are employed. The first,
represented by Wundt1 and many followers, is based upon the
fact that one's mental processes may vary in both rapidity
and strength. This basis yields four temperaments which
correspond fairly well with the traditional fourfold division.
The rapid-strong temperament corresponds to the choleric, the
rapid-weak to the sanguine, the slow-strong to the melancholic,
and the slow-weak to the phlegmatic. On the other hand,
French writers for the most part adopt a qualitative basis — that is,
classify according to the faculty or function that predominates.
This is true of Ribot,2 Queyrat,3 Levy4 and Fouillee.5 Perez,
however, retains liveliness and intensity as the basis.6 This is
not the place to discuss the general topic of temperament, nor to
go into the merits and defects of these two plans of classifica-

1 Grundzuge der Phys. Psy., Leipzig, 1893, II., Sigff. See also Lotze :
Microcosmus, Vol. II., Bk VI., Ch. II.; and Ladd : Els. Phys. Psy., N. Y.,
1897, 572ff.

2 Psy. of the Emotions, London, 1897, 388ff.
* Les Caracteres, Paris, 1896, 36ff.

*Psy. du Caractere, Paris, 1896, i82ff.

6 Temperament et Caractere, Paris, 1895, 2off.

6 Le Caractere, Paris, 1892.

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 491

tion. It is sufficient to remark that a practical scheme must
provide at least a fairly definite mode of describing any and
every person whose individuality is sufficiently marked to be
noticeable at all.

Wundt's scheme was first employed, but it quickly proved
itself inadequate to give a genuine characterization of many
distinctly marked individualities. This was especially true
when Wundt's classes were interpreted as if they were identical
with the traditional four temperaments. The qualitative plan
was next tried ; but, while it supplemented the other, it proved
inadequate taken by itself. In the interest of a workable
scheme, therefore, it was found necessary to combine the two
modes of division. The result was not a new classification of
temperaments, but what we may call a scheme of the constitu-
ents of temperament. The mode of procedure now consisted,
first, of judging whether sensibility, intellect or will was the
most prominent faculty ; next, of finding the second in promi-
nence ; then of estimating the place of each of the three
faculties in respect to promptness and intensity. For each sub-
ject, in the end, there were three descriptive designations, as,
for example, prompt-intense intellect, prompt-weak sensibility,
prompt-weak will ; and these three were arranged in the order
of prominence.

The sources of evidence for temperament were the same as
those employed by the writers just named, namely, permanent
modes of action, of speech and of point of view ; permanent
interests; likes and dislikes; habitual social interactions, etc.,
whether observed and recorded by the subject himself or by
other persons. The data were secured by the following meth-
ods : First, by inserting in the question list a number of ques-
tions concerning likes and dislikes, laughter and weeping,
anger and its effects, habits of introspection, moods, prompt-
ness or its opposite in decisions, ideals, the effects of excite-
ment, habits with respect to physical activity, etc. A particu-
larly fruitful interrogation was the following: "If you were
obliged to spend a whole day alone, felt at perfect liberty to
follow your inclinations and had the means to do so, what
would you do? " At no point in the questions was temperament
or disposition mentioned.

49 2 GEORGE ALBERT COE.

The second method was by observation of the general tone
of the papers. The question list, it may be remarked, was
very lengthy. It included approximately 200 specifications, all
planned with reference to the evoking of memories rather than
the securing of categorical replies. Its length precludes its
presentation here. The responses were correspondingly ex-
tended, and not the least remarkable thing about them was the
amount of information they imparted between the lines. It was
obvious that they were not merely a record of phenomena, but
also a body of original phenomena. Sometimes what they
purported to be as a record had to be offset by what they were
as new facts. Thus, in response to the question, ' Do your
friendships last?' nearly every writer gave an affirmative an-
swer. Here it is probable that the ideal of the writers rather
than their actual experience comes to expression. These an-
swers have value, therefore, as evidence of the nature of the
social instinct, but hardly as evidence of actually existing social
relations. Occasionally the manner of responding to a ques-
tion revealed more than did the content of the response. In-
tellectual interest stood out in one, strenuous seriousness or
passionate earnestness in another, while the chattiness of a third
revealed a type of impressionability strongly contrasted with
both.

A third method was by objective observation and interviews,
as already described. The scheme of questions underlying this
part of the investigation was also extended. It included, among
other topics, the following : The habitual state of the muscles,
particularly the face, whether tense or relaxed ; one's carriage
and motions, whether quick, jerky, irregular, or more slow,
free and pendulum-like ; one's mode of speech and the quality
of the voice ; the expression of the eyes, and any other signs
that show whether the subject is wide-awake to his surround-
ings; whether one is more given to the reception of impressions
or to active effort to control surroundings ; readiness to laugh
and cry ; specific manifestations of anger ; characteristic moods ;
persistency ; social self-assertiveness of various types ; intel-
lectual habits ; religious habits.

The data obtained by all these methods were compared, and

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 493

thus the final judgment was based upon a really wide range of
facts. Furthermore, in most cases, independent judgments
were formed by different observers, and these judgments were
finally checked off against one another. As soon as a definite
and comprehensive mode of procedure was discovered, the facts
began to fall into place with the sort of inevitableness that in-
spires confidence in one's method. The amount of agreement
reached by observers independently of one another was another
evidence of the trustworthiness of the method. If the lack of
precision and of quantitative determinations should seem to im-
pair the value of the results, two considerations might be offered
in defence. The first, is that all the knowledge of temperament
possessed by biographers and historians and by literary work-
ers, and nearly all that possessed by psychologists themselves,
has been gathered by methods analogous to this, though rarely,
if ever, by methods so systematic and comprehensive. The
other consideration is that this manner of learning men is one
of the bases of the world's successful business. Indeed, a large
part of the practical interests of life hang upon our ability so to
observe temperamental manifestations as to be able to predict
the general quality of one's reactions in different sets of cir-
cumstances. Of course, this is not a sphere in which claims to
scientific infallibility become even plausible ; nevertheless, the
thorough and systematic analysis employed may fairly entitle
the results to some degree of confidence.

The temperamental classification of the members of the three
groups concerning whom adequate information was obtainable
yields the results shown in the table on the next page.

The most marked contrast in this table concerns the relation
of the two main groups to intellect and sensibility. Where expec-
tation is satisfied, there sensibility is distinctly predominant ; but
where expectation is disappointed, there intellect is just as dis-
tinctly predominant. To appreciate the strength of this conclu-
sion, it will be well to remind ourselves once more of the range
of facts upon which it is based. In only three cases in Group
I. and one case in Group II. was it necessary to rely solely
upon the subject's paper. A second interesting result is that
those whose expectation is satisfied belong almost exclusively

494

GEORGE ALBERT COE.

to the slow-intense and prompt-weak varieties, the tempera-
ments approaching most nearly those traditionally known as the
melancholic and the sanguine. On the other hand, those whose
expectation is disappointed belong more largely to the prompt-
intense variety, or the choleric temperament ; though the distri-
bution between the choleric, melancholic and sanguine is not

RELATION OF STRIKING TRANSFORMATION TO TEMPERAMENT.

Sensi-
bility
Predom-
inant.

Intellect
Predom-
inant.

Will
Predom-
inant.

Prompt-
Intense.

Slow-
Intense.

Prompt-
Weak.

Slow-
Weak.

GROUP I. — 17 per-

s o n s who e x-

pected a trans-

formation and

experienced it...

12

2

3

i

6

8

2

GROUP II. — 1 2 who

expected but did

not experience...

2

9

i

7

3

2

GROUP III. — 5

others who be-

long to both the

above classes

2

2

I

markedly uneven. Again, comparing the two main groups
with respect to promptness and intensity, each by itself, we find
that, on the whole, Group II. exceeds Group I. in both prompt-
ness and intensity. Finally, some slight confirmation of the
representative character of these results is found in the hetero-
geneity of the cases in Group III. The full significance of
these results concerning temperament, however, will not appear
until we have examined the same subjects with respect to au-
tomatisms and suggestibility.

Careful inquiry was made, both in the question list and by
personal cross-questioning, for evidence of mental and motor
automatisms. The inquiry divided itself into these heads :
striking dreams in connection with religious awakenings ; hal-
lucinations in connection with religious transformations ; hal-
lucinations occurring at other times ; motor automatisms oc-
curring at the time of religious transformation, and similar
automatisms occurring at other times. The purpose of the
inquiry did not make it necessary to render these various classes

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 495

rigorously precise. Accordingly, when it was difficult to de-
cide whether a given phenomenon was to be classed as a dream
or as a hallucination, I followed the impression of the subject.
If he insisted that he was awake at the time, the experience was
classed as a hallucination. Similarly, the group of motor
automatisms contains some cases that fall near the boundary
line. But, in general, it is believed that the list which follows
is a full and substantially accurate census. It contains all the
facts of these classes discovered in the entire investigation.
Striking dreams in connection with religious awakening:

Dreamed of being cast into hell. Suffered all the torments
of the damned that he had ever heard about.

Dreamed of being cast out of heaven.

Dreamed of a heavenly procession which he could not join.

Dreamed of taking an examination of fitness to go to heaven.
Hallucinations in connection with religious transformation:

Streaks of light shone down.

A somewhat bright, diffused light just above the eyes ; oc-
curred twice.

Seemed to observe the joy in heaven.

Saw a vision of the broad way and of the narrow way, with
many persons in the former and few in the latter.
Motor automatisms at time of religious transformation :

Uncontrollable laughter for fully five minutes.

A powerful thrill through the whole body.

Sudden clapping of hands before any change of feeling
came.

Tobacco habit broken without effort or even seeking.
Other hallucinations :

Saw a light spring up from a tomb in a cemetery.

Used to hear his name spoken when he was about to com-
mit some sin.

Had just retired after private devotion. Saw a dim, diffused
light above the eyes.

Was touched by an absent friend.

Saw a dog that was not there.

Heard deceased grandfather's voice.

Heard mother's voice when she was far away.

496 GEORGE ALBERT COE.

Heard the voice of a friend.

Felt the presence of an absent friend. It seemed to be an
objective fact and not a mere impression.

Heard music different from any he had ever listened to.

Heard angels sing.

In the midst of a public speech twice saw a scene he was
describing.

Childhood fear of the dark has persisted. The feeling
that a fiend is just behind and ready to spring upon him some-
times becomes so intense that self-control becomes impossible.

An inner voice which expresses approval at times of per-
plexity by saying, " Fear not, I am with you."

God tells her where things are that she is looking for. Also
tells her things before they come to pass.

Voices and visions just before sleeping at night. Has often
gone to the window or out of doors to see where the music
came from.

Up to age of thirteen used every night to see figures in the
room.

When praying had a vision of an absent friend who gave
just the information that was desired.

Waked one night and saw a great luminous eye in the ceil-
ing : thought it was God's eye.
Other motor automatisms :

Automatic laughter.

At times something very holy seems to be dictating his
thoughts.

Has always felt himself under two influences : one good and
one bad, and neither of them any part of himself.

Surprising and incomprehensible outburst of defiance to God
at age of about ten or twelve years ; shook fist at the sky and
told God he hated him.

"The Holy Spirit often fills me so that I feel light, and it's
no trouble to walk and not feel tired." (A lady well advanced
in years.)

Talking, singing, whistling to one's self. This seems, at
times, to become an automatic, sub-conscious performance. A
parent affected in the same way sometimes lets out secrets by
this means.

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 497

Let us now ask how these phenomena, exclusive of the dreams,
are distributed among the different sets of cases. Of eighteen
persons in Group I., eight have had either hallucinations or
motor automatisms ; of the five persons in Group III., four have
had similar experiences. Hence of twenty-three persons who
have had a striking religious transformation, twelve have also
exhibited these automatic phenomena. But of the twelve per-
sons in Group II., who sought a striking religious transformation
in vain, only one has had either a hallucination or a motor
automatism.

The total number of persons examined with respect to autom-
atisms was seventy-four. Of these, nineteen had exhibited
such phenomena; but twelve of these nineteen persons are
found in Groups I. and III. — that is, one-sixth of the entire
number of persons examined embrace two-thirds of the cases of
automatisms. Putting these results in the form of percentages,
we get the following :

General average of automatisms for 74 persons, 25^ per cent.

Average for those who have experienced a

striking religious transformation, . 52 "

Average for those who sought such a transfor-
mation in vain, . . . . . 8^ "
In other words, the average for those who had a striking relig-
ious transformation is twice as high as the general average, and
six times as high as the average for those who sought such a
transformation in vain.

If the general average of automatisms seems rather exces-
sive, the following explanatory circumstances should be borne
in mind : First, motor automatisms are included along with hal-
lucinations. Secondly, nearly all the persons examined were too
young to have forgotten such experiences. Thirdly, the cross-
questioning already described brought out a number of facts
not elicted by the questionnaire, and not likely to be elicited by
a census of hallucinations conducted by correspondence alone.
Finally, it now becomes obvious that the high general average
depends upon the -presence of a relatively large number of per-
sons who have experienced striking religious transformations.
The results are so unequivocal that interpretation is unnec-

498 GEORGE ALBERT COE.

essary. It may be worth while to add, however, that in two
cases of motor automatism occurring at the time of religious
transformation there was clear evidence of a congenital tendency
to such performances. In both cases a parent had exhibited a
similar automatism under similar religious conditions. In a
third case it was possible to identify a phenomenon as probably
automatic through a similar but more pronounced phenomenon
in a parent. One case of hallucination was likewise clearly
referable to congenital tendencies. Three of these four cases of
congenital proclivity belong in Group I. Furthermore, to Groups
I. and III. belong nearly, if not quite, all the persons who have
experienced the healing of disease by faith, those who have
received remarkable assurance of answered prayer in advance
of the event, and those who reported other veridical premoni-
tions. The conclusion is that the mechanism of striking relig-
ious transformations is the same as the mechanism of our
automatic mental processes.

There remains for study the relative suggestibility of the
three groups. At first thought, this seems to be a simple prob-
lem of more and less. But it is neither simple nor merely
quantitative. Indeed, the qualitative varieties of suggestibility
are quite as marked and quite as important as the ' suggestibil-
ity and non-suggestibility' which chiefly figure in the literature of
suggestion. It must have struck many experimenters as a strange
incident that, whereas persons of sound body and trained mind
make excellent subjects, most of the literature represents suggesti-
bility as identical with relative prominence of the lower centers.
The fact seems to be that some persons are easily hypnotized, not
because the higher rational centers are undeveloped, but pre-
cisely because the high development of these centers, — the
habit of prompt concentration of voluntary attention, — makes it
possible to follow the suggestions of the operator with precision.
Moll remarks that the ability to direct one's thoughts in any
particular direction is favorable to hypnosis, but that this ability
is usually considered to be a sign of strength of will.1 As the
persons under examination in the present part of our study are,
perhaps without exception, healthy, and as all have had con-

1 Hypnotism, London, 1895, 40.

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 499

siderable mental training, it will be seen that ready response to
suggestion cannot be regarded as an unambiguous sign. The
experimentation was begun under the tentative hypothesis that
auto-suggestion might possibly account in part for the failure
of persons in Group II. to secure the desired experiences. The
problem then became whether external suggestion was more
prominent in Group I. and auto-suggestion in Group II.

The problem may be more precisely put by distinguishing
between passive suggestibility and spontaneous auto-suggestion.
The necessity of thus stating the distinction grows out of the
ease of misunderstanding certain phenomena, particularly those
commonly described as < resisting the operator's suggestion.'
Thus, if a subject struggles to open his eyes when I tell him
that he cannot do so, this is no evidence of spontaneity. For
the very assertion, in the early stages of hypnosis, that the eyes
cannot open is a challenge to try ; it is a double suggestion.
This was exquisitely demonstrated upon one of my subjects.
For some time I had tried in vain to close the eyes by making
the usual passes and giving the usual suggestions of drowsiness,
etc. At last the subject, who was apparently wide awake, de-
clared that she could not close them and keep them closed.
Catching at this hint, I suddenly remarked, " You cannot close
them ! " They immediately clapped shut with every appearance
of doing it automatically. In another case in which the usual
suggestions seemed to have little or no effect, the subject was
instructed to keep his eyes closed voluntarily for a while ; but
his eyes opened very soon, and did so repeatedly. He finally
declared that it seemed as if he could not keep them closed. In
two other cases it was found that a previously formed conviction
on the part of the subjects that they were suggestible had tended
to make them appear more passive than they really were.

What was looked for, then, was evidence of spontaneity or
originality, rather than mere readiness of response or its opposite.
An illustration or two will make this clear. To one subject I
declared that his outstretched arm was rigid and could not move.
The arm immediately stiffened out, but began a series of incipi-
ent up-and-down motions. This was clearly a product of my
own suggestion, as were also, perhaps, the sympathetic writh-

500 GEORGE ALBERT COE.

ings of the body and contortions of the face. The cataleptic
arm was the right one. Presently the left arm was raised and
began to push down on the right one, evidently in an effort to
lower it. Failing in the effort, the left arm itself now became
cataleptic, and could not lower itself. Here the evidence of
spontaneous auto-suggestion is unmistakable. Contrast this,
now, with another case in which a suggestion was given that
an arm was cataleptic. Certain incipient responses to the chal-
lenge were made as before ; but they ceased in a few seconds,
while the face and the rest of the body expressed little or no
interest in what was going on.

Let us compare two other cases that are less striking, and
yet unambiguous. In both, passes in front of the eyes and
suggestions of heavy eyelids, etc., meet with very slow response,
so slow that I finally close the lids with my fingers. If, now, I
say " Your eyes are closed tight; you cannot open them," both
subjects open their eyes. Similarly, they can unclasp their
hands, and the like, whenever they are challenged to try. Thus
far the two cases correspond point for point. But if, after
closing the eyes, I leave the subjects alone, avoiding, as far as
possible, the giving of further suggestions, a decided difference
presently appears. One of the subjects sits with closed eyes for
an indefinite length of time — that is, shows no initiative ; but the
other, as often as the experiment is repeated, spontaneously
opens his eyes after a short interval.

Such experimentation resulted in separating the cases ac-
cording to two fairly well-marked types. In respect to readi-
ness of response to hypnotic suggestion the two types do not
seriously differ. Under both types fall cases in which the re-
sponse was almost immediate, and also cases in which it was
very slow. But the behavior under suggestion was decidedly
different. Let us call the two types the passive and the spon-
taneous. Under the former belong those who take no decided
or original part in the experiment. Their response to external
suggestion may not be very pronounced, but they initiate noth-
ing after once they have begun to yield. Under the spontane-
ous type belong, on the other hand, the few who appear to be
non-suggestible and those who, while responding to suggestion,

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 501

take a more or less original part by adding to the experiment or
by waking themselves up.

Comparing Groups I., II. and III. with respect to this point,
we find certain plain differentiations. To begin with, as might
be expected, nearly all the persons who have experienced any
of the mental or motor automatisms already described are ' pas-
sives.' Thirteen such persons were experimented upon, arid, of
these, ten clearly belonged to the passive type. This fact makes
it appear that the two types here described are substantially
parallel with those sifted out by certain experiments at Harvard
University.1

A few cases were not accessible for purposes of experiment.
The numbers experimented upon in the two groups were respec-
tively 14 and 12. All the persons in Group III. were experi-
mented upon. The results are as follows : In general, the line
between Groups I. and II. coincides with that between the pas-
sive and the spontaneous types, though apparent exceptions
exist, and though the interpretation of the facts is not equally
clear in all cases. Of the 14 cases in Group I. (persons who
expected a striking transformation and experienced it), 13 are
of the passive type. Of the 12 persons in Group II. (expecta-
tion disappointed) 9 clearly belong to the spontaneous type, i
is entirely passive and 2 are open to some doubt. Of the 5
persons in Group III. (striking experience, yet disappointed), 2
are passive and 3 spontaneous.

The nature of the evidence may be further illustrated and
the conclusion still further strengthened by reference to the
negative and doubtful cases. The one case in Group I. that is
not clearly passive is the one first mentioned on a preceding
page in illustration of the double character of many verbal sug-
gestions. This case is probably a passive one, therefore ;
though not so counted in the above figures. Another member
of this group seemed for some time to be an exception to the
general rule. She had had three striking experiences, and yet
was apparently not suggestible. One day, however, mention
having been made in the class in psychology of pain induced
in a tooth by imagining a dental operation, she soon felt a tooth-

1 Cultivated Motor Automatism, by Gertrude Stein, PSY. REV., V., 2951*.

502 GEORGE ALBERT COE.

ache. It became intense and lasted for three or four hours, the
face meantime becoming sore and apparently swollen. This
settled the question of passive suggestibility. Turning, now, to
the negative and doubtful cases in Group II., we find that the
one clearly negative case is one that stands on the border be-
tween Groups I. and II. This subject had more difficulty in
classifying himself than any other one in either group. Again,
of the two cases scheduled as doubtful, one is the only case in
this entire group in which any form of mental or motor automa-
tism was discovered. Nevertheless, the case remains ambigu-
ous ; for, though external suggestions are accepted with every
sign of passivity, the subject has heretofore practised auto-sug-
gestion, even to the extent of curing toothache and other minor
pains thereby. His present passivity, therefore, may be partly
or wholly due to training. By way of parenthesis it may be
remarked that each subject was questioned as to whether he had
ever been hypnotized or had ever witnessed hypnotic experi-
ments, and his reactions were judged according to his replies.

The correlation between one's religious experience and one's
type of suggestibility was sometimes found to be curiously com-
plete. Here, for example, is a subject whose response to passes
and suggestions of drowsiness is not prompt; yet when the re-
sponse comes it simply plumps itself. The subject is now very
passive. In response to a suggestion, an arm quickly becomes
cataleptic ; but, in the midst of the experiment, something hav-
ing incidentally appealed to the subject's interest, he sponta-
neously opens his eyes and appears to be completely out of the
hypnosis. This man was converted at the age of sixteen, with
marked manifestations. His whole being was thrilled with joy,
and he had what he regarded as the witness of the Spirit. But
from seventeen to nineteen he endured terrible storm and stress,
in which he sought in vain to recover his original status. He
finally settled down to the conviction that we are children of
God in our deeds and thoughts rather than in our particular
moods and feelings.

A still more remarkable parallel is as follows : Response
very prompt; lids clapped shut and trembled. At the sugges-
tion that they could not open, they quickly opened. The re-

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 503

mark was then made that perhaps the lids would not close so
promptly next time. The suggestion worked, for now it required
many passes to shut the eyes. The arm refused to become cata-
leptic ; but when I began to breathe deeply and slowly, as if
asleep, the subject's head promptly began to fall forward ; and
it continued downward until it rested on the breast. The sub-
ject was now apparently in a deep sleep ; but after awhile a
spontaneous awakening occurred. He was re-hypnotized and
told that he could not pronounce his name ; a gentle struggle
ensued and lasted for a considerable time, but the effort was not
given up until the name was successfully pronounced. The
characteristics here are initial passivity followed after a while
by decided spontaneity. This exactly describes the subject's
religious experiences also. On two different occasions, after
earnestly seeking for a marked experience, he happened to notice
some incidental thing in his environment that he took to be a
divine token. Immediately he experienced great exaltation ;
his heart's desire seemed to be realized ; but after a few days
the emotion waned, and reaction setting in pronounced a severe
verdict upon the whole performance.

In order to appreciate the weight of these results concern-
ing the relation of suggestibility to religious transformations, it
will be necessary to notice once more the principle upon which
cases were classed in Group II. This group contains no case
in which there was not a distinct effort to obtain an experience
that never came. Now, of the 74 persons examined, there are
many whose training and environment were equally adapted to
induce expectation and seeking, but did not do so. It is there-
fore probable that spontaneous auto-suggestion prevented expec-
tation in some as it prevented the fulfillment of expectation in
others. Hence, the sphere in which it plays a decisive role is
undoubtedly much larger than the numerical proportions seem
to indicate.

Moreover, no statistical display can do justice to facts of this
sort. For not only must the numbers express in some degree
one's interpretation of facts, and not merely the bare facts them-
selves, but the qualities with which we are dealing are too pro-
found and pervasive to be expressed in any simple formula.

504 GEORGE ALBERT COE.

The whole style of one's mental organization is involved. It is
safe to say that any observer of human nature would perceive
the propriety of setting off Groups I. and II. from each other.
The personalities in each group taken by itself are relatively
alike, while the two groups are clearly different from each
other. Psychology merely renders this obvious difference more
precise by saying that the difference is one of temperament and
of a more or less spontaneous attitude toward environment.

It has been shown that three sets of factors favor the attain-
ment of a striking religious transformation — the temperament
factor, the factor of expectation, and the tendency to automa-
tisms and passive suggestibility*. Let us, in conclusion, note the
effect of combining these three factors. Of 10 cases in which
there is expectation of a marked transformation, together with
predominance of sensibility and passive suggestibility, the num-
ber whose expectation was satisfied was 9; but of n cases of
such expectation, together with predominance of intellect or of
will, and with spontaneous auto-suggestion, not one was satis-
fied. These numbers include cases from Group III. as well as
from Groups I. and II.

If our groups seem to contain rather few cases, it should be
remembered that a problem of this kind requires relatively com-
plete knowledge of a few cases rather than an item or two of
knowledge regarding many cases. Our procedure must neces-
sarily consist in a gradual narrowing down of the range of
cases, together with increasing minuteness of scrutiny in each
case. As a matter of fact, we have approached about as closely
to the strict method of experiment as the subject permits. The
factors are so definitely identified that prediction becomes safe
wherever either of the two combinations just mentioned is found
present. Given three factors, the fourth — the general character
of one's religious experiences — can be predicted with a high
degree of probability.

It is supposed by many that striking transformations in the
affective life are reserved for those who have been great sin-
ners. The idea seems to be that an abrupt transition from moral
badness to moral goodness naturally carries great emotional
disturbances with it. And doubtless such circumstances do tend

DYNAMICS OF PERSONAL RELIGION. 505

to intensify whatever happens. But it does not at all appear
that these circumstances are the chief factors that determine the
degree of affective transformation at conversion ; for among the
cases belonging to Groups I. and III. there is only a meagre
sprinkling of persons who had ever been bad in anv very positive
sense. In fact, of the entire 23 persons, only 5^report having
experienced any sorrow for specific sins, and even Mien the sin
repented of was generally a bad temper or some similar in-
firmity. On the other hand, of 13 persons in Group II., all of
whom sought a striking transformation in vain, 3 also report
sorrow for specific sins.

In short, everything goes to show that the chief ^circumstances
favorable to these striking experiences are expectation, abun-
dance of feeling and passive suggestibility with its tendency to
automatisms. Shall we therefore conclude that conversion is
practically an automatic performance? By no means. What
has been proved is simply that when conversion or an equiva-
lent change takes place in one's moral attitude toward life and
destiny and God, it may clothe itself in certain emotional habili-
ments provided certain factors are present, but otherwise not.

" Would you cast the horoscope of a human life?" says Fouil-
lee. " It is not to be read in the constellations of the sky, but
in the actions and reactions of the interior astronomical system —
do not study the conjunction of the stars, but those of the
organs."1 Similarly, we may now add : Would you understand
the emotional aspects of religious experiences? Do not as-
cribe them to the inscrutable ways of God, but to ascertainable
differences in men's mental constitutions ; do not theorize about
divine grace, but study the hidden workings of the human
mind !

1 Temperament et Caractere, Paris, 1895, 88.

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS.
ATTRIBUTES OF SENSATION.1

I have the temerity to propose an attack upon the anomalous and,
as I think, indefensible position of the so-called attributes of sensation :
quality, intensity, extent and duration. Entrenched as it is behind
traditional opinion, I hold that the entire conception of attributes of
sensation is untenable, and this for two main reasons : first, because
sensation is an elemental fact of consciousness and as such, by defini-
tion, irreducible: second, because each so-called attribute may be
shown to be either itself an element of consciousness or a complex of
such elements.

I.

Of these two, the more general argument should first be con-
sidered. By common consent of the psychologists who treat of con-
sciousness from the analytic standpoint, sensations are unanalyzable
elements. Thus Wundt2 defines Empjindungen as " Zustande unseres
Bewusstseins welche sich nicht in einfachere Bestandtheile zerlegen
lassen" ; Ladd3 says definitely that ' simple sensations ' are " processes
of our sense-experience which we are unable in any way to regard as
composite or as analyzable into still more nearly ultimate factors";
Kiilpe* coordinates sensations with affections as "letzen Elemente
* * einer genauen Analyse" ; James5 observes that l ' sensation, so long
as we take the analytic point of view, differs from perception only in
the extreme simplicity of its object or content," and Titchener calls
sensations ' elemental conscious processes '6 and defines conscious ele-
ments as " mental processes which cannot be further analyzed, which
are absolutely simple in nature and which consequently cannot be re-
duced even in part to other processes."7

1 Read at the New York meeting of the American Psychological Association,
December, 1898.

2 Physiologische Psychologie, 4te Aufl., I., 281.

3 Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 92.

4 Grundriss der Psychologic, §3, Hi.

6 Principles of Psychology, V. II., p. i.
• Outline of Psychology, §7.
7O/. ciV., §4, p. 13.

506

ATTRIBUTES OF SENSATION. 507

Our next question concerns the nature of this analysis and its re-
sults. 'Element of consciousness' may mean the simplest concrete
experience, the least complex content of actual consciousness ; or it
may mean the simplest distinguishable, though inseparable, ingredient
of a given experience — a result of abstraction, an unanalyzable datum
of consciousness. It can be shown that this second more rigid sense
is that in which the word is used by those who treat psychology ana-
lytically. Thus Ladd is at pains to say that a " simple sensation is a
convenient abstraction of psychological science1 and definitely states
that " such elements are never to be regarded as actually separable by
analysis either from each other or from the state in which they are2
said to exist. * * * No psychologist * * * thinks of maintaining the
separate reality of the factors of mental life." Wundt's assertion is as
unequivocal:3 u Isolirt ist uns die einfache Empfmdung niemals ge-
geben, sondern sie ist die Resultat einer Abstraction." Similarly, Kiilpe
says distinctly:4 "Die seelischen Elementarphanomene [sind] stets
in irgend welcher Verschmelzung oder Verkniipfung mit anderen
wahrnehmbar. * * * Ein wirkliches Erleben nur einer einzigen Emp-
findung kommt nicht vor." And with equal decision, Titchener5
asserts that "the particular sensation, regarded apart from other sen-
sations is the product of scientific analysis, an abstraction of actual
mental experience."

By common admission, therefore, the sensation, so far as it is ana-
lytically treated as an element of consciousness, is not a concrete ex-
perience at all, but a result of abstraction, useful for purposes of close
observation and of scientific classification. It is certainly, then, an
apparent contradiction to speak of the element as having attributes, in
the ordinary meaning of attribute, which is just ' quality ' or 4 char-
acteristic/ The element is precisely that which cannot be further
reduced, characterized or qualified. Therefore, only the complex
phenomenon has attributes, and these turn out to be precisely the ele-
ments of which it is composed.

This objection to the ordinary doctrine of attributes has been
generally overlooked. Kiilpe, to be sure, says briefly:6 "Spite of
the qualitative simplicity* of the sensation, different attributes dis-
close themselves," and Schumann 7 in a recent contribution, ' Zur
Psychologie der Zeitanschauung,' observes that it is not securely set-

1 Op. cit., p. 92. « Op. cit., §3, 115.

2/Z>., p. 89. 6 Op. cit., §43.

3 Op. cit., L, 281. 6 Op cit., §4, Hi.

7 Zeitsch.f. Phys. und Psychol, der Sinnesorgane, XVII., I, p. 112.

5o8 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS.

tied (sicker festgestellt) "how we come to distinguish the attributes
of intensity, quality and temporal duration in the inseparable unity
(untrennbarer Einheit) of an auditory sensation ; " but these are cases
in which the contradiction is calmly faced and accepted. Titchener
proposes the following solution of the problem : "Although the sen-
sation," he says,1 "is an element of mind — /. £., a process which can-
not be split up into simpler processes — yet it has various aspects or at-
tributes— presents different sides, so to speak — each of which may be
separately examined by the psychologist." But the attribute, thus de-
fined, cannot be distinguished from the element by the fact that it
is presented to a psychologist and examined by him, for the same holds
as true of the sensation itself as of any attribute. And the question
at issue is precisely this : If the process really cannot be split up into
simpler processes, how does it happen to have more than one « side '
or ' aspect ' ?

In the essay from whose earlier pages we have already quoted,
Schumann seems to suggest2 another explanation of the difficulty.
He observes that the sensation, spite of its oneness (trotz ihrer
durchaus einheitlichen Natur'}, can call up distinct judgments of
intensity, quality, extent and duration. But in insisting upon the irre-
ducibleness of the sensation and in finding the diversity of the attri-
butes in the judgments about sensation, he is as untrue to introspection
as to traditional theory, for a sensation deprived of all its attributes
will itself vanish. As Kiilpe has it, " Die Empfindung ist nichts aus-
ser ihren Eigenschaften. Es bleibt kein Rest * * *." One may, of
course, make judgments about quality, intensity and extent ; but all
judgments are based, in their last analysis, on immediate conscious-
ness, and the attributes, in order to be judged about at all, must first
be immediately experienced.3

The only detailed justification, which I know, of the theory
of attributes, is contained in a discriminating paper, from which I
quote at length, by Dr. Ellen Talbot, on ' The Doctrine of Conscious
Elements.'4 " We have said," Miss Talbot remarks, " that when we
have resolved our mental facts into facts which are themselves irre-
solvable, our process of analysis is finished. This is true ; yet it would
not be correct to say that there is no further occasion for analysis.
There is need of a second process for the purpose of determining the

^Op.cit., §8, p. 29.

2 Op. tit., p. 131.

3 Op. cit., §4, Hi.

4 Philosophical Review, IV., p. 162.

ATTRIBUTES OF SENSATION. 509

properties of our elements * * * its various attributes, such as in-
tensity and quality. But this does not shake our faith in the validity
of our general criterion of ultimates, for this second analysis is in no
sense a continuation of the first process. * * * In the first analysis, we
passed successfully from one process to another, finding in each new
stage the explanation of the more complex one which preceded it.
When we have at length reached a process which we cannot explain
by any other process, our regress is finished, our element is discovered.
Whatever analysis may now be possible will be entirely distinct from
the first and will in no way affect its claim to be distinct."

The argument is ingenious, but misleading. Even if one grant
Miss Talbot's contention that sensations, on the one hand, and qualities
or intensities, on the other, are reached by different processes of an-
alysis, it still remains true that the results of that second analysis may
justly claim the title of i element' rather than that of 4 attribute.' But
the entire hypothesis of a second analysis shows itself, on closer scru-
tiny, to be baseless. It is probably derived from the false analogy
with an atom or with a chemical element, which, while physically and
chemically unanalyzable, is obviously characterized by psychic attri-
butes, such as weight and form, and color or odor. But just as a
chemical element is not further decomposable and reducible to chem-
ical attributes, so it is logically impossible that a psychic element
should lend itself to further psychological analysis.

Introspection bears out this a priori conclusion. The analysis
whose results are admitted to be elements of consciousness — that is, the
discrimination within a complex percept of distinct sensations and affec-
tions— does not differ noticeably from the analytic study of its hues, in-
tensities and forms, which, according to Miss Talbot, is a second sort
of analysis. But if this 4 second analysis' into attributes is indeed a
mere continuation of the first, into sensations, then these sensations
can no longer claim to be unanalyzable elements of consciousness.
The only escape from this position would be by a return to the re-
jected theory that c element' means, not an undistinguishable abstrac-
tion, but the simplest fact of real experience. In this case, however,
as has been suggested, analysis has already gone too far, for even the
combination of quality, intensity and extent which makes up a sensa-
tion, on the ordinary view, is an artificial abstract and not the simplest
of concrete mental experiences. If elements are to be defined, on this
principle, as the simplest factors of actual experience, then they can
include nothing more remote from reality than ideas or images and
emotions.

510 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS.

In truth, one cannot have it both ways : either the sensation has
attributes, but then it is a complex, no element and has lost its excuse
for psychological being ; or the sensation is an irreducible and unan-
alyzable element, but then its simplicity is absolute, not to be trifled
with, and not to be explained away by reference to any second process
of analysis into elements, which yet are not elements, but only l at-
tributes,' 4 aspects ' or something equally vague and meaningless.

II.

The conclusion that an element of consciousness cannot possess
attributes leaves untouched the question of the nature of the so-called
attributes. For, however misleading the colors under which they
sail, quality, intensity, extent and duration are nevertheless genuine
factors of our experience. If the traditional classification is rejected,
some other must be suggested in its place.

At the outset, duration must be sharply distinguished from its fel-
low-'attributes.' When it is said that sensations have quality, inten-
sity and — in some cases — extent, the meaning is, that to have the sen-
sation at all one must be immediately conscious of quality, intensity
and sometimes of extent. But we are not by any means always con-
scious of the duration of a given sensation ; on the other hand, we are
notoriously oblivious of the passage of time in much of our sense ex-
perience. And yet always, whether we are conscious of it or not, the
sensation has duration — that is, "it lasts a certain time."1 Duration
is not, therefore, an attribute, like the rest, by virtue of being a con-
stituent of sensation, but is, as it were a reflective attribute, what
Schumann calls a ''Beurtheilung der Dauer' 2 Moreover, duration,
even in this sense, is not a purely psychic attribute, but belongs to
physical as well as to conscious facts, and is in truth the characteristic
of all serial phenomena. Of course, duration, besides being later
predicated of an event of consciousness, may itself also be immediately
experienced ; and indeed such direct acquaintance is the basis of the
later prediction. But duration is, in this case, distinctly a complex
experience. Hoffding3 has analyzed it very acutely into the factors
of * change' and of fc connection.' Certainly it lacks the simplicity of
the attribute.

irntchener, op. cit., § 8, p. 30.

*Op. cit., p. 131. Schumann, curiously enough, treats all the attributes as
judgments called forth by the ' einheitliche Empfindungen,' ignoring the imme-
diateness of our experience of them.

3Eng. Tr. Outlines of Psychology, pp. 184-186.

ATTRIBUTES OF SENSATION. 511

Even the most ardent advocate of the traditional theory should,
therefore, reject * duration ' as an attribute of conscious elements, for
either it is an unpsychological attribute of phenomena in general, re-
flectively * added ' to the sensation, or else it is a complex psychic con-
tent. i Quality,' ' intensity ' and 'extent' must be differently treated.
They are ' attributes ' by virtue of being psychic contents, and if we
refuse them the name we must fit them into some other appropriate
corner of our psychological scheme.

The case of quality may be most readily considered, for already
the universal habit of classifying sensations according to quality1 and
the admission by most psychologists that quality is the most impor-
tant element have correctly suggested that quality is itself sensation.
Titchener goes further. Besides reproducing Kiilpe's description 2 of
quality as the l core or kernel of sensation ' 3 to which the other attri-
butes are referred as the duration, intensity and extent of a quality;
and, not content with calling quality the ' most important and funda-
mental ' 3 and the ' absolute ' 4 attribute, Titchener says definitely :8 "It
is quality which makes sensation an elemental conscious process."
More than this, in his paragraph on the * total number of elementary
sensations,'5 he states distinctly that each of these 40,000 qualities is a
conscious element, distinct from all the rest and altogether simple and
unanalyzable. This reduction of quality to sensation-element accords
with the plain results of introspection. Such 'qualities' as 'this
blue,' ' this pitch,' ' this warmness,' are surely distinguishable factors
of consciousness, though they are, of course, inseparable from certain
intensities and — in the case, at least, of the color and the warmness —
from certain extents. But if distinguishable, since they are also irre-
ducible, they are by definition elements of consciousness.

Nothing forbids a similar treatment of intensities as sensation ele-
ments ; but such a theory lacks even the virtual sanction of the author-
ities, and must, therefore, be more carefully considered. It appeals,
in the first instance, to ordinary self-observation. Does not introspec-
tion clearly reveal that complex, sensational experiences differ in in-
tensity as truly as they differ in quality ? A very soft sound of a given
pitch is as distinctly ' different,' though differently different, from a
loud tone of the same pitch, as two tones of the same intensity but of
discordant pitch. In the same way highly salted food differs unequiv-
ocally from that which is only slightly salted ; ' brightness ' as well as

*Ladd, Elements of Psychol., 356; Baldwin, Senses and Intellect, 85.
*0p. «V.,§4, 2. */*., p. 77.

3 Oj>. «VM p. 31. 6O/ «V., § 22, p. 67.

512 SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS.

•' blueness ' is a direct, distinguishable element in a visual sense experi-
ence ; and the loudness as well as the high C quality is a noticeable
constituent of the auditory content. Of course, the blueness is more
definitely named, more practically important and perhaps more affect-
ively toned, yet it is not more undeniably present, as a distinguishable
part of the experience.

To those who already virtually admit that ' quality ' is itself sensa-
tion, an additional introspective argument will be found in the relation
of intensity to quality in the visual series of greys. For here, as is
generally admitted, intensity and quality coincide ; a grey of lessened
intensity is a grey of a different shade. This seems to show so close
a relation between the two that the one may surely be treated as sen-
sational element, if the other is.

Three objections to this doctrine must be seriously considered.
The first lays stress upon the relative nature of intensity. " We esti-
mate intensity," Titchener says,1 u always by comparison with other
intensities. Our use of terms indicates this. c Blue ' means something
fixed and absolute, but < large ' is altogether relative and comparative."
This distinction, which must certainly be admitted, does not, however,
invalidate the claim of intensity to be regarded as an element of con-
sciousness. It is a fact that we have few names for intensities, partly
because there are so many of them shading almost imperceptibly into
each other, and partly because only the greater differences of intensity
are of practical concern to us through their connection with our emo-
tional experience or through their harmful effect on our bodies. But if
the possession of a name were the essential distinction of the ' quality '
from the 4 intensity/ then odors for the most part could no longer be
classed as qualities, since they notably belong to the group of the
unnamed. The relativity of intensities, though admitted in this sense,
does not, therefore, debar them from coordination with the qualities,
among the conscious elements.

It may be urged, in the second place, that intensity is too general a
characteristic to be classed as sense element ; that variations in degree
are common to colors, sounds, odors — indeed, to all sensations; and
that so common an attribute cannot itself be a sensational element of
consciousness. Now, granting the assertion that intensity is a pecu-
liarly ' general ' sort of conscious content, this means only that one
and the same sort of intensity accompanies all sorts of conscious ele-

1 Of. cit., § 26, pp. 77-78. This argument and those which follow are offered
by their author as proofs of the relative importance of quality, compared with
the other « attributes.'

ATTRIBUTES OF SENSATION. 513

ments, and this hypothesis is not inconsistent with the teaching that
intensity is a psychic element. This possibility need not, however, be
discussed, for introspection does not bear out the observation on which
it rests. Color intensities are not the same sorts of intensity as sound-
intensities. Parallel with the difference between color and pitch, there
is a difference between brightness * and loudness. So there is a differ-
ence between hardness — a pressure intensity — and the marked degree
of a given sweetness. Intensities are really, therefore, as individual as
qualities.

The last and most weighty argument remains. To quote again from
Titchener, no distinct "bodily process in a definite bodily end-organ
is connected with a sensation-intensity, since one and the same kind
of bodily process may * * * be more or less well-marked (in-
tensity of sensation) in different instances." Now to those who believe,
with the writer, that observed distinctness is the ultimate criterion of
psychological analysis, and that the discovery of assignable physio-
logical differences may strengthen and supplement, but never contra-
dict, the result of psychological analysis, this argument cannot be final,
even if one admit what it implies, that there are no characteristic
physiologic accompaniments of intensity. Such admission, however,
is unnecessary ; nor need we take refuge, to save our theory, in
the unverified hypothesis, that contents which differ in intensity are
conditioned by the excitation of different cortical layers. In truth, the
physiological correlate of intensity is as readily assigned as the physical
stimulus : amplitude of atmosphere or of ether-wave. Just as differ-
ences in the locality of nervous excitation correspond with differences
in sense-quality, so differences in the degree of physiological excita-
tion may correspond with differences in psychical intensity. Such dis-
tinctions of physiological intensity cannot, it is true, be connected with
definite conscious states after the manner in which ' sense centers ' —
that is, quality centers — have been localized, but undeniably they exist
and may be regarded as the physiological correlates of psychical in-
tensities.

Thus the objections to the sensation-character of intensity lose their
force, either because they involve unessential criteria of sensation or
through contradiction of the results of introspection. Intensities,
therefore, like qualities — loudnesses and brightnesses, like hues and
pitches — take their places among the distinguishable elements of
consciousness.

By almost precisely parallel arguments it might be shown that ex-

*In the sense 'color-intensity ' ; not in Titchener's sense ' grey.'

5H SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS.

tensity, if regarded from a nativistic point of view, is itself an element of
consciousness, whereas, to the empiricist, it is a complex of sensational
elements, chiefly motor. In either case there is nothing gained by
naming it 4 attribute ' of sensation. For if abstract irreducibleness and
distinctness be seriously maintained as the sole criteria of the psychic
element, analytic psychology has no place and no use for the ' attri-
bute ' of sensation.

MARY WHITON CALKINS.
WELLESLEY COLLEGE.

IS THE MEMORY OF ABSOLUTE PITCH CAPABLE OF
DEVELOPMENT BY TRAINING ?

The experiments the results of which I am going to report here
were made in Berlin during the time from March to October, 1895,
jointly by Dr. Victor Heyf elder and myself. I did not publish them
earlier, because I expected to make a complete investigation into
the memory of absolute pitch. After having given up this intention I
shall describe those experiments separately.

The theoretically important question is : whether human beings
are to be divided into two classes, one of them enjoying a memory of
absolute pitch, the other wanting it, or whether there is but a gradual
difference in memory of absolute pitch, some people needing more,
some less practice to obtain an equal facility.

Should the former be true, we would have to assume that the first
class possesses a physiological property, the lack of which prevents
the others from acquiring that mental faculty. But it would be very
difficult to say what kind of physiological property it might be.

In favor of the latter is the fact that everyone has a certain amount,
however small, of memory of absolute pitch, being able to recognize
and discriminate, e. g., the sounds of a violin and a bassviol merely
through the pitch.

Kries1 indeed will not grant that this already may be called a
memory of absolute pitch. But I do not see any reason for refusing
this name in any case where the individual is unable to determine the
pitch with an average error less than a certain interval, viz., a third.
That there is no such reason is proved by our experiments, which
show that individuals with not more memory of absolute pitch than
above described by systematical and sufficiently lasting practice may
be trained to meet the conditions of Kries. It may be mentioned

1 Zeitschrift fur Psychologic und Physiologic der Sinnesorgane, Vol. 3,
p. 257-279.

DEVELOPMENT BY TRAINING.

5 '-5

that the possibility of such training by Kries and many others has
been denied.

We used for our experiments tuning forks as well as a piano. In
both cases we named the pitches not by their musical names, but by their
vibration rates, a table of which we had lying before us. We began
with few pitches and from time to time added some new ones, as is to
be seen in the tables. Each tone was repeated as often as wished.

On the piano we began with 10 pitches at intervals of a sixth.
When the number of different pitches reached 20, the intervals were
major thirds ; when 39, whole tones.

TONE PRODUCED BY TUNING FORKS; MARCH TO MAY, 1895.

HEYFELDER.

MEYER.

Correct Judgments %.

83

78

70

56

75

71

67

59

Number of Judgments.

136

365

457

91

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The fractions give the relation of right to wrong cases.

TONE PRODUCED ON THE PIANO; JUNE TO OCTOBER, 1895.

Number of

HEYFELDER.

MEYER.

different
pitches.

Number of

Correct

Number of

Correct

judgments.

judgments %.

judgments.

judgments #.

10

69

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69

86

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46

72

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69

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61

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39

736

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736

60

SHORTER CONTRIBUTIONS AND DISCUSSIONS.

Even when we had the choice of 39 pitches, more than one-half of
our judgments were correct, and errors surpassing the neighboring
pitch on either side were quite rare.

We did not continue those experiments further, because the value
of the acquired facility did not seem to us to correspond to the expense
of time. Now, after several years have passed we have lost the greater
part of what we had acquired, by the want of continued practice.

MAX MEYER.
CLARK UNIVERSITY.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

Instinct and Reason, an Essay concerning the Relation of Instinct
to Reason, with some special Study of the Nature of Religion.
HENRY RUTGERS MARSHALL. New York and London, Macmil-
lans. Pp. vii + 574. $3.50.

This work presents a most ingenious and interesting hypothesis,
the fruit of fifteen years of special study and reflection, as to the rela-
tions and relative biological values of these two groups of mental proc-
esses. The work possesses a thorough-going quality, born of patience
and sincerity, found only in works produced in a similar manner. Its
first object was to present the conception of religion which it contains ;
but to this end it was necessary to treat of both instinct and reason, and
the discussion of religion assumes a subsidiary place.

The method of the work is ' objective.' Like the investigations
which resulted in the law of evolution, the method here subordinates
the inner to the outer, the psychic to the organic, and construes all
mental processes, even religion, in biological terms. The work accord-
ingly does not concern itself with questions of origin. The law of
evolution does not touch the question of origins, and is not a law of
progress except for those whose desires and impulses lead them so to
construe it. The empirical relations of instinct and reason, together
with their biological significance and value, are here in question ; and
these problems are to be studied by construing wide objective groups
of human and animal activities in the light of the biological doctrine
of evolution. We are studying throughout the work what may or
must be conceived, rather than what is — a task which, in all scientific
procedure, goes before the work of verifying and establishing, and
shades imperceptibly into it. The work presents something more than
an unusually suggestive working hypothesis.

The book is divided into five parts treating of introductory concep-
tions, instinct, impulse, reason and certain relations between instinct
and reason, respectively. First, as to method. While our point of
view is similar to that which an utter stranger to our planet might be
conceived to assume in order to arrive at some intelligible account of
human and animal conduct — a purely objective point of view ; never-
theless we are not far from the mental series at any time. The doc-

517

5*8 INSTINCT AND REASON.

trines that mind acts on body, that body -acts on mind, that both are
aspects of one fact (epiphenomenon theory), and that the two series of
events are simply parallel, are passed in review and criticized. Psychic
states constitute part of the conditions of processes in the motor centers
of the cortex, and we are forced to one or other of two conclusions —
either the psychic effect alters the sum-total of physical energy in the
brain (which cannot be accepted), or there is something psychic in all
causation. Our brain processes, moreover, constitute a group of
mental states within that larger group called objects of the outside
world, and it is between this small group within a group of mental
phenomena and the remainder of the content of consciousness that the
causal-interaction-theory asserts a causal relation. But this strange
hypothesis is not necessary : another — that of parallelism — is equally
tenable and serves our purpose well. This theory assumes a psychic
somewhat, which the author calls ' mentality,' coincident with each
neural activity within us. Where neural structures organize into a
system, and neural activities become continuous, mentality likewise
organizes into a system and becomes self-conscious. The psychic
phenomena of double consciousness, hypnotism, amnesia, and hysteria
are coincident with disintegrated neural systems. The Ego of psy-
chology is ' an unanalyzable whole, and part of consciousness': "the
ego and the field of inattention, therefore, would seem to be one and
the same thing, the differences in the application of the terms being
determined by differences in the point of view." Neural systems
organized under one preeminent system constitute the brain, and under
certain conditions may be functionally separated from their connection
with the preeminent system. The destruction of ' association fibers; '
the bearing of neuro-psychological rhythm, as developed differently in
different systems and at different times, upon the phenomena of normal
and disunited consciousness ; and the differences between this view and
the old ' mind-stuff theory,' are discussed in some detail. The discussion
of parallelism closes with a few brief but interesting metaphysical
suggestions in the form of questions. The entire chapter, although of
course not absolutely new, is vigorous and courageous.

The last discussion of Part I. takes up general definitions of in-
stinct, habit and reason. " Instincts are forces * * * which appear
in us because we are organisms ; * * * which are more or less thor-
oughly coordinated " (p. 68) . They have been acquired by the race
" because in the long run they have been, as they in general still are,
valuable to life under the conditions which normally arouse them."
(p. 7°)- Habits may be called pseudo-instincts which have been

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 519

learned, not inherited, by the individual. Reason, on the other hand,
is " that which leads us to adapt ourselves to new conditions, to guide
and change the actions which are determined by instinct, and is what
we may call the verdant factor in psychic life" (p. 70). Reason
covers intelligence — "we act intelligently when we would override
and vary the actions to which we are led by our organic instinct " (p.
80).

Part. II., Concerning Instinct. Instinctive actions are not dependent
in any degree upon our appreciation of the advantages they bring us ;
and we are here not concerned with the question as to how they orig-
inated. In any cell- aggregate two influences will always be opera-
tive in the determination of conduct : first, " the elemental variant in-
fluence which would lead any cell to act for itself alone," and second,
" the modifying influence from the aggregate of which the stimulated
cell is an element." In the higher forms of organic life, those activi-
ties which are determined by the influence of the aggregate are in-
stinctive, while those which are determined by the elemental variant
influence are reason (p. 109 ff.). All congenital series of actions deter-
mined by the constitution of the organism, and subserving definite
biological ends, must be classed together as instincts (p. 87) ; and the
presence of some biological end subserved by the instinctive activity
is the all-important thing. Determination by organization, definite-
ness of reaction, should not for a moment be made a differentia of in-
stinct (as by Professor Morgan) (p. 90). Fixity of reaction is only
an ideal seldom reached, but the biological end is fixed, and this is the
objective mark of instinct. The subjective mark of instinct is the ab-
sence of any influence from the conception of the biological end. Not
the particular act, but the trend of many is the truly instinctive thing;
the former varies, the latter is constant. Impulse is a plain state due
to the inhibition of instinct-actions, to the failure to carry out distinct
images of motor activities. Impulse should always have a subjective
significance in psychology.

The term instinct applies, also, to the activities of parts of organ-
isms, where these are in unison with the activities of the entire organ-
ism and occur in response to regularly recurring stimuli, as, e. g"., the
activities of the heart, lungs, etc. All the instinctive activities are au-
tomatic, and their psychic concomitants merely form part of the unan-
alyzable psychic mass called the Ego. Fundamental in organisms are
the instinct-actions toward advantageous stimuli, and away from dis-
advantageous stimuli. Instincts are classified into three groups : those
tending to the preservation of the individual, those tending to the pres-

520 INSTINCT AND REASON.

ervation of the race (sexual instincts), and those tending to the preser-
vation of social groups to be found among many species of animals.

First, those tending to preserve the individual. Owing to the uni-
form dependence of organisms on their environment, certain instinct
actions are universal, and receive definite names. The corresponding
instinct-feelings are emotions such as joy, sorrow, dread and relief
(p. 113). Corresponding to instinct-movements toward objects and
other organisms, love appears subjectively ; corresponding to move-
ments away, anger and fear ; to the instinctive functional adjustments of
the sense organs to objects, surprise. Another group of instinct-actions
is Professor Baldwin's ' self-exhibiting reactions ' ; but this group is so
rare, irregular and weak that the corresponding instinct-feelings fail to
be realized. Marshall does not favor the ' back-stroke ' theory of the
emotions ; he assimilates emotional expression and emotion to the cate-
gories of ' instinct-action' and ' instinct-feeling.' Differences of mus-
cular reactions in expression do not make the differences in emotional
states which the back-stroke theory would lead us to expect. The
emotion is the psychic coincident of the total reaction of the neural
system concerned at the moment of emotional expression. In general,
all individualistic instincts must be subordinated to those which relate
to the persistence of the species to which the organism belongs, just
as the reactions of the elementary cells for their own benefit get sub-
ordinated to reactions for the good of the organism as a whole.

Instincts relating to the preservation of the species are the second
group considered : these are the instincts pertaining to reproduction.
Here come up for consideration such topics as sexual pursuit, self-ex-
hibiting reactions that attract, mating, the protection of mother and
young, and instincts of the ' deferred type.' The forms in which these
groups appear in the higher organic life of man are discussed at some
length. Individual variant instincts may become rational ends, as
when a student or professional man suppresses the reproductive in-
stincts in the effort to secure personal ease, or freedom from the cares
of ordinary family life. " Evidently, we see here very clearly the re-
lation of intelligence, of the reasoning process, to elemental variance "

The third group consists of instincts relating to the persistence of
social groups. Here the different forms of cooperative conduct, such
as attacks made in combination by ants, wolves and men, herding
for facility in finding food, herding for defence and offence. In man
we see forgetfulness of self, family, etc., in times of war; monogamy;
personal loss suffered rather than commit murder ; hunger rather than

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 521

theft ; benevolence and art instincts tending to the advantage of the
race rather than to that of the individual. In all this the individual's
advantage is either indirect or entirely absent. Here, intelligence and
reason interfere only in the interests of unpatriotic tendencies, viola-
tion of the marriage relations, etc. Ethical impulses are instinct feel-
ings which have no individualistic significance. The inhibition of
impulses to kill enemies and to commit adultery is due to instinct —
violators are simply atavistic. Sympathy and pity, philanthropy and
art are here discussed. But in this higher sphere, Nature's problem
becomes complex ; the same sets of circumstances can seldom recur ;
consequently only certain trends of action persist ; but thought of the
trend of instinctive action destroys the force of the impulse. Indi-
vidualistic instincts reassert themselves in killing, licentiousness and
theft, and in all of this the effects of reasoning are most marked. But
there is a possible serious hesitancy, a sincere doubt, solved by ra-
tional argument.

Apart from these groups of instincts, those which have to do with
the relations of other instincts, such as imitation and play, are men-
tioned. Imitation belongs to a complex instinctive type, and is not
identifiable with the ' circular process ' which Professor Baldwin
would have us call imitation.

Throughout this discussion, the assumption has been determinant
that the race instincts develop out of and upon the individualistic in-
stincts, and that the social instincts develop out of and upon the other
two groups. The subordination of the first group to the second and of
both to the third is a necessity of the race and a universal fact. Hence
the conception of a hierarchy of instinct-efficiencies established and
preserved by Nature by the method of natural selection.

But how is this hierarchy to be established and preserved in the
individual ? Granting that those in whom it does not appear tend to
disappear from society, it is more conceivable that all should disappear
than that such a hierarchy should spring up by chance. Can the
social organism be t»aid to exert the necessary control over the indi-
vidual ? Chapter VII. is devoted to the task of showing that society,
although organic, is analogous merely to those low forms of organic
life which grow by accretion of like elements and which exert but
little influence, as organisms, upon the individual elements. It is a
matter of indifference whether we compare society to psychological
or to physiological organisms : the two correspond, or rather the one
is dependent upon the other (p. 183)— e. statement which does not seem
perfectly consistent with the picture given on page 34 of the relation

522 INSTINCT AND REASON.

of one series to the other. Why are societies analogous to low rather
than to high forms of organic life ? The reasons given in the work
do not seem at all adequate. For example, among others, the point
is made that in the higher organisms the life of the parts (the heart,
e. ^*.) depends upon the life of the whole, while in society individuals
live on whether the social organization lives or not. Now it seems
as though the judicial or legislative functionaries of society would be
more analogous to the heart than is the individual citizen. It is a
question whether the absolute separation from each other of the in-
dividuals composing society would not involve their death as social
units just as truly as the separation of the cells composing an organism
involves their death as cells. It seems like bad logic when the author
reasons from this fancied analogy to the conclusion that there is little
likelihood that the race will ever attain to high social organization ;
and again, when he reasons that if there were such a thing as a social
consciousness, the individual could no more know it than a sensation
can appreciate our higher life of reflection. This chapter's significance
for the argument is its rejection of the thought that social suggestion
and control preserve the hierarchy of instinctive efficiencies which
the theory demands.

In the next chapter, the eighth, the tendency to variation in social
aggregates is represented as excessive. Under the special stress of un-
usually strong stimulation, and wherever the restraints due to social
instincts are removed or weakened, the individual tends to act as an
individual. Reasoned processes are the latest and highest develop-
ments of this variant principle; but ratiocination is not an important
determinant in the struggle for existence (p. 204). Racial and social
instincts can be accounted for on the hypothesis that the result on the
whole is better individual adaptation for existence in an environment.
But we cannot help recalling attention to this point, for natural selec-
tion does not seem self -consistent here. What was, to start with, a
struggle of the individual with his individual environment seems to
be unconsciously understood, when the argument demands it, as a
struggle of the individual with the environment of the social group.
The discussion, not being concerned with origins, does not tell us why
the individual stops struggling with that part of his environment con-
stituted by the remainder of his social group, or, in other words, how
he comes to identify himself with the social group to such an extent
as to fail to discriminate between the two environments. Professor
Huxley maintained that an egoistic struggle for existence could never
become so intense or far-sighted as to develop into an altruistic sacrifice

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 523

of self : the survival of the fittest is a law of individual survival, and
we do not know that any one has shown how it can become a law of
the survival of social groups. In the sphere of psychological, ethical
and social evolution, the law of natural selection explains very little.
The discussion, however, establishes the need of some controlling in-
stinct to preserve the hierarchy of instinct-efficiencies, and the point
which I have above disputed is not absolutely essential to the argu-
ment.

This controlling or governing instinct is to be religion ; and chapter
nine discusses the question, Is religion instinctive ? Actions expres-
sive of religion are organic, and subserve biological ends, and these
are the marks of instinct. It is not necessary that they should be defi-
nite and regular: the higher instincts are rarely so; and we should
consider the fact that religious activities are practically universal in the
race, although it is not necessary to the argument that they should be
entirely so. The function of religious expressions is, to restrain the
tendency to over-variation from typical forms of reaction and to em-
phasize the order of impulse efficiency developed above. To under-
stand this, we should consider instinct-actions, and neglect both origins
and beliefs. Seclusion, fasting and self-torture are three typical
forms of religious expression. They are not in themselves advantag-
eous to the individual nor to the race, rather the opposite, and yet they
have persisted. They have persisted because they tend to produce a
quiet of soul and a reduction of physical vigor which favor the hearing
of the 4 voice' within which is the voice of our racial and social instincts.
The fact that religious illuminations seem to come from without is
due to their hallucinatory character. Exhaustion from hunger, fatigue
and self-torture make the zealot peculiarly susceptible to hallucinations.
By these activities the individual instincts are suspended and the so-
cial and racial instincts are permitted to make themselves felt. There
may have been, must have been a time when the racial (sexual) instincts
needed this religious support in order to the perpetuity of the race
and its proper development, and hence the various forms of phallic
worship which have appeared in the past. Submission to the Power
that guides the universe is involved in all three forms of religious
activity.

Prayer persists because, in the silent seclusion of the closet, with
the attention fixed upon some concrete or ideal object of wide import,
the tendency to individualistic reaction is repressed and the sugges-
tions from man's deeper nature are emphasized. Sacrifice has a like
value. Celfoacy and pilgrimages either produce the same effects

524 INSTINCT AND REASON.

upon the soul or favor those forms of religious expression which do
produce them. The efforts of those who hear the « voice ' to enforce
their admonitions on others take the forms of teaching, temples and
mysterious ceremonials. Purifications and lustrations, initiations into
religious brotherhoods, stimulations to the aBsthetic sense, such as pro-
cessions, pageants, songs and temples, are all discussed in this con-
nection. The analysis of these religious phenomena is very sugges-
tive ; but it is undertaken in order to show that religious exercises sub-
serve biological ends, and many will feel, doubtless, that the analyses
appear plausible only after we have assumed that religious exercises
do subserve biological ends. Our problem is that of conceiving,
rather than that of demonstrating, relations, and it is a fact that
conversion and other religious phenomena seem to be empirically
connected with puberty and the development of the social and racial
instincts ; but if the discussion of the function of religion were in-
tended as an argument to show that religious exercises subserve bio-
logical ends, it could scarcely stand before the charge of reasoning in a
circle. And yet, unless we take this discussion as an argument (as we
cannot do), the author has not shown that religion is an instinct. Per-
haps* many, again, will feel that the organic character of religious ac-
tivities was not clearly enough established to warrant the conclusion
based upon the point.

Part III., Concerning Impulse. Impulse is the subjective aspect of
the objective inhibition of an instinct-action. The analysis of craving
and desire in the light of this definition follows (p. 348). Every man
represents a hierarchy of impulses corresponding to the order of sub-
ordination of the instincts, and this gives his ethical standard for
the moment (pp. 358-362). Wherever the efficiencies of opposing
impulses are equal, my ' egohood' decides, and I will which I shall
follow. (The ego is identical with the field of inattention.) We
never act contrary to the ethical standard of the moment, but this varies
from moment to moment and from man to man. For each man at
each moment there is an individual standard of the moment ; but a
relatively stable individual standard arises in moments of reflection and
restraint from immediate action. This forms the basis of mature eth-
ical judgment, a third standard ; but this one also changes with the en-
vironment and with habit (p. 372). Social influences, however, give
rise to the conception of the ethical standard of the most highly moral
man of whom we can conceive, and this standard, though variable, is
relatively stable.

This standard is not, however, the basis of conscience. " Consci-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 525

ence is the protest of a persistent instinct against its inhibition by a less
persistent, but, for the moment, more powerful force" (p. 388). Con-
science is itself not an instinct, but a relation between instincts (p.
408) . Besides the ethical conscience we have also patriotic, aesthetic
and various pseudo-consciences. True conscience tells us of instinct,
while a pseudo-conscience tells merely of organized habit (p. 395).
Conscience, the sense of duty, remains always the same, but we find a
new development of conscience in connection with the development of
the religious instinct (p. 397). "The existence within us of a sense
of duty as it is experienced in its fullest form, is conclusive evidence
at the same time of the existence within us of the religious instinct "

(P- 398).

Part IV., Concerning Reason. By this process we are to under-
stand " the capacity found in animals, and in ourselves as animals, to
act apparently in opposition to, or, at least, without reference to, in-
stinct" (p. 414). The distinction is made between ' reasoned ' or
1 intelligent actions ' and ' reasoned ' or ' intelligent feelings.' The
pursuance of future ends and the choice of means for their attainment
are the marks of reason. Reason is marked by choice (an objective re-
suit}, and choice is the evidence of will on the psychic side both in
ourselves and in the lower animals. Reason in germ or in complex
form must be a process as wide as psychic life. Reason and will are
indissolubly connected, all rational processes ending in will, and all
volition being at the moment of volition rational (p. 424).

All reasoned action, again, must be ' referred back' to instinct-ac-
tion— it is action according to an older, simpler and more highly or-
ganized instinct, relating only to the stimulated element of the organ-
ism when some more recent, more complex and less highly organized
instinct relating to the organism as a whole or to the social organism
would have asserted itself, had not immediate and decisive action been
made necessary by the nature of the stimulus. '* All reasoned actions
must also be referred back to and appear as modes of that simplest of all
phenomena of activity, the reaction of a single cell to the stimuli from
its environment" (p. 438). The distinction between instinct and rea-
son is really not fundamental ; it is the distinction between a typical
reaction and a variant reaction. Reason represents the influence in
organic life which breaks down our complex inherited tendencies.

Consequently, our inherited impulses are a safer guide to right
conduct than reason, as a general rule. That instinct is of higher im-
port than reason, is the burden of nearly one hundred pages at the
close of the work. But the ethical impulses are not instincts accord-

526 INSTINCT AND REASON.

ing to the author's definition — they deal with relations between in-
stinct actions — and religious expressions are instincts which have to do
with the preservation of a proper order of instinct-efficiencies. Hence
arise the last problems of the discussion, viz., the relations of morality
to religion on the one hand, and of both to reason on the other. As
to the first problem, morality is practically ineffectual except it be re-
ligious, although, in our theorizing, ethical conceptions are the logical
basis of religious opinions, so that the latter grow in adequacy with
the growth of moral experience and thought. Hence the importance
of the utmost conscientiousness in life, if we would not fail of the best
attainment possible for us. It is possible for an intensely religious
person to be immoral, and hence such anomalies as the prayer of the
thief for success in his present attempts to filch his neighbor, etc.

As to the relation of religion to reason, the accumulated wisdom
of the ages is, on the face of it, probably of greater worth than the
thought of any single individual in any particular community at any
particular time. We ought, in the interest of progress, to listen to
reason, to reason freely and fearlessly, indeed, and to take risks ; but
we should never forget that in doing so we do take risks. In search-
ing for a rule of conduct we have the following as a final word :
"Act to restrain the impulses that demand immediate reaction, in
order that the impulse order determined by the existence of impulses
of less strength, but of wider significance, may have full weight in the
guidance of your life. In other words — Be Religious"

The theory thus presented with as little comment as possible speaks
for itself, but we desire to ask a few questions. First, as to the objec-
tive method adopted. Does it not make it impossible to use some
facts and distinctions which are essential to the discussion ? At some
places the author himself has departed a little from the rule of perfect
objectivity to consider subjective marks of instinct, etc. One asks
himself, for example, for the subjective difference between instinct
and reason. If we regard the two marks of organization and sub-
servience to biological ends purely in the objective, why may we not
show that reason itself is instinctive? Construing these marks objec-
tively simply, one feels that it would be easier to show that reason is
instinctive than that religion is. Indeed, the rational process does
creep into the tents of instinct very frequently, and it seems to be
merely the necessity of a ' variant factor ' in the theory that prevents
reason from stalking boldly into the main street of the opposite camp.

Again, this hierarchy of instincts and impulses, which seems so
definite in its subordinations and coordinations when considered as an

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 527

objective phenomenon what is it from a subjective point of view ?
Some will feel that the author's picture is as much removed from mental
experience as are, e.g., the rules of the syllogism in formal logic — I
mean, of course, the mental experience of the race as well as that of
the individual. To illustrate my meaning, take the order of appear-
ance of the different ranks of instincts and impulses, as depicted by
the discussion. Is it true that the racial instincts appear after the in-
dividual and before the social, or that the social appear as far behind
the individual as the theory demands ? It seems more than question-
able to some. Moreover, the discussion assumes that there is always in
the individual a strong tendency to revert to the individualistic type
of reaction : the biological end of religion is to counteract this ten-
dency. But it is an open question whether the individual is thus in-
dividualistic at bottom, as a matter of psychological fact. The
genetic distinction seems to some to be between the more and the less
rational. Professor Baldwin and others have watched children with
these various theories in mind, and have been surprised to find what
may be called social reactions (using the terms in Mr. Marshall's
sense) as early as individualistic reactions, after excepting those which
are purely organic and which occur before the child can be said to be
any more psychic than a plant. There seem to be many reasons for
believing that this is true of the race as well.

Again, how many of the author's social reactions are instinctive,
and how many are due to suggestion and imitation ? Shall we include
the latter social reactions in the class of instincts ? Mr. Marshall seems
to say so. But do they not belong to the category of variations, leading
to the modification of old ways of reacting to stimuli ? Are we to
broaden our notion of instinct so as to include the organized reactions
of the social group to its environment, as well as those of the individual
to his? If so, then Prof essor Baldwin may grant that imitation in this
sense is a complex instinct (as Marshall maintains) without abandon-
ing his own position that it is not an instinct. It comes to be a ques-
tion as to the meaning of instinct, and perhaps some will feel that Mr.
Marshall makes the word far too wide.

Lastly, as to Reason, the ' variant factor in psychic life.' Does not
every instance of reacting to old stimuli in new ways, of adaptation or
accommodation, belong to the category of reason as here understood ?
Reason covers intelligence, and the marks of both are selection and
biological aim (as objectively discoverable in the results of the act).
Mr. Marshall says that reason must be coextensive with psychic life.
But what of those primitive acts evidencing selection and aim, which

528 INSTINCT AND REASON.

give rise to so many other instincts — e.g., the expanding and contract-
ing movements which many assume to be the organic correlatives of
pleasure and pain? These are classed by our discussion as instincts
(p. icxjff.). They must belong to both categories, as the author uses
them. This same difficulty appears in the analysis of reason later in
the work. Reason is the variant factor in psychic life ; but in discuss-
ing the subject on page 448 we read that variation is sometimes ' pro-
duced immediately as the result of a very forcible stimulus,' and then
it does not ' involve any previous effects upon consciousness at all ' —
t. £., it is not instinctive. Lower down, on the same page, we read
that " all variation is determined finally by instinctive reaction, diverg-
ences being due to differences of width and complexity of the organic
systems involved." On pages 79 and 80 we read that activities de-
termined by the influence of the aggregate are instinctive, while those
due to elemental variation are ' reasoned ' in the higher forms of life
at least; but page 439, "the distinction between instinct and reason is
indeed not fundamental." On page 449 the basis of the emphasis of
the partial impulses connected with variation is the stimuli which de-
termine the impulses, " and here we find ourselves dealing with the
essential processes of reasoning." The difficulty here is not merely a
verbal one. Reason tends always in the author's discussion to disap-
pear in instinct; but if reason is instinct, and if variation is reason,
then how is evolution possible ? I do not see how we can determine
the relation of instinct to reason without considering the question of
origins, which the author everywhere rules out of the discussion.

We wish Mr. Marshall had discussed the ' circular reaction theory '
of the biologists and of Professor Baldwin and others. In this circular
process which they understand to be the law or essential method of
organic and of psychic life, there are both aim and selection, both or-
ganization and biological end ; but it seems to fall into both of Mr.
Marshall's categories. If this process is defined as one which repeats
its own stimulus, and if this is the typical form of all psycho-physical
reaction, then socially cooperative conduct ought to develop in or-
ganic life side by side with individualistic conduct. In other words,
if the circular process is a true conception, I do not see how Mr.
Marshall's view of the relations between the various instincts can be
maintained.

The author regards reason, will and choice as coextensive with
psychic life ; but is not this a needless broadening of the meanings of
terms?

I may have failed to grasp this complex and interesting theory in

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 529

its details; but, if not, it would seem clear that the method of
the work is too 4 objective' (it is deductive), and that the terms of the
discussion are used too loosely.

G. A. TAWNEY.
BELOIT COLLEGE, WISCONSIN.

La Psicologia Contemporanea. GUIDO VILLA. Turin, Fratelli

Bocca, 1899. In Svo. Pp. xvi-f-66o.

The object of this volume, as explained by the author himself, is to
give a clear account of the present condition of psychological studies
in those countries where the scientific study of the mind is most in
favor, as in Germany, in England, in the United States and in France
(preface) . The author apologizes for not having said much of his
own country. He seems to believe that, thus far, the contributions of
his countrymen to the advancement of scientific psychology have been
scanty and insignificant. Signer Villa remarks that most of the Italian
psychologists are, properly speaking, philosophers ; that the dominant
tendency in psychology is still that of the 'inner sense* which goes,
with certain authors, as far as a purely spiritualistic conception of the
mind. It is only a short time since works were being published on
physiological psychology, like those of Sergi, De Sarlo, Buccola,
Faggi. But, he concludes, the new psychologists, by going to the
opposite extreme of the spiritualistic philosophers, seem to be oc-
erced into such an intensity of materialistic beliefs as to lose the
equilibrium of feeling required for dealing scientifically with the facts
of mental life (pp. 78-79). This, with the exception of a few scat-
tered references to books published in Italy on various psychological
topics, is about all he says concerning the Italian psychologists, in a
volume of more than 660 pages.

For such a shameful lack of enthusiasm over the work of the Ital-
ians in the field of psychology, Signor Villa has been very severely
reprimanded by Professor Sergi. (II Pensiero Nuovo, Vol. IV.,
1899.) Sergi claims that Italy can stand comparison with any other
country in regard to psychological work. As a proof, he recalls the
fact that a laboratory of experimental psychology was founded at
Reggio Emilia by Tamburini as far back as 1880, that psychological
laboratories were soon after organized in the Universities of Naples,
Rome and Turin, in connection, respectively, with the chairs of psy-
chiatry, anthropology and physiology; that since 1879 *ne ^rs^ work
on physiological psychology was published in Italy by Sergi himself,
the same work being later on translated into French by Ribot and Es-

53° LA PSICOLOGIA CONTEMPORANEA.

pinas and published in Alcan series. Sergi further recalls the names
of the most prominent contributors to the advancement of experi-
mental and comparative psychology in Italy: Vignoli, Lombroso,
Morselli, Buccola, Mantegazza, Mosso, Luciani, Tanzi, De Sanctis,
Patrizi, De Sarlp, Ferri, Ferrero, Sighele.

We are willing to concede that Signor Villa has somewhat exag-
gerated the insignificance of the Italian contributions to scientific
psychology, probably for the purpose of pleasing certain old caryatides
who control the distribution of university chairs. We will also admit
that it cannot be asserted, as Villa does, that the tendency still prevail-
ing in Italy in the study of the mind is that of the ' inner sense.' This
is only true in reference to a few men who teach psychology as a part
of philosophy in some of the universities. These fossils, however,
cannot be made to represent the whole movement of studies and re-
search in psychology which is growing, outside of the philosophical
faculties, chiefly in connection with the chairs of nervous diseases
and physiology. But we cannot share Sergi's indignation at Villa's
alleged lack of patriotism. There should be no l chauvinisme ' in a
discussion of this kind. Nobody can deny that scientific psychology
has found, even in Italy, a number of competent students. But we
cannot seriously claim, as does Sergi, that Italy stands second to no
other country in the line of psychological work. Psychology has not
even gained in Italy a recognition as an independent ' natural science *
in the university curriculum. It is still a branch of philosophy.
Consequently, there cannot be specialists devoting their life to psy-
chology alone. Occasional psychologists, however intelligent they
may be, are recruited among physiologists, neurologists, anthropolo-
gists. Thus, psychological research appears to be a sort of by-work.
There is absolutely no sign in Italy of a movement of psychological
studies and researches comparable to that flourishing in Germany or in
the United States. Partial attempts, scattered and isolated efforts, in a
word, something which is undoubtedly growing, but is still very imma-
ture ; this is the real condition of psychological studies in Italy to-day.
The fact recalled by Sergi, that a psychological laboratory was
founded in Italy in 1880, is not a conclusive argument. The im-
portant thing is not to have so-called laboratories, as a novelty imported
from abroad through a sort of scientific snobbishness, but to have stu-
dents who do nothing but psychological work and who make discov-
eries of new facts. What are, then, the original contributions made
by Italian psychologists which can be said to mark a step onward
in the building up of scientific psychology ? Is there any Italian work

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 531

to be compared to those of Wundt, of James or of Ribot ? Of course,
I am speaking of purely psychological works. Golgi, Luciani,
Mosso, Morsel li — men of whom Italy is justly proud — cannot be con-
sidered as psychologists as long as physiology and psychiatry are to
be looked upon as sciences totally distinct from psychology.

Signor Villa's book is a work of popularization. If advanced
students and trained specialists have nothing to learn from Villa's
resume's, beginners will find it a useful guide to the study of psy-
chology. In the conditions now prevailing in Italy a book like
this may undoubtedly help to arouse interest in pyschological research,
to extend the circle of psychological students, to bring the last results
of experimental work abroad within the knowledge of a wider range
of persons. Such a work had never been attempted in Italy. We are
far from saying that Villa has succeeded in his difficult task. He is
undoubtedly a conscientious worker, but sadly lacks the talent of dis-
tributing his subject-matter in the most convenient and suggestive
form. The book is, therefore, full of unnecessary repetitions, it is
heavy and cumbersome, its reading is tiring through prolixity and over-
abundance of 4 historical stuff.' But, in spite of that, Villa's patient
and truly meritorious effort deserves the warmest encouragement,
and we cannot help declaring that Sergi has been utterly unjust in
accusing Villa of ignoring the laboratory and of being a ' dilettante.'
That Villa is fairly well informed of the results of experimental work
and of the physiological facts bearing on psychological research is
abundantly proved by his chapter on ' Psychological Methods,' and by
the clear account which he gives of the recent discoveries in nervous
histology by Golgi, Ramon y Cajal and others, in the chapter on ' Mind
and Body,' one of the best in the whole book.

The following are the general headings of the chapters : Introduc-
tion; I., Historical Development of Psychology; II., Conception of
Psychology; III., Mind and Body; IV., The Methods of Psychology;
V., The Psychical Functions; VI., Consciousness; VII., Psycho-
logical Laws ; Conclusion.

Signor Villa is thoroughly acquainted with German psychological
literature, especially with Wundt's works. He gives, on the whole,
one of the best resumes of Wundt's doctrines as unfolded in the three
standard psychological works of the great German master and
in all his monographs published in the ' Philosophische Studien.'
Especially worthy of notice is the re"sum6 of Wundt's theory of Will
(pp. 432-438) ; all the more so, as Wundt's theory of will is one of the
most important elements of his interpretation of the facts of mental

53 2 LA PSICOLOGIA CONTEMPORANEA.

life and cannot be found in a coherent and unique statement; but it is
to be reconstructed from nearly all his works, and chiefly from the
* System der Philosophic, ' the ' Grundziige der Physiolog. Psychol.,'
and the ' Grundriss der Psych.' Villa is also well acquainted with
French and English literature. But he is a determined follower of
Wundt's doctrines. Perhaps his admiration for that powerful intellect
carries him too far beyond the limits of ' rationabile obsequium.'
Wundt's doctrines are for him the alpha and the omega of psychol-
ogy. He tenaciously clings to the presupposition of 4 psychophysical
parallelism/ but fails to understand that a provisional empirical as-
sumption, justified only by the adoption of the ' natural science ' stand-
point in psychology, cannot be transformed into an imperative dogma
without overstepping the boundaries of science and running into
metaphysics. He says (p. 413) that there is an absolute difference be-
tween the physiological phenomenon and the psychical process. But,
by emphasizing the hiatus between the causal series, by vigorously as-
serting the irreducible difference between the elementary facts of both
series, he helps to accentuate what has always been the weakest point
in Wundt's system — i. e., the impossibility of conceiving a ' parallel-
ism ' where experience shows 4 dependence ' of one series (the psy-
chological) upon the other (the physiological). Parallelism presup-
poses the independence of the two orders of fact. But what becomes
of the psychical process if the nervous system disappears ? The truth
is that the assumption of a psychophysical parallelism, alleged to be
a merely empirical statement of facts to be provisionally and un-
critically accepted as the starting-point of scientific psychology, has
resulted, in the end, in a desperate attempt to preserve, in a new and
insidious form, the postulates of spiritualism. When disfigured through
dogmatism and forced into the turbid region of metaphysics, the
principle of psychophysical parallelism must necessarily end in a
puzzling enigma. If, as Villa declares, the origin of the mental fact
coincides with the origin of life on earth, so that the two series of
facts — the mental and the vital — reveal their alleged parallelism
throughout the whole animal series (p. 656) ; if we can explain the
biological phenomenon as a result of highly complex chemical proc-
esses, which in turn maybe traced back to the general laws of physics
(p. 658) ; if, on the other hand, we cannot explain the elementary
psychical fact as the result of the same physico-chemical agencies pro-
ducing life (ibid.'} ; then the origin of the mental fact remains unex-
plained as something which springs up ex nihilo while life, its con-
comitant, has definite antecedents. We cannot escape the ' impasse *

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 533

without prolonging the psychical series beyond the limen of life into the
inorganic world, just as we prolong the biological series down to the
lower plane of chemical processes. We must, in other words, attri-
bute to the inorganic world some sort of unconscious mentality.
Thus, when pressed too far, the principle of psychophysical parallel-
ism leads directly to some new form of animism, hence to pure
mysticism.

But this is not the place for discussing, in an episodical way, such
momentous problems. We will simply add that Villa does not seem to be
acquainted with recent American literature as well as with the Ger-
man. Of Professor Baldwin's works, he seems to know only the 'Hand-
book ' thoroughly. The brilliant studies on ' Child-Psychology ' seem
to be known to Villa only by the title (pp. 84, 89). He is ignorant of
Professor Baldwin's most recent work 4 Social and Ethical Interpreta-
tions in Mental Development,' thus missing one of the most important
contributions of American thought to the advancement of both psy-
chology and sociology, a work which, together with ' Les Lois de
ITmitation,' by Tarde, marks a critical moment in the growth of social
science. I have also noticed lack of exactness in biographical infor-
mation regarding prominent American psychologists. For instance,
he gives Professor Munsterberg (pp. 86, 125) as lecturing at Frei-
burg, and Professor Baldwin (p. 83) at Toronto. The ignorance of
Tarde's and Baldwin's works accounts for the extreme vagueness and
confusion we have noticed throughout the book in regard to the
conception of social psychology and to the relationship of social psy-
chology to sociology.

In conclusion, we will say that Signor Villa's book, taken all in
all, is a conscientious work which, despite the author's most decided
infatuations for certain deceptive Wundtian formulas, might become a
very useful guide to beginners, if the author, in a new edition, would
use the scissors freely in order to suppress all the unnecessary repeti-
tions which make the book so voluminous in its present arrangement.
A carefully prepared index would very greatly increase the usefulness
of this work.

GUSTAVO TOSTI.

NEW YORK CITY.

The Elements of Sociology. FRANKLIN HENRY GIDDINGS. The

Macmillan Co., New York and London, 1898.

This volume " is not an abridgment of the author's 4 Principles of
Sociology,' but is a new book." To the psychologist the most sig-

534 THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIOLOGY.

nificant feature in the work as compared with the c Principles ' is the
increased prominence given to social psychology. The ' Principles '
devoted a large space to discussion of the scope and method of Soci-
ology. The present work makes a great advance toward organizing
all the manifold phenomena with which Sociology has attempted to
deal, and viewing them as manifestations of a single principle, which,
it is needless to say, is that of ' consciousness of kind.' Whether soci-
ologists are likely to take kindly to this tendency to make their science
essentially a Social Psychology is for them to say, but it cannot fail to
interest the psychologist.

As in the 4 Principles ' so in the ' Elements,' the author does not
seem to recognize any more recent psychology than that of Mr.
Spencer and the associationists. "The unit of investigation in the
study of consciousness is sensation, which is the simplest of all mental
facts." But the most serious objection to the author's central principle
seems to me to be that it is a clear case of the psychologist's fallacy.
It not merely makes the whole motor force of human societies pre-
eminently cognitive rather than impulsive in character, but it assumes
that the like-mindedness by which people become co-workers is the
product in large measure, at least, of their recognition that they are
alike. To put it in a form which is more extreme than Prof. Gid-
dings' statement, but which after all is quite in the spirit of his general
thesis : people have common interests because they discover they are
like-minded, instead of discovering that they are like-minded because
they have common interests. The primacy of the intellectual or of the
impulsive aspect of consciousness is the matter at issue, and the biolog-
ical evidence seems to point increasingly to the latter alternative. Some
of the particular illustrations of the power of ' consciousness of kind '
strike one as remarkably devious paths for explaining simple facts.
Thus, for example: when two strangers meet unexpectedly "there is
either a shock of unpleasant feeling or a certain thrill of pleasurable
feeling." "Now the feeling of shock surprise, anger disgust, which
may happen to be the experience in the case is beyond doubt due to a
very complicated impression of unlikeness which the stranger makes."
Even the psychologist who will have naught of Darwin or James in his
theory of emotions would be loath to trace all disagreeable reactions to
a perception of unlikeness. Indeed Prof. Giddings goes on in the same
paragraph to suggest the simpler explanation without any apparent
consciousness that this is the case. " The man's appearance as seen
with the eye may be repellent or threatening, his voice may grate re-
pel lently on the ear." A threatening appearance, a grating voice may

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 535

be just our own most prominent characteristic; they will not be any
the more pleasurable in a stranger on this account. We dislike the
threatening appearance because of the anticipated pain, or because its
past associations, individual or hereditary— not because of its unlike-
ness. And as regards children, it is the familiarity of objects or
persons, or their likeness to those objects or persons with which he is
familiar, not their likeness to himself, which occasions pleasure. The
child who has never seen a negro may be at first afraid ; but the child
nursed by the negro 4 mammy ' has no such experience. It is because
the negro is unlike the other persons of its acquaintance, is unfamiliar,
that the child in the former case feels fear. It is the common interests
of the primitive family which make the kinsman dear and the stranger
an object of suspicion.

Another case in which a devious instead of a simple method of
explanation is followed, appears in the account of belief. This is de-
fined as "the confident expectation that what we desire will come
true ; that what we find extremely interesting in accounts of the past
were true." "This confidence we feel because in a majority of in-
stances the things we have desired and striven for have been realized."
This seems to me an attempt to explain a fact of social psychology by
an individualistic hypothesis. Belief as signifying the acceptance for
practical purposes of any idea or theory or presumed fact must in the
large proportion of cases be based, not on immediate personal experi-
ence, but on information or authority of others. The whole possi-
bility of the child's profiting at all by the past experience of the race
or by the larger knowledge of parent and teacher depends on belief in
what he is taught. Natural selection as well as social selection would
soon eliminate those members of a race who believed nothing except
what they had themselves experienced. The antecedents of belief, if
not the belief itself, are to be found in any social group of animals,
the members of which depend upon each other for news of food or
warning of danger.

The ultimate psychological law, according to the author, which
explains the fact of consciousness of kind and so of all other social
facts, is that "consciousness endeavors to attain painless clearness, or
positive pleasure, with a minimum of difficulty." As one reflects on
the work and manifold activities of the world, on the development of
civilization by the long and unresting struggle, on the ever-widening
range of interests that emerge, one is tempted to say that the formula
is both too abstract and too simple to be of use for actual explanation.
Consciousness cannot be adequately defined in terms either intellectual

536 TALKS TO TEACHERS ON PSYCHOLOGY.

('clearness') or affective (pleasure), and the poet was a good psy-
chologist when he wrote ' More life and fuller,' as the basal law of
human striving.

J. H. TUFTS.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

Talks to Teachers on Psychology, and to Students on Some of
Life's Ideals. WILLIAM JAMES. New York, Henry Holt & Co.
1899. Pp. vi + 301.

This book consists of lectures on psychology given, in 1892, at the
request of the Harvard Corporation, to the Cambridge teachers, and
of three addresses at women's colleges. The latter are not peda-
gogical, but they are so congruous in subject and mode of treatment
that they are properly included in the volume.

The ' Talks to Teachers ' start from the biological conception of
man as an organism adapted to react on its environment. This con-
ception is not offered as a complete statement of the facts. The author
is explicit on this point at the outset : " No one believes more strongly
than I do that what our senses know as ' this world ' is only one por-
tion of our mind's total environment and object " (p. 25). In the last
lecture Professor James's well-known position in regard to free will
is stated: " a belief in free will and purely spiritual causation is still
open to us. * * I myself hold with the f ree-willist " (p. 191). The
4 ultra-simple point of view' is adopted for the sake of the unity and
simplicity which it imparts to the exposition. It has the advantage of
preserving the continuity between human and animal psychology, and
of coordinating the brain life and the mental life as having one funda-
mental kind of purpose. Whatever higher functions and products the
mind may be capable of are necessarily conditioned upon useful adapta-
tions, so that these may be considered the more essential, or at least
the more primordial.

But however proper it may be to abstract, as all sciences do, from
the totality of phenomena for the purpose of clearer understanding,
this procedure is attended with peculiar danger in psychology. To
take the senses, a few instinctive impulses, association and the ideo-
motor function of will, and treat these as the whole of mind, is mis-
leading. 4 c I cannot but think that to apperceive your pupil as a little
sensitive, impulsive, associative and reactive organism, partly fated
and" (the qualification should be observed) " partly free, will lead to
a better understanding of all his ways. Understand him, then, as
such a subtle little piece of machinery" (p. 196). " Such is the little

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 537

interested and impulsive psychophysical organism whose springs of
action the teacher must divine" (p. 62). The frequent characteriza-
tion of the subject of psychology as an i organism ' and a « machine/
the emphasis put upon reaction on the environment as the essential
thing about it, the use of physiological instead of psychical terms of
description — this tends to concentrate attention upon mechanical ele-
ments and aspects. The definition of education leaves out of account
ideal ends — truth as intrinsically excellent, one's perfection as a
rational being, etc. — and insists only on serviceable behavior. " Edu-
cation cannot be better described than by calling it the organization
of acquired habits of conduct and tendencies to behavior" (p. 29).
In the enumeration of native instincts and tendencies the biological
standpoint is kept in view; fear, curiosity, imitation, emulation, am-
bition, ownership, constructiveness, are adduced — the existence of dis-
interested impulses is recognized only in the bare mention of love.
The expository advantages of the point of view adopted are counter-
balanced by an inevitable obscuring of the free activity of mind, and
by the ruling out of consideration, for the greater part, of its higher
manifestations — intellectual, aesthetic and ethical. This may not be a
fair criticism in view of the care taken by the author to prevent mis-
understanding ; but it is pertinent to ask whether partial points of view,
gotten by abstracting from the complete facts, are desirable in psy-
chology ; whether, for example, it is expedient to exclude, as Professor
James would do, all metaphysical prepossessions and implications.
If the facts do not involve these, there can be, of course, no dispute ;
but those who believe that conscious experience is ontological in
essence may well consider whether it is best to ignore this in the dis-
cussion of psychological problems.

These lectures illustrate the advantages of entrusting the * popular-
ization' of science to the hands of a master. The extravagant claims,
the incautious generalizations, the profuse use of technical language,
with which we are so familiar in works of a certain class, are here
refreshingly absent. It is something to be thankful for that instruc-
tion and counsel so wholesome and timely as that contained in the
opening remarks should gain so wide a hearing. " In my humble
opinion there is no ' new psychology' worthy of the name. There is
nothing but the old psychology which began in Locke's time, plus a
little physiology of the brain and sense and theory of evolution, and a
few refinements of introspective detail. * * * I say moreover that you
make a great, a very great mistake if you think that psychology, being
the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can

TALKS TO TEACHERS ON PSYCHOLOGY.

deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of instruction for
immediate schoolroom use. Psychology is a science, and teaching
is an art ; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves'
(p. 7). " Least of all need you, merely as teachers, deem it part of
your duty to become contributors to psychological science, or to make
psychological observations in a methodical or responsible manner. I
fear that some of the enthusiasts for child-study have thrown a certain
burden upon you in this way. * * * For Heaven's sake, let the rank
and file of teachers be passive readers, if they so prefer, arid feel free
not to contribute to the accumulation" (pp. 12, 13). If the last
quoted remark should deter any too zealous investigator from entering
one field, in particular, in which some truly fearful results have been
achieved — that of pathological psychology— the service will be by no
means small.

It is needless to say that the same qualities of thought and style
which appear in the author's other works — not the least of them being
a happy incapacity for dulness — are abundantly manifest in these
* talks.' One is inclined to envy Professor James the friends who
tell him so many delightful anecdotes, exactly fitted to illustrate his
points. A number of stories are given such as would make one's for-
tune at a dinner-party. If Falstaff were a sufficiently dignified person-
age, he might be quoted in explanation: "I am not only witty in
myself, but the cause that wit is in other men." There is doubtless a
delicate concession to the lady auditors in this change of gender :
4 'Anecdotes and reminiscences will abound in all her talks, and the
shuttle of interest will shoot backward and forward ; another teacher
has no such inventive fertility, and his lesson will always be a dead
and heavy thing" (p. 96).

The lectures on habit, attention, memory, will, contain all that is
most concrete and practical in the corresponding chapters of the Prin-
ciples of Psychology. The use of needlessly mysterious and preten-
tious words for expressing simple meanings is effectively commented
on in the lecture on apperception. The following helpful pedagogic
suggestions^r-a few out of many — may be noted : the transitoriness of
instincts (p. 61), elementary defects not fatal (p. 135), too few heads
of classification (p. 163), the bulky will (p. 181), two types of inhi-
bition (p. 193).

The 4 talks to students,' which constitute the second part of the
volume, have these titles : * The Gospel of Relaxation,' ' On a Cer-
tain Blindness in Human Beings,' l What Makes a Life Significant?'
The first is an interesting and persuasive protest against mental and

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 539

moral over-tension ; the other two insist on the importance of a sym-
pathetic appreciation of the points of view and the ideals of others,
showing that only thus is the common life of humanity redeemed from
apparent insignificance and discerned in its potentialities of dignity
and heroism. An application of the line of thought in the second and
third addresses is suggested in the Preface, which may not b*e entirely
agreeable to readers of ' imperialistic ' proclivities.

This volume deserves the attention, not only of teachers, but of
parents, and of all persons interested in psychology and in education.

EDWARD H. GRIFFIN.
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

Conduct and the Weather — An Inductive Study of the Mental

Effects of Definite Meteorological Conditions. Monograph

Supplement to THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, No. x. EDWIN

GRANT DEXTER. Pp. viii-fio5.

This study is an attempt to throw some light upon the question of
the weather in its relation to human activities. The method is for the
most part inductive and consists of a comparison of the occurrence of
certain data of conduct, under definite meteorological conditions, with
the normal prevalence of those conditions.

The study was made for the cities of New York, and Denver, Colo.

The data considered were taken from the various public records of
those cities and consist of misdemeanors in the public schools and
penitentiaries, arrests for assault and battery (males and females con-
sidered separately) , arrests for insanity, the death-rate, suicide, clerical
errors in banks and strength-tests in the gymnasium of Columbia
University. A period of more than ten years is covered and some-
thing over 400,000 data considered.

As a basis for the study, the mean temperature, barometer and
humidity, the total movement of the wind, the character of the day
and the precipitation, as recorded by the officers of the United States
Weather Bureau, for each day of the period covered, are used. The
occurrence of bad deportment in the schools and penitentiary, of as-
sault and of the other classes of data are then referred to these
meteorological conditions, and the exact weather upon which they are
most prevalent determined. These relations are shown by means of
tables and more than 150 curves.

Some interesting things are shown. Among them, that upon cloudy
and rainy days there are less bad marks given in the schools — with the
smaller attendance allowed for — less arrests for assault, and even less

54° THE EMOTION OF JOY.

suicides than upon clear, dry days. The death-rate, however, in-
creases a little for wet weather. Upon perfectly calm days the latter
is high, while all the other occurrences mentioned are below the
average. Extremely high winds, too, seem to have a soothing effect,
for excesses in conduct are comparatively few at such times. Moder-
ately brisk winds have the worst effect. For high humidities, all the
data, except the death-rate, were low. This seems rather strange, for
muggy, sticky days are of such a character. A very marked effect is
shown by the barometer. With the exception of death, all the occur-
rences were low for high readings, and high for the reverse condition
of the mercury column. Some conclusions are drawn with respect to
the relations of the barometer to periods just preceding storms. The
effects of different degrees of heat are shown to be the greatest of all,
temperature of from 75° to 85° being accompanied by nearly 50%
more assaults and other evidences of bad conduct than the normal.
Temperatures above 85° show a marked falling off, as if, under such
excessive heat, little energy was left for bad behavior. A large part of
the paper is devoted to the study of school children. In it are dis-
cussed the answers to a questionnaire sent out to nearly 200 teachers
in various parts of the country, asking their opinions as to the effects
of the weather upon their pupils. These answers are compared with
the exact effects shown by the study of the records of deportment in
the school registers. The teachers were almost unanimous in their
opinion that the weather has its influence not only upon the deport-
ment, but upon the character of the class work of their charges.

A study of school attendance is included in their work, and some
conclusions drawn as to the influence of the weather upon the health
of the pupils.

The general conclusions arrived at in the paper are that those
weather states which are physically energizing and exhilarating are
accompanied by an unusual number of excesses in deportment and
the minimum of deaths and mental inexactnesses, while the opposite
meteorological conditions show the reverse effects.

THE AUTHOR.

The Emotion of Joy. GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN. Monograph
supplement to THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, No. IX., New
York, Macmillans. April, 1899. Pp. ii + yo.
Starting with evolution, psychophysical parallelism, and the kin-
aesthetic theory of emotion as necessary and basal presuppositions,
this monograph discusses the emotion of joy with somewhat of that

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 541

detail which every emotion in turn demands. On the one hand, joy
is considered in its bodily aspects as dependent on universal biologic
inheritance from simpler organic forms, while on the other hand its
psychical characteristics are pointed out, and especially those funda-
mental social relations which constitute so important a part of all
human emotional phenomena. The adequate study of an emotion is
shown to implicate well-nigh every aspect of biology, in the narrow
sense of the term. The research was introspective as well as
experimental.

Three years of practical work in the psychological laboratories of
Harvard and of Columbia is described in the reports of five distinct
though related series of experiments. Three of these investigate and
fully confirm the ancient but, for science, hitherto rather vague sup-
position that pleasant mental states are correlated in the body with con-
traction of muscles classed as extensor and unpleasant states with flexor
activity, the three series of experiments relating respectively to the
reactions of the hand and the head, the forearm, and the leg. The
hand, because the most mobile portion of the body at our disposal,
showed most emphatically the psychophysical tendency in question.
The forearm was studied only as to its reaction to pleasantness and un-
pleasantness in voluntary extensions and flexions through an arc of
about forty degrees, while in case of the hand, head and leg only the
involuntary and unconscious movements were observed. The stimuli
employed were odors, colored light and sound, and these were judged
as pleasant, indifferent or unpleasant in seven degrees, < one ' being
the most relatively pleasant and l seven ' the most unpleasant. These
experiments together number about three thousand, and, considering
the practical difficulties of any laboratory research into affective con-
ditions, strongly verify the chief presupposition which from general
considerations seemed a priori to be so probable.

The much discussed nature of the smile and laugh is hereby ex-
plained, early embryonic conditions showing that the muscles active in
these phenomena are properly extensor muscles, thus at once explain-
ing the hitherto mysterious fact of laughter and confirming the under-
lying theory.

The fourth set of experiments deals with the bodily correlation in
general of joyous emotion in a novel and more or less productive way,
while the fifth series is a research, quantitative as well as qualitative,
into the vascular and respiratory somatic concomitants of joy.

Emotion, the most complex of human psychological phenomena,
is defined as u a temporal portion of excited sentient experience

542 THE EMOTION OF JOY.

wherein the subjectivity and the psychophysical attention to the ob-
ject, real or ideal, are heightened with or without a tone of pleasantness
or of unpleasantness, and wherein the feeling and the bodily position
or movement are, or tend to be, characteristic and correlative." Emo-
tion properly so called may be found pure, then, only in the 'lower*
or simpler orders of life, for in man the vast complexities of his,
always social, personality render any such affective period beyond the
physiologist's power of description. In the simpler orders of animal
life, down to its vanishing-point in the amoaba, the pleasantness-ex-
tension and unpleasantness-flexion principle is more complete; in
man, however, with all the complicating and often conflicting tenden-
cies there obtaining, its manifestations may still be regularly observed,
with constant exceptions here explained, as the persistence of basal
biologic law necessitates.

The regular occurrence of habitual inhibitions, due to complex
conditions of civilized social development, supplies the apparent de-
ficiency in the kinaesthetic theory of the emotions of man. Any emo-
tion, being biologically in animals, savages and naive infants a more
or less constant series of phenomena, is theoretically at least susceptible
of future scientific determination more or less exact ; while the emo-
tional processes of civilized human selves are so complicated by social
interaction as to be no longer properly emotions in the biologic sense,
but rather concrete expressions of the affective social consciousness at
present indefinite and involved.

Analysis discriminates five components of a period of emotion —
namely, psychophysical excitement; various feelings and their con-
comitant bodily movements and strains ; heightened consciousness of
the emotion's object as in relation with the subject-agent; often a
pleasant or an unpleasant tone of consciousness ; and at times increased
self -reference.

An emotion is an affair invariably of both a mind and a body, prac-
tically the whole of the latter of which it regularly implicates : it is
universally dynamogenic.

Contraction of the extensor muscles is more pleasant in itself than
contraction of the flexors, and this fact, together with the general
tendency to flexion which a (naturally unpleasant) sudden shock pro-
duces, perhaps determined, phylogenetically, the empirical opposed
mode of affective bodily function.

A bibliography of about one hundred and twenty-five volumes
bearing on the subject and its relations may be found at the conclusion
of the monograph.

THE AUTHOR.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 543

OPTICAL ILLUSIONS.

Raumdsthetik und geometrisch-optische Tauschungen. THEODOR
LIPPS. Zeitsch. f. Psych, u. Phys., XVIII., p. 405.

Ueber die Natur der geometrisch-optischen Tauschungen. ST.
WITASEK. Zeitsch. f. Psych, u. Phys., XIX., p. Si.

Eine einfache physiologische Erkldrung fur verschiedene geome-
trisch-optische Tauschungen. E.EINTHOVEN. Pfliiger's Archiv,
LXXL, p. i.

Ueber geometrisch-optische Tduschung. W. VON ZEHENDER.
Zeitsch. f. Psych, und Phys., XX., p. 65.

The article by Lipps is written in reply to the criticisms made by
Heymans in his review of Lipps' book on optical illusions. The
special discussions of the particular figures may be omitted in this
brief review. They are in part new, in part repetitions of the earlier
applications of the principles of weight, bounding activity and the
other assthetical factors of which Lipps has made use in all his writ-
ings.

On the more general question of the nature of illusions, Lipps
again defends at length the position that illusions are false judgments,
not false percepts. They arise through comparison, and it is dur-
ing the act of comparison that the idea based on the percept — not the
percept itself — is so modified by the addition of the assthetical ideas
that it is changed from its original form to the illusory form.

The article of Witasek takes up the problem with which Lipps
deals, and attempts to show on theoretical and on empirical grounds,
that the illusion in the Zollner figure, and presumably those in the other
figures, cannot be due to false judgments, but must be, in some way,
due to modifications in sensation processes.

The paper opens with a comprehensive review of the recent work
on geometrical illusions and an attempt to arrange all the various
theories in an appropriate scheme of classification. All processes
containing illusions are complete only when they close with a judg-
ment. The judgment is based, however, on percepts, and any illusion
may be due either to the percepts on which the judgment is based, or to
the method of dealing subjectively with the percept during the act of
judging. According as the one phase or the other of the complete
process is selected as responsible for the illusion the theories may be
classed as judgment-theories or perception-theories. But perception
is the result of combining sensations. It is possible, therefore, to sub-
divide perception-theories into these which attribute the illusion to the

544 OPTICAL ILLUSIONS.

sensation factors and those which attribute the illusion to the synthetic
process. The nature of the synthetic process is, however, always
predetermined by the sensation factors entering into the percept, and
so the sub-class which attributes the illusion to the synthetic processes
is of small importance.

As between judgment-theories and perception-theories, the writer
decides on the following theoretical grounds in favor of the latter.
Judgments may be acts of comparison or acts of classification. But
a judgment which discovers a difference between two percepts must
have found the difference in some actual disagreement present in the
percepts themselves, otherwise no ground for judging a difference
would be present. An illusion always involves such a judgment of
difference ; we must then, according to the above, look for the ground
of this judged difference in the percept rather than in the process of
judgment. In the second place, a false classification cannot be re-
garded as the explanation of illusions, for it is not a question here of
right naming or right grouping under remembered categories : but
rather it is a question of the continuity of a perceived category (as, for
example, whether a line is continuously straight or not), or it is a ques-
tion of the correspondence between two cases of the same general
category.

The empirical evidence with which the writer confirms his theo-
retical discussions is derived from two groups of experiments on the
Zollner figure. In the first group the parallels and the transverse
obliques were drawn on two separate cards and united binocularly
into a single figure. At the beginning of experimentation the ob-
server was disturbed by binocular rivalry, but after practice the writer
tells us that he was able to overcome this enough to observe the
figures for considerable intervals without rivalry. The illusion was
at first lost entirely, but as rivalry was gradually overcome it reappeared
and steadily increased in intensity. At last, when rivalry disappeared
entirely, the illusion was clearly noticeable but somewhat less intense
than when the two parts of the figure are observed in the ordinary way.
This decrease in intensity was subjected to quantitative determinations,
and proved to be on a general average about 75 per cent. The writer
argues : the Zollner figure percept formed by binocular fusion in the
manner described is just the same for judgment as one formed in' the
ordinary way. The decrease in intensity of the illusion which was
discovered was, therefore, not explicable on any judgment-theory. The
decrease must be attributed to the change in the conditions of percep-
tion. Similar results leading to the same conclusion were secured on

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 545

other figures, though there is no detailed report of the other experi-
ments.

The second group of experiments deals with the presence of un-
noticed illusory influences. When a single line is crossed by trans-
verse obliques the illusory effect may be present, though it is too small
to be easily judged. The method of the experiment was as follows :
a mercury mirror was so arranged that cards could be placed on
edge on the horizontal surface of the mirror. The cards were thus
held perpendicular to the mirror. Along the horizontal edge of the
cards, just at the surface of the mirror, were drawn horizontal lines.
From these horizontals were drawn perpendicular verticals. The
verticals were so reflected in the mirror that they and their reflections
seemed to form continuous straight lines. When the perpendiculars
were inclined toward the horizontals, or when they seemed so in-
clined, the line and its reflection no longer seemed continuous, but
seemed to form an obtuse angle at the surface of the mirror. There
are two ways, then, of judging whether the angles between the hori-
zontal and verticals are right angles : one is by inspection of the angle
itself, the other is by judgment of the straightness of the line formed
by the real line and its reflection. If transverse obliques, such as
those used in the Zollner figures, are drawn across the vertical, it will
be found that at certain angles of obliquity a really vertical line will be
so slightly affected by the transverse lines that inspection of the angle
does not reveal any noticeable diminution of the right angle, while ob-
servation of the mirror line will show that the apparent continuity of
vertical and reflection is destroyed. The writer argues that the illu-
sory effect must have been present in the inspected right angle, but it
was too slight to be noticed under those relatively unfavorable condi-
tions of judgment. There may, therefore, be a perceptual illusion
even when there is no illusion of judgment.

The binocular experiments are quite as difficult to criticise as they
were to perform. The fact that rivalry was overcome by practice is
a result of importance in itself, and certainly calls for some further in-
vestigation. Other investigators have been unable to overcome rivalry
by practice. The character of the result obtained under such condi-
tions will always be questionable. And it certainly does not follow,
as against Lipps, for example, that such binocular images are equal in
value to the ordinary Zollner figures. The attention must be seriously
distracted by the strain of overcoming rivalry, and the assthetical effect
will naturally be reduced proportionately. Or, in terms of Filehne's
hypothesis, one might say that the conditions here presented are fur-

546 OPTICAL ILLUSIONS.

ther removed than ever from ordinary perspective drawings, and the
effect of tridimensional associations is accordingly much weakened.

The mirror experiments are ingenious in method and tend to es-
tablish a fact of importance. That the reflected image does not enter
as a disturbing factor is not clearly made out by the writer.

The main thesis of the paper, as opposed to Lipps' contention that
illusions are due to judgment, opens up an issue on which it seems im-
possible to reach any generally acceptable opinion. Conscious and
unconscious judgments, associations of all degrees, synthetic percep-
tual processes, all pass so easily into each other that it is impossible to
draw a hard and fast line and say the illusion is here or there. If a
group of sensation factors is such as to invite the addition of this or
that association factor, and if after the association factor has been
added, the subject finds his judgment biased, then there is undoubtedly
a sense in which the illusion belongs in every stage of the process.
Until agreement can be reached on the more fundamental psycholog-
ical questions of the relations of sensations to percepts and of percepts
to judgments, there will always be disagreements in this special field.
The more concrete question of what the association factor is — putting
aside now the question of where it is added — is an exceedingly com-
plex one. Recent discussions have all tended to the general impres-
sion that such factors may be of great variety even in a single illusion.
The writers who depend on movement, those depending on aBsthetical
motives, those who call in perspective, and finally those who give less
generally applicable explanations of particular illusions, are not neces-
sarily in opposition to each other, though the criticisms with which
these writers usually introduce their work indicate a general lack of
agreement.

Finally, as to the source or motive of the association or other cause
of the illusion, every new writer points out some new possibility. It
is at this point that we may introduce the last two articles of our list.
The paper by Einthoven offers in explanation of illusions of the Miil-
ler-Lyer and Poggendorff types, a theory which is allied to the irradia-
tion explanation of the latter figure given by Helmholtz (p. 708, 4th
edit.). Einthoven's hypothesis is as follows: Most of the points of
a figure cast their images on the periphery rather than on the center
of the retina. These peripheral images are made up of diffusion cir-
cles, and in judging of lengths and directions the observer is guided by
the greatest amount of overlapping of the diffusion circles. Thus in
the Poggendorff figure the diffusion circles lead the observer to locate
the point of contact of the intercepting parallels and the intercepted
oblique within the acute angle.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 547

The explanation does not aim to apply to all illusions, but only to
the types mentioned. The freedom with which it deals with indirect
vision, which is at best an obscure factor, and the apparently direct
vision involved in all illusions, furnish the criticisms of this theory.
Figures seen in indirect vision, when attended to at all, are usually
interpreted in terms of what is seen when the image falls on the
fovea, not vice versa.

The fourth paper is a deplorable example of misdirected effort.
It illustrates in a very striking way the danger of making hypotheses
on the basis of some one's else results. How it could ever have
escaped the attention of author and editors that the facts are exactly
reversed is hard to understand. Such, however, is the case, as will be
seen from the following : The main thesis of the paper is, that the
Poggendorff illusion can be explained by certain facts long ago discov-
ered by Volkmann. Volkmann took two lines : one fixed, the other
capable of rotation around its center. He allowed the observer to set
them so that they seemed parallel. The result was (and it is quoted in
italics by von Zehender) that '''•Die Diameter [that is, the lines referred
to] tuelche parallel erscheinen divergiren ohne Ausnahme nach oben."1
That is, lines which seem parallel do in reality diverge at the top.
Lines which are in reality parallel will therefore seem to converge.
In spite of this well-known fact, von Zehender lays at the foundation
of his hypothesis the following statement, in accordance with which
all his figures are drawn, and on the validity of which the value of his
theory of course depends: " Die beiden Linien A und B in vor-
stehender Figur 2 seien die ivirklichen Parallellinien, durch deren
Zwischenraum die Continuitat des Schrdgstriches (a°/?°) unterbro-
chen tvird. Nach den Ergebnissen der Volkmann' schen Versuche
erscheinen diese beiden Parallellinien nach oben schwach diver-
gent" 2 The explanation which follows is based on this statement and
requires no comments.

In the second part of the paper the writer attacks a somewhat dif-
ferent problem on the basis of certain facts first reported by Oppel.
The problem is the estimation of the sizes of acute angles. If a ver-
tical and a horizontal line are so drawn that they intersect at right angles
in the middle of a visual field, thus dividing the field into rectangular
quadrants,' and if then the subject is asked to bisect the four right
angles thus formed, it will be found that the lines of bisection will
always be placed too near the horizontal lines. That is, an angle
which has one horizontal edge and is in reality small, will seem equal

ip. 70. «P. 71.

548 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE INDIVIDUAL TEACHER.

to an angle with one edge vertical which is in reality larger. The
small angle is evidently taken for larger than it really is, while the
larger angle is correspondingly underestimated. Here is von Zehen-
der's statement : "* * * dass {Spitze} Winkel, die sick mit einem
ihrer Schenkel der verticalen Richtung anschliessen, irrthumlich
leicht fur grosser gehalten tverden als sie sind, wdkrend ebensolche

Wink e^ die sick mit einem ihrer Schenkel der horizontalen Richtung
anschliesen, ebenso leicht fur kleiner gehalten iverden als sie in

Wirklichkeit sind." l

If the conclusion were to be seriously considered in spite of its
wrong statement, it might be objected that two acute angles which are
parts of a right angle are hardly suitable examples on which to test the
attributes of acute angles in general. But the further consideration of
the paper may be omitted.

CHARLES H. JUDD.
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY.

Psychology and the Individual Teacher. CHARLES H. JUDD.

Journal of Pedagogy, XII., 136-148. 1899.

The present article is a defence of the value of the study of experi-
mental psychology to the teacher. The general standpoint is found
in the relation of the teacher to the child.

Education is analyzed to be in its broadest sense the ' acquiring,
arranging and applying experiences/ For such activities the teacher
is not necessary. The child by itself will learn something, however
little, and instruction becomes necessary only that the individual may
economize time and energy in the acquirement of experience. The
teacher has, accordingly, a twofold function in dealing 'with the
content of human experience ' and * with the child who is to be put
into possession of this content.' Material and method are alike indis-
pensable to the teacher. With the first psychology claims to have
nothing to do, and it is only from the point of view of method that
the science can pretend to be of advantage to the teacher. The
author assigns to the teacher the function of training the child to look
at various experiences in the same manner as does the adult, and he
shows that it is the plan and the duty of psychology to indicate how
the higher level may be best and most easily reached. Experimental
psychology shows the teacher how to analyze material for the better
presentation to the growing mind, and it makes him familiar * by
analogy with the relation of children's mental lives and their external

»P. 99-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 549

conditions.' Rules for the teacher to obey should not be given by
psychology, but principles should be established, which may be ap-
plied under varying conditions. This last factor, variation, brings
out most clearly the value to the individual teacher of the study of
psychology. If principles are understood, and some facts underlying
the principles are known, new facts will be assimilated and arranged
with the old, and methods will be changed accordingly. With fixed
rules, however, new conditions find the teacher unprepared by train-
ing, and method becomes forced and stilted.

Finally, what the teachers need "is a broad, general course in
psychology to bring them back into a vital sympathetic relation with
the practical investigation of the child's mental condition. Such train-
ing places the individual teacher above the theory."

SHEPHERD IVORY FRANZ.

University of Iowa Studies in Psychology. Edited by G. T. W.
PATRICK. Vol. II. , pp. 163. 1899. Iowa City, la. $1.00.

The present volume includes (i) short studies by Professor Seashore
on the Mtiller-Lyer illusion, a material-weight illusion, localization of
sound, acuteness of hearing, pitch discrimination and motor ability;
(2) an account of experiments upon the analysis of the perceptions of
taste; (3) a discussion of some phenomena of the secondary person-
ality, and (4) the description of two new pieces of apparatus.

i . The first series ' have been selected/ we are told, 4 with refer-
ence to the need of data, their interrelations, and the adaptation of
methods and apparatus/ Some of the experiments are standard ones,
4 some have been developed by other investigators and are here devel-
oped a step farther, and some are new.'

(«) Various forms of the Miiller-Lyer illusion were used to note
the effect of the illusion under varying circumstances. The limiting
lines were circles, coins, squares and angles. It was found that the
force of the illusion decreased with the size of the coin, and when, in-
stead of coins, circles were used the illusion was lessened. Complex-
ity of outline increases the force of the illusion, and " it also appears
that the fainter the outline is the more the eye strives to follow it."
The introduction of a base line lessened the illusion, and the limiting
lines greatly affect the amount of the illusion — circles, 13 % ; squares,
i %. "A vertical distance is overestimated when compared with a
horizontal distance." Practice has no effect in increasing or diminish-
ing the illusion if the subject remains in ignorance of its presence,

55° STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.

but there is a decrease in variability. Women are more suscep-
tible to the illusion and are more variable than men. Two hundred
children that were tested showed double the effect noted on adults, but
no difference was noted for the two sexes. There seemed to be no
regular decrease with growth and no general relation with mental
ability was found.

(3) The material-weight illusion. Each of three cylindrical blocks
of wood, iron and cork, of the same size and of uniform weight, was
compared with standard sets of blocks and the estimation of weight
was noted. Eight determinations were made by each subject with
each block. In general the cork and the wood blocks were overesti-
mated and the iron block underestimated. The illusion is about 18 %
of the actual weight, and is about the same for women as for men.
The essential condition of the illusion is that the preliminary estima-
tion of the weight of the different blocks shall be wrong — 2*. £., the
subject has the autosuggestion that the cork and the wood blocks are
light and the iron one heavy ; but when lifted the cork and the wood
blocks are felt heavier than was supposed, while the iron block is much
lighter than was judged. The illusion persisted even when its nature
was known, but not so strongly. There seems to be no variation with
age or sex.

An interesting suggestion is made that it may be possible to in-
crease the muscular ability by means of the illusion. If the subject
thinks he is lifting less than what he is actually lifting, would he be
as greatly fatigued after lifting this weight one hundred times as he
would be if it felt heavier ? And, in like manner, may not the maximum
effort be increased by means of this illusion? A few experiments
show that the maximum effort was affected by the size-weight illusion.
1 ' Nearly all who have tried it can lift more in the barrel (a flour-
barrel) than in the half-peck measure."

(c) Localization of sound in the median plane. A 100 v.d.
tuning-fork connected with an induction coil gave sounds in three
different places relative to the observer — above, right and left. Strong
and weak sounds were given, and sometimes two sounds together.
Estimations were made of the distance in feet, and the direction
in degrees in the vertical and horizontal planes. There was a tendency
to locate the sound produced overhead as ' upward and forward.' Of
the fused sounds (right and left together), 25% were thought to be in
front of the vertical plane, 73% back of it and 3% in it. 72% of the
sounds were located above the horizontal plane, 12% below and 16%
in it. The grouping of the subjects into three classes according to the

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 551

•differences in acuteness of hearing between the two ears showed a
marked tendency to locate a median sound toward the side of the
stronger ear. When the sounds were in the median plane and their
probable location unknown, there was found little ability to locate
them properly. The ability was not improved when the probable
location was known.

(<£) Hearing-ability and discriminative sensibility for pitch. In
these tests great individual differences were noted. The average hear-
ing ability of the men and women was found to be about equal. The
women, however, had much better discriminative ability for pitch. No
marked relation between keenness of hearing and accuracy of pitch
discrimination was noted. The keenness of hearing of children seems
to increase with age, and likewise the pitch discrimination. Some of
the differences, however, may be due to lack of understanding on the
part of the younger scholars, not to mention the error of drawing con-
clusions from such a small number of children that were tested. No
relation was found to exist between pitch discrimination and mental
ability, the distribution of cases seeming to be a chance arrangement.
It is concluded that "this is the strongest evidence in favor of the
theory that the discriminative sensibility for pitch depends principally
upon the natural structure of the end-organ and is subject only to small
variation with education." It seems to the reviewer that a more
extended series of observations must be made, and the results con-
firmed ere this conclusion can be safely accepted.

(e) Motor ability, reaction time, rhythm and time sense. Fifty-six
subjects were tested, and no differences were found between men and
women either in rapidity of movement or in the variation. Reaction
to sound gave the shortest and least variable times, reactions to touch
were next in length and reactions to light took the longest time. Dis-
crimination time — i. e., the whole time less the simple reaction time —
was found to be about 750- and the choice time about 900-. The varia-
tion in each of these series was about equal. A free rhythm was kept
quite constant for 90 seconds by all observers. The pressure with
which the rhythm was made constantly increased. The rhythm estab-
lished seemed to be somewhat determined by the respiratory and cir-
culatory processes. In a regulated rhythm, the subject making taps in
conjunction with a mechanical stimulus, there was found a marked
tendency to accelerate the movement, and the men seemed to be
slightly more accurate than the women. Estimations of empty time
intervals of %, ^, i, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 40 seconds by the method of
average error showed an overestimation for the shorter intervals and

55 2 STUDIES IN PSYCHOLOGY.

(with two exceptions) an average underestimation for the longer times.
School children made almost correct estimations of 5 seconds, but
underestimations of the 10- and 2O-second intervals. No sexual differ-
ences were noted in this test.

2. In this article Professor Patrick gives an interesting and valuable
account of taste experiments with an anosmic subject. Popularly the
taste of any substance is thought to be conditioned largely by taste
sensations. It is known, however, that smell, touch and sight play
large parts in our taste perceptions. The analyses of the influence of
each of these factors have been few and incomplete, and the present
study will be gladly welcomed. The several theories regarding the
qualities of tastes are noted. The theory that there are four primary
tastes, which by combinations and fusions produce an indefinite num-
ber of other tastes, was tested with the anosmic and three normal
women as observers. Mixtures of salt, sweet, bitter (quinine) and
sour (tartaric acid) solutions were used to discover whether such mix-
tures gave new qualitative tastes or permitted the simple constituent
tastes to be perceived. The latter condition was found to be true. All
the observers were able to analyze the mixtures with a considerable
degree of accuracy. After considering other investigations the author
concludes " that the hypothesis which seems at present most in accord
with known facts is that there are only four taste sensations (possibly
only two) ; that these remain distinct in consciousness, not subject to
fusion or mixture with each other, and that the manifold taste percep-
tions of daily experience are made up of these four taste sensations,
with their grades of intensity, and sensations of smell, touch, tempe-
rature, sight, and muscle sensations." Of touch and smell, the more
important is probably touch, while sight plays a more important part
than has commonly been supposed. In any analysis of tastes various
difficulties confront the investigator and the only factor easily elimi-
nated is sight. With normal subjects smell cannot be entirely elimi-
nated even by closing the nostrils, while it is almost impossible to ex-
clude touch sensations. In complete anosmia results may be obtained
which are uninfluenced by smell sensations, since these are wholly
wanting. The observer used was a woman peculiarly suited by educa-
tion for such experiments. Blindfolded she was unable to get any reac-
tion or sensation from over twenty-five substances which ranged through
the nine classes of smells enumerated by Zwaardemaker. Those sub-
stances which could be determined were found to give taste sensations
in the back of the throat or to produce touch sensations in the mucous
membranes. The observer's taste sensations were then tested with

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 553

numerous familiar chemical and household substances, and the results
were compared with those from several normal persons. The anosmic
was found to be less active in judgment of salt, quinine and acid so-
lutions. She had finer discrimination for passive touch. It was
found that the substances that could not be recognized by any of the
subjects depended entirely upon visual sensations for their supposed
qualities, those recognized by the normal observers evidently de-
pended upon the smell qualities, those recognized by all depended upon
taste, touch and muscular sensations, while those recognized only by
the anosmic depended upon differences in texture (i. £., in touch sen-
sations). " On the whole the experiments confirm the hypothesis
made in this article, and while not diminishing the importance which
has been given to sensations of smell in the ' tastes ' of common ex-
perience, they indicate that touch and muscle sensations play an unex-
pectedly important part." The article brings out clearly some of the
unsolved problems of the relations of the less intellectual senses and it
will undoubtedly draw the attention of many to this almost virgin field.

3. Professor Patrick's second article is already known to readers
of the REVIEW, from which it is reprinted (Vol. V., No. 6). It needs
no further mention.

4. Two new pieces of apparatus are described by Dr. Seashore.
The spark chronoscope is a pendulum chronoscope with arrangements
for taking records by the graphic method while the pendulum is in
motion. The following excellences are claimed for the new instru-
ment: u Accuracy, adaptation for a variety of connections, soundless
action, direct reading, ease and permanence of adjustment, and quick-
ness and convenience of manipulation."

The audiometer is an instrument to produce variations in sounds
and to measure the keenness of hearing. The new feature of the in-
strument is the use of varying sized secondary coils of an induction
apparatus for sending currents to telephone receivers. The larger the
secondary coil — i. e., the greater the number of wire turns — the more
intense will be the sound produced. The intensities vary from i to
1079. Simplicity, convenience, accuracy, constancy and size are
noted as some of the merits of the apparatus.

The whole volume is interesting and instructive. The sole criti-
cism the reviewer would make is that the first series of articles are
1 minor studies.' None of the problems are treated exhaustively and,
as Dr. Seashore rightly suggests, " all the time and energy might well
have been devoted to one of the problems or a part of one." It is
hoped that the researches here begun will be completed in future
issues of the Studies. SHEPHERD IVORY FRANZ.

554 POPULAR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE STUD IE.

Magic, Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, including Trick
Photography. Compiled and edited by ALBERT F. HOPKINS,
with an Introduction by HENRY RIDGELY EVANS. New York,
Munn & Co., 1897. Pp. xii -f 556, 400 illustrations.
Spirit Slate Writing and kindred Phenomena. WILLIAM E.
ROBINSON. New York, Munn & Co., 1898. Pp. v -f 146, 66
illustrations.

The contents of the work on * Magic ' are indicated by the five
books into which it is divided, which are as follows: (i) Con-
jurers' tricks and stage illusions; (2) Ancient magic; (3) Science
and the theater; (4) Automatic and curious toys, and (5) Photo-
graphic diversions. There is also a useful bibliography. ' Slate
Writing ' describes most of the phenomena of the ordinary spiritual-
istic seance.

The books are primarily intended for the general public and are
well suited for instruction and amusement. The boy who learns these
tricks at fourteen has a pleasant and useful employment, and is less
likely to be a spiritualist or Christian scientist, and more likely to be
a serious student of physics and psychology ten years later.

But the books also deserve notice in a psychological journal and a
place in the psychological library. Conjurers' tricks and illusions
offer a rich and almost unworked mine for the study of the psychol-
ogy of perception. Suggestibility and the psychology of the crowd
are important factors in the success of such exhibitions, and from
this point of view they offer opportunity for research. The books
should certainly be read by those interested in ' psychical research.'
The numerous and varied methods by which ghosts can be made
to appear and slate writing can be produced should lead every one to
doubt his senses and his ingenuity on the occasion of their production.
Lastly, many of the devices used for the production of illusions,
etc., are extremely ingenious, and could to advantage be copied in
the laboratory. The methods of chrono-photography, though scarcely
deserving to be classed under ' magic,' are of special interest, as these
should be used by the psychologist for the study of both perception
and movement. J. McK. C.

Kant und Helmholtz: Popularivissenschaftliche Studie. LUDWIG
GOLDSCHMIDT. Leipzig, Leopold Voss. 1898. Pp. 135.
It is only in Germany that such a work as this could possibly be

considered popular. Indeed, even in that country its popular character

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 555

must consist chiefly in the usual quotations from the ' Dichterphilo-
soph ' Goethe, for not only is the thought difficult, but the style, at
least in parts, is excessively stilted and artificial.

The author is evidently, above all, a mathematician, and the work
throughout is written from a mathematical standpoint. It is divided
into three parts. The first describes some of the more general relations
between the two thinkers ; the second is devoted to an exposition of
Kant, particularly of doctrines relating to mathematics; the third,
which is the largest and by all means the most significant, deals with
the conflict between the doctrines of space represented by each investi-
gator. This chapter contains an interesting discussion of the modern
non-Euclidian geometry. Toward the end the author becomes critic
as well as expositor and endeavors to defend the Kantian doctrine of
the a priori character of space against the attacks of Helmholtz.

The chief value of the works consists in the exposition. Its diffi-
culty lies in its manner, for the style is not clear and the author has
made the mistake, unusual in a German work, of failing to subdivide
his material. The latter fault is particularly trying, especially in a
book in which constant re-orientation is an absolute necessity. The
author is very evidently a master in his field.

F. KENNEDY.
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO.

A Basis for Theory of Color- Vision. WILLIAM PATTEN, PH.D.

American Naturalist, Vol. XXXII., No. 383, Nov., 1898. Pp.

832-857.

Professor Patten, of Dartmouth, in this paper, prepared for the
Morphological Society meeting of December, 1896, takes a step in the
direction which is apt to lead to a theory of color-vision more satis-
factory than those, based chiefly on the phenomena of the process,
which we now have. From histological research made more than a
dozen years ago (see * Mitt, aus Neapel.,' 1896) and since, he has
reason to believe that the eye in its essential structure and action is
somewhat similar to the ear. He investigated the visual organs of the
lower orders, chiefly the mollusca and arthropods, and as a result
maintains that "the rods and cones, or the parts corresponding to
them in the lower animals, are not homogeneous, but fibrillated, and
that in a number of invertebrates the fibrils are arranged according to
their length in accurately graded series, and in such a position that
they always stand at right angles to the rays of light that fall on them.
The ether waves thus vibrate across a series of fibrils of different

556 THE ETHICAL SYSTEM OF ADAM SMITH.

lengths." The structural unit of the eye, then, appears to be a fibril
from one to four micro-millimeters in length, many hundreds of which
may be present in each rod or ganglion-cell. It seems highly proba-
ble to Dr. Patten that this structure is that also of all eyes, however
difficult it may be to prove the fact in the higher animals and man.

This structural hypothesis is applied interestingly to the various
conditions of vision, chromatic and achromatic, and it appears to suit
very well. Ten illustrations are scattered about the text.

Is is interesting to note that the main thesis of this paper have been
recently corroborated in general terms by the elaborate researches of
Professor Apathy into the fibrillation of the neurons as well as by the
work of several histologists upon the finer structure of the sensory end-
organs and of the neural fabric in general. The probability that the
retinal elements are fibrillated in a manner proportional to the em-
pirical complexity of their function is rendered highly presumable by
this extended work here rathei too briefly reported.

GEORGE V. DEARBORN.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

The Ethical System of Adam Smith. ETHEL MUIR. Cornell Uni-
versity. 1898. Pp. 67.

After a brief statement of the antecedent 4 moral sense' philoso-
phers, the writer considers the ethical system of Adam Smith in two
chapters ; Sympathy ; The Nature of Conscience. In the Conclusion
this division is adhered to and reinforced by a discussion of ' the
function of reason and sense in The Theory of Moral Sentiments'

With Adam Smith, approval and sympathy are coextensive. He
endeavors to meet Hutcheson's objection that we sometimes do ap-
prove without sympathizing, by positing a < conditional sympathy.'
That is, in all cases where we approve without sympathizing, we know
we should sympathize if we attended sufficiently to the impression.
The approval is grounded in this ; conditional sympathy.' Dr. Muir
accepts this view and goes so far as to say that it is not the excep-
tion (as Adam Smith considered it) but the rule : we approve not
upon sympathy, but upon ' conditional sympathy.' If the character-
istic quality of sympathy be considered, the recognition of myself in
another, then in the ensuing sense of ownership in that other, I can-
not avoid a certain emotional warmth. Why this emotional quality
accompanying the sense of ownership, should be called sympathy
only when it has risen to a certain degree it is difficult to see. It
appears that this distinction between sympathy and ' conditional sym-

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 557

pathy ' is a remnant of the ancient logical method in psychological
procedure, and is in the nature of things uncalled for. On the
other hand, if we invariably sympathize when we approve, it cannot
be said that we necessarily approve when we sympathize. Often
the sympathetic expression is so shot through with feelings of at-
tachment, tenderness, etc., that the individual never attains to the
ethical moment, when he either approves or disapproves. His sym-
pathy is the spontaneous expression of a primitive form of himself.
Sympathy that is also approval, has freed itself from these trammels
and stands as a moral attitude. It is the expression of the ethical self.

Dr. Muir considers the relation of Reason to Sympathy, the great
problem of The Theory; and believes the great underlying principle
of the system is reason. Unfortunately we are not told whether 4 the
judging faculty ' or « the higher reason ' is intended. Here is indeed
a great obstacle to a purely expositional and critical study of any but
the most modern moralists. Even up to Adam Smith's time, psychol-
ogy had not yet ripened into a propaedeutic to ethics ; and terms were
largely used either in the loose popular sense or left altogether unde-
fined. In the relation of Reason to Sense, the writer sharpens the
position of Adam Smith by opposing it to that of Kant. " Smith
regards reason as supreme, and sympathy as occupying a subordinate
position (p. 64) * * *. But reason is dependent upon sympathy for
assistance in the formation of its judgments and its rules. For, with-
out sympathy man would be unable to enter into any relations where
morality would be possible or where there could be any necessity for
the moral judgments of reason" (p. 67) . Adam Smith is said by Dr.
Muir to identify conscience with reason; again, " The supreme judge
of conduct is the self " (p. 56) . It would probably be a correct read-
ing of Adam Smith's theory to say that to him the highest good is
self -approbation. This the writer implies, but nowhere very clearly
expresses.

J. W. L. JONES.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.

The Applicability of Weber's Law to Smell. ELEANOR ACHESON
McCuLLOCH GAMBLE. American Journal of Psychology, X.,
1-62.

Miss Gamble's main problem is indicated by the title of her dis-
sertation, and the evidence she offers is the result of her own pains-
taking experiments in this difficult and somewhat unattractive field.
Zwaardemaker's olfactometer was employed (in which, as is well-

558 WEBER'S LA W AND SMELL.

known, the intensity of the odor is regulated by slipping out beyond
the end of a glass inhaling-tube more or less of a surrounding cylinder
containing the redolent material) , and there were used some twenty-
six odorous substances both liquid and solid, gathered from the four
quarters of the globe. In the main, the procedure was to give an in-
halation of the standard intensity, then a stimulation clearly stronger
or weaker, whereupon the subject moved the sliding cylinder until
the sensation was just noticeably different from the standard. If the
experiments were from the first designed to test Weber's law, it
is surprising that, of so many performed, so few were carried out
without changing either the subject or the substance or the nostril or
the method. The net number of experiments in which all these con-
ditions remained constant, with a change of the standard intensity alone,
is very small ; and even among these no system is apparent in the
variations of the standard.

Out of it all, however, there is the indication that for two
standard intensities, the difference-threshold often makes some ap-
proach to what Weber's law would require, although striking departures
are likewise apparent. For the two standards the threshold was, on an
average, something over one-third for the lower, and over one-fourth for
the higher. In other words, the value came closer to a relative constancy
of the threshold than to an absolute constancy, and consequently (the
author argues) it may be said to be evidence in favor of the law. This
would of course be better reasoning if we were sure that the threshold
must show either one or the other form of constancy, and that by ex-
cluding the one alternative we could force on the other : but whether
these alternatives exhaust the field is one of the matters to be proved.

As regards the value of the difference-threshold for the different
odors, regardless of intensity, it was found to lie in the neighborhood
of one-third in a large proportion of cases, and to be fairly constant
for the different odors (as against Zwaardemaker) , except for some
few substances when the apparatus is supposed to have been at fault.

The author is aware that the adjusting of the tube by the subject
was a possible source of error, in that the judgment may have been
influenced by the feeling of the distance the hand was moving, as well
as by the mere variation of the odor. In fact the error from this
source she believes to have been one of the main causes for the falling
off of the threshold for the higher intensities. It seems to me that this
might also account for some of the constancy found for the different
substances. Certainly in view of so grave a source of error the rea-
sons offered for not having the experimenter make the changes — that

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 559

it would have excluded some of the substances used, or would have
made the procedure more laborious — seem quite inadequate. Fewer
experiments concentrated on definitely arranged standard intensities,
with fewer subjects and fewer substances, could well have given clearer
results as far as the main problem was concerned.

The good historical introduction and the, at times perhaps, too
minute account of the preparation of materials, with all the difficulties
involved, should be read by any one who proposes work in this line.

G. M. STRATTON.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Psychology for Teachers. By C. LLOYD MORGAN. New York,

Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. xi -f 240.

In writing this book the author evidently intended, not so much to
present a system of psychology, as to point out the more important
traits the teacher must take account of to produce a rounded mental re-
sult. It is, of course, a nice matter in such a case to determine just
how much psychology, and of what sort, can best be employed ; and
some will undoubtedly feel that Mr. Morgan might well have appor-
tioned his space in a different may. In fact, with the exception of the
last two chapters, of which more will be said later, the best things in
the book are not given the systematic chapter discussions, but are tucked
away in scattered paragraphs.

The author's psychology has the strong points of the great English
tradition — an emphasis on association and language and personal ex-
perience and the constant testing of conceptions thereby ; and yet with
no slighting of the motor and emotional and volitional functions of
mind. But teachers will look in vain for their old friend ' appercep-
tion,' nor will they find a single reference to a nerve-cell or a 4 higher-
center.' The book may thus seem a trifle tame to those who take
their summer recreation at the psychological laboratory and are at
home in child study and the central nervous system. And yet, even
though the author treats all these things as if they were not, he has
written in a most helpful way because of his grasp of the real purpose
of education and of the deeper structure of the mind.

Like many a good story, however, the book does not carry one
along at first. The somewhat labored distinctions between sensation
and * sencept ' — an unpardonable word — percept and concept, percep-
tion and conception, fail to arouse much interest, and may discourage
many a conscientious reader who feels that he can not go on unless he
masters these. Less abstractions here, and more reliance on illustra-

5^0 PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS.

tions drawn from the field of illusion, which the author neglects ei>
tirely, would perhaps have served the purpose better. Association,
although given an entire chapter, is kept well within bounds, and not
made an all-explaining principle ; so that he can perhaps the more read-
ily believe not only in the uses of interest but also in those of drudgery
and of sheer resolve. Expression is only touched on here and there, and
then with more regard for its social value than for its reactive and clari-
fying effect upon the mind. It is a great means of self-mastery and in
teachers' psychology should have a prominent place. The intellectual as
well as the moral use of skill in hand- work and games, which, of
course, is one phase of expression, is, however, briefly but forcibly
stated by the author. If mention were to be made of scant justice
done to other subjects pedagogically important, there is certainly not
given to imitation and suggestion generally the treatment that the pres-
ent interest might be expected to invite.

The different threads of the mental life are kept well together.
One does not have that constant view of various strands at once,
which a writer like Hoffding gives; but for the teachers' purpose
the same end is approached by some good images — the spirited horses
and coach and driver (the provisional figure for the different sides of
mind) having finally to be consolidated into a centaur to express the
true relation, and again where he says that " the cognitive aspect of
experience * * * gives the form and grouping of the picture of con-
sciousness ; the emotional aspect * * * gives the color and tone of the
picture." But best of all is his happy insistence on the l margin ' and
1 background ' of consciousness, with their vital relation to all that
comes within the focus of attention. The art of teaching is not
merely to provide for a suitable play and clearness of this intellectual
fixation-point, but to get the right things ' inextricably woven into the
mental background,' and to lay up there stores of ' strength and wisdom
and emotional prejudices of a goodly human kind.' What a bene-
fit if this mere phrase from the book — ' emotional prejudices of a
goodly human kind ' (quoted by the author from Miss Simcox) — could
itself become inextricably interwoven into every teacher's mental back-
ground ! But the book is temperate throughout, and there is no over-
rating of feeling or of will at the expense of. the more purely intellec-
tual processes, as if the child could be stanch and steady irrespective
of his intellectual insights.

Education, on the contrary, is seen by the author to be a many-
sided affair, and no cheap and ready formula is offered for its attain-
ment. It is not to be reached without doing justice to the intellectual

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 561

and emotional and volitional sides of life, and so directing these that
the child is put in rapport with the great spiritual possessions and
ideals of mankind. He must be brought face-to-face with facts
and thus make his conceptions tally with them, but he must de-
velop his powers of appreciation and of sociability. The closing
chapters on ' literature ' and on ; character and conduct ' ought to
be read, even if all the rest be skipped. The teacher is shown that
in some way the inner warmth of art and especially of literature must
be imparted; and, in so doing, knowledge of the work — its intel-
lectual aspect — must not be confused with the peculiar aesthetic enjoy-
ment. Education also means the growth of character — the adoption
of the social aim, not in a spirit that is sentimental and visionary,
but with an active interest in small and unimposing social gains
wherever possible. It means finally the cultivation of the religious
attitude, as distinguished from special forms of belief. The author
is fully aware that these are the most delicate and searching parts of
the teacher's work, and are to be accomplished less by direct instruc-
tion than by a fine spiritual contagion. The teacher's own sympathies
and appreciations, here, rather than his precepts, are what count.

G. M. STRATTON.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Ein einfacher Apparat zur J3 estimmung der Empfindlichkeit
von Temperaturpunkten. F. KIESOW. Philos. Stud., XIV.,

4> 589-590-

Dr. Kiesow here describes an apparatus for finding heat and cold
spots. Heretofore a difficulty has been experienced in having to use
instruments that would not keep an even temperature or whose tem-
perature could not readily be altered. The present instrument seems
to have overcome the latter difficulty but not the former.

The apparatus consists of a hollow cone in which are two pipes
with leads from bottles containing hot and cold water respectively.
The temperature is regulated by raising or lowering one of the bottles,
so that the hot or cold (as the case may be) water flows towards the
other. This permits a ready change in the temperature of the instru-
ment, but the arrangement for constancy is awkward. The constant
cooling of the instrument necessitates a continual shifting of the
bottles to keep the liquid always of the same temperature.

An electric apparatus, though more expensive, might be devised
to overcome all the difficulties.

SHEPHERD IVORY FRANZ.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

562 EXPERIMENTAL.

L'Asymetrie sensorielle. J. J. VAN BIERVLIET. Brussels, Hayez.

1897. Pp. 43. (Repr. fr. Bull, de 1'Acad. roy. de Belg., Vol.

XXXIV, 1897.)

This paper is an attempt to correlate right- and left-handedness
with a functional preponderance of the same side in other senses. The
evidence is purely experimental. One hundred subjects, mostly uni-
versity students, were tested in the muscular sense, hearing, vision and
touch. The muscular test consisted in pulling with each hand a load
attached by a string. The load raised by the stronger hand remained
unchanged and served as standard. In the first test, the two loads
were started equal, and the one judged heavier was gradually decreased
till it seemed equal to the standard. Another test was then made, with
an ascending series of the variable weight. In all, three descending
and three ascending tests were made on each subject, each with four
different standards (500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 gm.). Of the 100 sub-
jects, 78 were right-handed and 22 left-handed according to this test
— none were * ambidextrous.' With but two or three exceptions, the
results when averaged were remarkably uniform, the ratio being about
450 gm. with the weaker, to 500 gm. with the stronger hand, which-
ever it might be ; the same ratio held for the other weights.

For the sense of hearing, two shot-fall apparatus, almost exactly
similar, were made, and each enclosed in a sound-proof box, with a
tube running out to one ear of the subject. The two balls were
dropped in rapid succession, and the subject compared the intensity of
the sounds. For right-handed subjects the right ear was taken as
standard, and the height of the left shot varied till the two sounds
seemed equal ; the procedure was reversed with left-handed subjects.
Five series each were taken with increasing and decreasing intensity
and averaged together. After a number of cases of partial deafness
were thrown out, the variations of the rest were all in the same
direction as the muscular tests, and the ratio almost exactly the same.

The visual tests consisted in measuring the distance at which type
of a certain size could be read. Considerable difficulty was experi-
enced from the various minor defects of vision, and many cases were
out of all relation to the normal. Rejecting these, the difference
between the two eyes, in almost all the rest, was again in the same
direction and nearly the same ratio.

Finally, the tactile sense was tested by means of Weber's sensory
circles. The author does not describe any means used to secure ex-
actly corresponding regions of the two hands. Ten tests each were
made in ascending and descending series. The right hand was found

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 563

to have a lower threshold than the left in right-handed persons, and
vice versa, and the ratio was about the same as before.

In the muscular tests the ratio in question was 9.00 to 10 (right-
handed) and 9.02 to 10 (left-handed) ; in the auditory tests 9.10 to 10
for each; in the visual, 9.08 to 10 and 9.04 to 10 respectively; and in
the tactile, 9.06 to 10 and 8.93 to 10 respectively. The persistency of
this fraction (y9^) seems remarkable, and should be submitted to further
test ; if verified, it will rank with the fractions determined for Weber's
Law, or outrank them in importance. The uniform preponderance
of the same side through the four senses tested is also notable. The
author declares his belief that it points to an anatomical rather than a
physiological basis for right- and left-handedness.

HOWARD C. WARREN.
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY.

ETHOLOGY.

Ethology: Standpoint, Method, Tentative Results. THOS. P.

BAILEY, Jr., University of California. University Press, 1899.

Pp. 30.
Bibliographical References in Ethology. THOS. P. BAILEY, Jr.,

University of California Library Bulletin, Vol. 13. University

Press, Berkeley, 1899. Pp. 25.

This account of a new undertaking in the University of California
is deserving of more than a passing notice. Here is a psychologist, a
philosopher, and a student of education, devoting all his energies to
the study of character. His title is inspiring : * Associate Professor
of Education as Related to Character.'

At the same time it is a commentary on the present condition in
higher educational circles. Such a title would not be possible if our
educational leaders recognized that the whole problem of education is
one of character.

At the same time we feel obliged to protest against that view of
psychology which finds it necessary to create a new science in order to
make the study of character legitimate. True, the idea that psychol-
ogy is unsympathetic, mechanical, lifeless, is abroad in the land, but
that is not the view of our best psychologists, with whom the cry of
* Back to real life,' is strong and clear. We can assure our author
that there are many psychologists who will welcome ethology as it is
here outlined, as a new chapter in their own science, and that there
are yet more who believe the sole aim of all branches of psychology to
be the better understanding of mind with a view to its development.

564 GENETIC AND EDUCATIONAL.

This certainly is the belief which has given psychology its place in
our colleges, and the one permitting the life of all psychology to-day
in our own country. Experimental psychology, particularly, has
grown upon it.

At the same time there may be no harm in giving this group of
problems, the most important in all psychology, a special name, and
assigning them to a special department in our University at least.
There are people who will grant the reality of character and the im-
portance of its study when they see it rechristened with a new Greek
name. We expect help from Ethology in the University of California,
but should not like. to see a chair of Ethology in every college. We
do hope that the work itself will be felt in every course in psychology
in the country.

If the author finds it difficult to describe his new methods, the ten-
tative results and the many lines of effort it certainly is impossible to
reproduce them here, to say nothing of giving the criticism for which
he asks.

The perspective drawing of a cave, with surface lines indicating
lines of character growth, and cross sections showing successive stages
of character development in the race and in the individual, and also
corresponding stages in education from the Kindergarten to the Uni-
versity, is a helpful way to bring before the eye many of the elements
which enter into character. It is, however, impossible to represent in
this way the relative importance of the different elements.

Perhaps a place might be made for the influence of personality
and for authority. This latter is suggested by the remark of a psy-
chologist in a mission field — an excellent place for character study, by
the way — that in their schools the discipline counted for more in char-
acter building than did all the secular and religious instruction. At
the corresponding point in this diagram we see only the spontaneous
development of boy nature under the influence of the various studies.

C. B. BLISS.

GENETIC, EDUCATIONAL AND SOCIAL.

Psychologische Analyse der Thatsache der Selbsterziehung. G.

CORDES. Berlin, Reuther u. Reichard. 1898. Pp.54. M. 1.20.

For the material of his enquiry Dr. Cordes turns to the experiences
of his own life, stripping these as far as possible of all that makes
them personal and unique, and dealing only with those aspects which
are typical of the process in all men. The author's interest being a

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 565

psychological one, it lies as far from his purpose to enquire into the
metaphysical possibility of self-education, on the one hand, as to make
an ethico-pedagogical application of his results on the other.

By ' education ' is to be understood the activity of one person —
the teacher — which exerts upon another — the pupil — such enduring in-
fluence that his mental processes and outward behavior realize an
ideal of thought and conduct existing in the mind of the teacher.
Under this conception one can speak of self -education only by analogy,
which is yet a real analogy, since here, too, an activity is found which
exerts an enduring influence upon our psychical processes in conse-
quence of ideals which exist in consciousness. To indicate the con-
ditions and elements of this process is the object of the monograph,
which can here be only briefly summarized.

At the outset two aspects of the matter present themselves : first,
as to the presuppositions — the psychical material and means — of self-
education; and secondly, the processes themselves which it involves.
The presuppositions, putting aside disputes as to freedom or its con-
trary, and the possibility of self-observation, involve three things
which correspond respectively to the personality of the pupil, the ideals
of the teacher, and the educating influence which mediates between
them. The whole complex fact of past experience and present char-
acter gives the first, in which, without following the detailed analysis
of the writer, are to be separated the individual psychical acts and the
personal disposition, whether resulting from these acts or due to in-
heritance. In the second place there must be set over against this,
another order of psychical experiences, non-existent as yet for the prac-
tical subject, which consists of the ideals into which the present psychi-
cal processes are to be transformed. These ideals, derived from the
lives of other persons either through indirect suggestion or generalized
observation, become effective through the strong emotion with which
they are conceived, an emotion depending upon a comparison of the
two orders of experience with respect to their worth, and a resultant
higher valuation of the ideal. The third of these presuppositions is
the will for which this ideal order of experiences becomes a motive.
The preceding judgment of worth is an effectless reflection which is
energized by the will as a process of choice.

The second consideration is as to the actual processes of self-edu-
cation. If one defines self-education as the shaping of the personal
disposition so that each individual life-experience shall correspond to
our highest moral valuation, then the general desire for betterment
must be supplemented by a definite transformation of concrete indi-

566 GENETIC AND EDUCATIONAL.

vidual impulses if it is to be realized. This education takes place in
three directions : First, with respect to intellectual processes, the
whole order of ideas, concepts and judgments is to be shaken up and
transformed ; and these ideas and concepts, which possess each its par-
ticular emotional overtone, must be stripped of this overtone and united
to a new quality of feeling. Secondly, with respect to emotional pro-
cesses there are to be revalued under the criterion of the ideal order of
experience the sensuous feelings, or emotional overtone of sensations,
common feeling, by which is understood that fusion of inner and outer
sensations in which our general well-being or ill-being is expressed,
and the passions, through which not only are the ideas intensified, but
they together with the will-processes are modified and transformed.
Thirdly, with respect to the will-process itself self-education exerts a
three-fold influence. First, in regard to the will's reaction upon mo-
tives, education is expressed in a more swift and decisive process ;
secondly, in regard to activity in general, it is expressed in an increase
in the total will-power or energy of the subject; and thirdly, in regard
to the voluntary direction of the attention, it is characterized by a
greater control over the objects which shall occupy consciousness. The
short bibliography which Dr. Cordes appends to his clear and detailed
analysis would be of value if it were more precise. A general refer-
ence toWundt's Grundriss der Psychologic orNahlowsky's Gefiihls-
leben is too much like a wave of the hand to help in one's literary
orientation.

ROBERT MACDOUGALL.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Uber Willens- und Characterbildung auf physiologisch-psycholog-
ischer Grundlage. JULIUS BAUMANN. Berlin, Reuther u.
Reichard. 1897. Pp. 86. M. 1.80.

In suggestive contrast with the introspective, theoretical work of
Dr. Cordes (summarized in the foregoing note) stands this mono-
graph of Professor Baumann, of Gottingen. The former is a subjec-
tive analysis of individual personal experience, the latter an objective
study of the education of the will, the result of a life of personal ob-
servation as a teacher in the schools of Germany. The laws which
Dr. Baumann sets down grew up as working principles in his teaching,
and are intended to have a direct practical bearing. They are, the
author tells us, a concise re-statement of ideas already set forth both
in his Handbook of Ethics (1879), and in his Introduction to Peda-
gogy (1890), supported by the most recent results of physiological
and pathological psychology.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 567

We must distinguish between the will as theoretic choice and the
will as psychological activity ; in the latter sense it is expressed in a
series of reactions and depends upon a psychophysical mechanism.
With the development, educability and derangements of this will Pro-
fessor Baumann here deals. The author refers briefly to the physical
basis of mental life in general as indicated by the localization of brain
functions, influence of drugs, effects of fatigue, and the like facts,
then proceeds to a detailed statement of the physical relations which
condition the will-functions, for the evidence of which he turns to the
various phenomena of pathological will-conditions, abulias, amnesias
and automatisms. It is through these interferences with the psycho-
physical mechanism by which the attitudes of the practical individual
are expressed, interferences which pervert or inhibit his desires, that
the conditioning of the will upon these processes is brought most
forcibly to our notice. The undeveloped will is, then, that psycho-
physical organism in which the orderly connection of these parallel
activities has not been established upon the basis of practical experi-
ence, and the pathological will is that in which the customary syn-
thesis of perception or desire with motor reactions has been interrupted.
The educability of the will depends upon the possibility of organizing
and extending this system of coordinated physical and psychical activ-
ities, and the development of it consists in the actual process of trans-
forming the elementary impulses and powers into such an orderly
series of desire- and choice-fulfilling acts. In the child only the
negative conditions of a willing subject are given. The vague dis-
comfort is there, the vague desire, but the stimulation, whether per-
ipheral or central, does not call forth, as in the adult, definite and
adapted reactions. The capacity for reaction and the impulse toward
original activity exist in the child but are not yet coordinated. In
this coordination consists the education of the child- will. Professor
Baumann next proceeds to an analysis of the chief psychological laws
involved in the process of volitional education and the training of char-
acter, with especial reference to the development of moral qualities.

But first, since the healthy will involves a good mental tone and
sound physical state, a fundamental condition of its training lies in
constant care for the health and attention to exercise, rest and refresh-
ment, both bodily and mental. The development of the will is two-
fold, corresponding to the active and receptive aspects of the person-
ality: first, increase in the precision and energy of the will in those
activities which we already possess; and secondly, extension of the
will-activity to new objects and interests. The primary law of the

568 EVOLUTION OF MORALITY.

first form is practice ; the activity in process of acquisition is estab-
lished only through repitition, and the activity once under control of
the will must never be allowed to lapse wholly from use. Spontaneous
imitation the author is inclined to reject as an element in the educa-
tion of the will, on the ground that it is only the realization of a
tendency already existing, and is strictly limited in its functions.
Voluntary attention is emphasized as a moment in the process parallel
to the factor of repetition. To these must be added the influence of
success and failure in effort, indirect training, example, emulation and
the like, as factors in the development of the will. All these laws
which condition the form of the individual will-act enter also, with
their combinations, into the formation of character, that permanent
disposition towards organized systems of activities which the indi-
vidual act tends to beget, and from which reciprocally it springs.

Professor Baumann's monograph closes with a consideration of the
pathology of mental and moral impulses, and a discussion of the
theories of Beneke and Herbart concerning the education of the will.

ROBERT MACDOUGALL.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

L? Annee Sociologiqtie. E. DURKHEIM. Deuxieme Annee (1897-98).

Paris, Alcan, 1899. Pp. vi + 596, 10 fr.

The two volumes now issued of this annual make a capital start.
They are similar in scope to the Annee Psychologique, having a Part
I. devoted to Memoires originaux, and Part II. given up to Analysis
of books and articles published between July ist of one year and June
3Oth of the next. Sociology is understood in the widest sense. The
original memoirs are, for the most part, outside of our scope, but we
may call attention to Professor Simmel's remarkable paper, in the first
Annee, on 4 The Persistence of Social Groups,' now translated in the
Amer.Jour. of Sociology, March, May, 1898. It contains much psy-
chological matter on the different phases of so-called < honor.'

J. M. B.

L? Evolution mentale cJiez les Animaux. CH. LETOURNEAU. Re-
vue de 1' Ecole d' Anthropologie de Paris, Vol. 9, V., 15 May,
1899. Pp. 137-152.

This is a lecture delivered as an introduction to a course on the
Evolution of Morality, at the School of Anthropology of Paris. In
method and content the article is on purely evolutionary lines, and is
divided into seven topics, as follows : The Problem of Consciousness,

NEW BOOKS. 569

Motivity, The Genesis of Desire, Sensation, Feelings and Emotions,
Intelligence and Reason, and Domestication and Civilization. As a
sort of summary of the development briefly traced under these heads,
we may quote his words thus :

"At first, in the protozoa, we see only confused movements of the
protoplasmic substance (Amoeba). Then, in the lowest radiates, the
nervous tissue begins to differentiate, to control the movements of the
contractile substance, and even to be aware of sensations and to pre-
serve a trace of them (Medusa). Among the higher radiates this
nervous memory is perfected and from this there result complicated
reflex acts, which seem combined, coordinated, for the attainment of
an end, while being almost certainly unconscious. Organic and
psychic progress is accentuated among the molluscs, where one sees
plainly appear the organs of special sense, already well developed in
the cephalopods. In the higher molluscs the relative perfection of
the sense organs and of the nervous system, which, however, as yet
ganglionic, authorizes admission of the existence of a well-developed
nervous consciousness, of distinct sensations, of simple feelings, and
even of an intelligence still rudimentary. Finally, in the divisions of
the vertebrates, and particularly among the first of the mammals, the
existence of mentality very analogous to that of man can scarcely be
doubted."

Dr. Letourneau considers thought 4 a complex product of nervous
consciousness,' while reason he judges to be nothing else than " coor-
dinated application of the elements of nervous consciousness to partic-
ular and desired ends."

GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN.

NEW BOOKS.

Psychologic mit Anwendung auf Erziehung und Schulpraxis.

KARL HEILMANN. Leipzig, Diirrschen Buchhandlung, 1899.

Pp. 86.
DAnnee Psychologique. A. BINET. 5me Ann£e. Paris, Schleicher

Freres, 1899. Pp. 902. 15 Fr.
Worterbuch der Philosophischen Begriffe und Ausdrucke. R.

EISLER. Vierte Lieferung. Berlin, -Mittler, 1899. Pp. 289-

384-

Sensationi vibratorie. N. R. D'ALFONSO. Seconda edizioae
Roma, Soc. Dante Alighieri, 1899. Pp. 39.

57° NEW BOOKS.

Through Nature to God. JOHN FISKE. Boston and New York,

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899. Pp. xv -f- 194.
Spinoza and Schopenhauer. SAMUEL RAPPAPORT. Berlin, Hey-

felder, 1899. Pp. 148.
Nouvelles Esquisses de la Philosophie Critique. A. SPIR. Paris,

Alcan, 1899. Pp. 30 -f 147.
I Sogni, Studi Psicologici e Clinici. SANTE DE SANCTIS. No. 17

in Pic. Bibl. di Sci. Moderne. Turin, Frat. Bocca, 1899. Pp.

390. 5L.

An extremely well written and interesting account of dreams by a
competent psychologist. The successive chapters sum up adequately
the literature of the subject and give bibliographies under the several
heads : /. £., ' Dreams and Mysticism,' ' Methods of Studying Dreams,'
' The Dreams of Animals,' ' Of Children,' ' Of the Aged,' ' Of Adults,'
'Of the Neuropathic ' (of several different classes), 'Of Criminals,'
' Dreams and Emotions,' 'Dream Psychoses in Health and Disease,'
' Psychophysics of Dreaming,' ' The Marvellous in Dreams.' An
English translation would probably serve a good purpose. J. M. B.
The Philosophical Theory of the State. B. BOSANQUET. London

and New York, Macmillans, 1899. Pp. xviii + 342. $3.25.
The Races of Europe ; a Sociological Study. W. Z. RIPLEY. With

A Selected Bibliography of the Anthropology and Ethnology of

Europe (a supplementary volume published by the Trustees of the

Boston Public Library). New York, Appletons, 1899. Pp. xxix

+ 624.

This work comprises Professor Ripley's Lowell Lectures which
have already attracted much attention in their serial publication in
the Popular Science Monthly.
La Dissolution opposee a V Evolution dans les Sciences physiques et

morales. A. LALANDE. Paris, Alcan, 1899. Pp. viii -f- 492.

7 fr- 50-
Aberglaube und Zauberei von der dltersten Zeiten an bis in die

Gegenwart. A. LEHMANN. Deutsche Ausgabe von Dr. PETER-
SEN. Stuttgart, Enke, 1898. Pp. xii + 556.
The Value of Religious Facts. J. H. WOODS. New York, Dut-

ton, 1899. Pp. 165. $i.
The Physical Nature of the Child and how to Study it. S. H.

ROWE. New York and London, Macmillans, 1899. Pp. xiv -f

207. $i.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Aphorismes et fragments choisis. H. LICH-

TENBERGER. Paris, Alcan, 1899. Pp. xxxii-f 181.

NOTES. 571

NOTES.

THE circular announcing the Fourth International Congress of
Psychology has appeared. It may be had by addressing M. Pierre
Janet, Secretaire general, 21 rue Barbet-de-Jouy, Paris. The con-
gress— of which we hope to make fuller announcement shortly — is to
be held in Paris, Aug. 20-25, 1900.

OTHER congresses — to be held in connection with the Exposition —
which may interest psychologists are : that for Philosophy, Aug. 2-7
(see circular of organization issued in the Revue de Met. et de Morale,
July, 1899: another circular is in preparation giving an international
4 Committee of Patronage' for this Congress), Secretaire M. Xavier
Leon, 39 rue des Mathurin, Paris; that for * Instruction in the Social
Sciences,' second half of July (having French organization and an
international 4 Committee of Honor'), Secretaire M. Dick May, 22
rue Victor Masse; that on the 4 History of Religions,' September
3-9, Secretaires MM. J. Reville and Leon Marillier, Sorbonne, Paris.

WE regret to record the death, on June i4th, of Professor N.
Grote, of the University of Moscow, the distinguished Russian psy-
chologist and philosopher. Professor Grote was editor of the Vo-
prosii philosophii and President of the Psychological Society of
Moscow. The death is also announced (on June i3th) of Professor
Nourrisson, the well-known academician and historian of philosophy.

PROFESSOR A. C. ARMSTRONG, JR., of Wesleyan University, is
to be abroad the coming year on 4 Sabbatical ' leave, wintering prob-
ably at Oxford. The department will be in charge of Associate-Pro-
fessor Dodge.

WE have received the first numbers of two new journals, the
Revue de Morale Sociale, edited by L. Bridel, of Geneva (Paris,
Giard et Briere, quarterly, 10 fr.) and the Zeitschrift fur Padagog-
ische Psychologie^ edited by F. Kemsies, of Berlin (Berlin, Walther,
bimonthly, M. 8).

MESSRS. WILEY & SONS, New York, announce a work entitled
Statistical Methods with special reference to Biological Variation,
by Dr. C. B. Davenport, of Harvard University.

THE prospectus of the Jaresbericht iiber Neurologie und Psy-
chiatrie has reached us. It is to be edited by Professor Mendel, of
Berlin, with a corps of distinguished collaborators. The first volume
will be devoted to the literature of 1897. Authors are requested to

572 NOTES.

send books and reprints for analysis to the publisher (S. Karger, Ber-
lin, N.W. 6, Karl str., 15). A section devoted to Psychology will be
in charge of Professor Ziehen, of Jena.

WE note the appearance of the German translation of Professor
James' Will to Believe.

WE learn also that Professor Sanford's Course in Experimental
Psychology is being translated into French by Dr. Schinz, and Pro-
fessor Baldwin's Story of the Mind into French and Italian.

DR. W. O. MONTAGUE, of Harvard, has been appointed Instructor
in Logic in the University of California.

PROFESSOR BALDWIN has been given a half year's absence from
Princeton to see the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology
through the press in England. He intends to sail on September i9th
and wishes all the American contributions, proofs, etc., to be in his
hands in the first week of September (address until September loth,
Buzzards Bay, Mass.). His London address is care Macmillan &
Co., Limited, St. Martin's St. His courses at Princeton will be in
the hands of Professor Warren.

AFTER the appearance of this issue all communications for the
'editor, books for review, etc., should be sent to Professor J. McK.
Cattell, Garrison-on-Hudson, N. Y.

VOL. VI. No. 6. NOVEMBER, 1899.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW.

ON THE VALIDITY OF THE GRIESBACH METHOD
OF DETERMINING FATIGUE.1

BY DR. JAMES H. LEUBA,
Bryn Maivr College.

In the opinion of many psychologists the results published
by Griesbach and his imitators, Dr. Ludwig Wagner and Dr.
Vannod, were highly surprising. Experience with the aesthesi-
ometer leads easily to the opinion that, although the ability to
discriminate simultaneous touch sensations might very well be
altered by fatigue, it would be impossible to measure its influ-
ence without taking into account many other factors. That,
without regarding these other factors, the dependency of the
discrimination sensibility on fatigue could be ascertained safely
and easily enough to make of ' the method of Griesbach a prac-
tical means of determining and of comparing the degree of
fatigue ' 2 — a method applicable to the school problem, for in-
stance— went against what many thought to be a legitimate in-
terpretation of their experience.

Griesbach's paper, coming at the timely moment when the
fatigue question was the topic of the day in many a teacher's
circle, attracted a great deal of attention, and speedily found
imitators among teachers apparently delighted to have at last in

1 The larger part of the experiments here recorded were performed at Heidel-
berg, Germany, in part in the Laboratory of Professor Kraepelin, and with the
improved Griesbach cesthesiometer belonging to the said laboratory. Our
thanks are due to Professor Kraepelin for his assistance, and to Dr. and Mrs.
Lindley, who acted as subjects during the experiments carried out in Germany,
and generally cooperated with the writer.

2 Wagner's ' Unterricht u. Ermiidung,' p. 112.

574 JAMES H. LEUBA.

hand an easy means of settling the bitter discussion of school
fatigue. The results of Drs. Wagner and Vanned confirmed
the claim of the initiator, and to-day the method is widely ac-
cepted as filling the need of the teacher and of the physician for
a comparative determination of fatigue-states.

The writer undertook last winter a series of experiments
which were to be the beginning of an exhaustive investiga-
tion into the various factors influencing the discrimination
of simultaneous touch sensations : the temperature of the sur-
rounding atmosphere and of the parts affected ; the blood circu-
lation ; the emotional state, etc. As the preliminary measure-
ments clearly contradicted the claims of the authors cited, it was,
for several reasons, thought wise to publish them without wait-
ing longer for the completion of a work already several times
postponed.

The point at issue in what follows is not so much the correla-
tion of fatigue with discrimination sensibility, as the validity of
the aesthesiometric method for the determination of fatigue.

The measurements on which we base our conclusions ex-
tended over 14 days and include some 6,000 separate judgments.
They were taken at Heidelberg on three persons whom we shall
designate by the numerals I, II, III. The writer was one of
the subjects ; his measurements were taken by Dr. Lindley.
To these data, about 180 threshold-determinations were added
at Bryn Mawr, involving about 2,000 separate judgments, ob-
tained from six young women students at Bryn Mawr College,
by three post-graduate students who had been prepared by a
good deal of practice.1 Dr. Lindley and myself had both
worked before with the aesthesiometer ; nevertheless, to insure
from the start dexterous use of the instrument, tests were taken
during two days before record was made of them.

At Heidelberg we used the instrument carefully, guarding as
far as possible against the known sources of errors, such as cold
spots, momentary hyperaesthesia easily induced, in some persons
at least, by focusing the attention on one bit of the skin ; the
interference of after-images and the partial anaesthesia caused

1 Miss M. Hussey, Miss G. Locke and Miss N. Wood, to whom I desire to
express my thanks.

DETERMINING FATIGUE. 575

by too frequent and too rapid touches. We found it necessary
to allow about 6 minutes for the determination of the thresholds
of one person taken at two places ; this included frequent in-
tervals for the skin to return to its normal state. We proceeded
as Griesbach had done : the threshold for one and that for two
points were successively found for the forehead — along a line
running horizontally across the middle of the forehead — and
for the ball of the thumb. The place was marked, but we
took care to avoid putting the points always on the same spots.
The threshold for one point was sought by a gradual de-
crease ; that for two by a gradual increase of the distance be-
tween the points of the instrument. Each threshold determina-
tion involved usually about eight judgments, sometimes more, es-
pecially when after having said < one,' the subject fell back to
two, although the distance had been further reduced. In a case
of this kind the figure put on record was the one indicating the
longest distance at which the two points were definitely felt as
one.

In order to draw a parallel between the discrimination sen-
sibility and fatigue, it is evidently not sufficient to have a
measure of the former ; we should also have a measure of the
latter. To establish the discrimination curve and then to in-
terpret its ups and downs in fatigue terms with one's own feel-
ing, or the probable fatigue effect of a lesson in geometry or in
singing as the only guide, is evidently a ' pis aller.' If, in this
respect, we did not do much better than the investigators in ques-
tion, we had at any rate the production of fatigue under better
control than was the case with the school boys and apprentices
tested by them ; we could so choose the objects of our attention
and so direct it that a relatively constant increase of fatigue
took place. Moreover, we were enabled to measure the amount
of work done for two half hours daily during six days. This
was afforded us by the experiments carried on at the time by
Dr. Lindley, experiments in which all three of us participated.1
They were so conditioned and controlled that the number of

account of these experiments tending to determine the influence of
periods of rest of various lengths on the amount of work performed in a given
time, is to be published in Kraepelin's Psychologische Arbeiten.

576 JAMES H. LEUBA.

additions performed in the half hour, or in the hour, could be
taken as the measure of the mental work done. Unfortunately
for us, the limitation of the adding to two daily half hours re-
duces seriously the value of this control. To submit oneself to
the conditions required by such experiments, if they were to
last for several hours during three or four days, would be an
ordeal beyond the endurance of most men.

In the measurements taken at Bryn Mawr the method pur-
sued was the one used by Wagner : the threshold was gradually
approached from two extreme distances, one evidently too great
and the other clearly too small ; the former distances alternating
with the latter. This procedure has the advantage of keeping
clearly before the subject's mind the qualitative differences be-
tween what he is to call 'two' and what he is to call 'one,'
while the other practice delays the recognition of ' twoness ' and
of ' oneness.'

We begin with the experiments performed at Heidelberg.
The three subjects noticed early in the investigation, as other ob-
servers had done before them, that the passage from ' oneness '
to 'twoness' is through a sensation of length : the touch looses
its pointed quality and acquires that of a line gradually stretch-
ing until it breaks in the middle, thus producing two spatially
disconnected sensations. A similar transformation takes place,
but in the reverse order, when the threshold for one is sought.
It was therefore agreed to keep answering ' one ' however ex-
tended the sensation, as long as the break had not occurred.

In the following accounts of our experiments we shall, for
the sake of directness and concision, refrain from entering into
details which, interesting though they might be to the psychol-
ogist, do not bear directly upon our immediate object. For the
same reason we shall give only as many of the curves we have
obtained as appears to us necessary to establish our opinion.

Fig. I will enable the reader to compare the oscillations of
the discrimination sensibility during the three days of severe
mental work with those having taken place during three days
of rest. Each curve is the resultant of three daily curves. The
full lines are the rest curves, the dotted ones the fatigue curves.
The time at which the measurements were taken is indicated by

DETERMINING FATIGUE.

577

the figures along the axis of ordinates. The thresholds are
given in millimeters.

We kept at work from 9 or 9 115 A. M. until i P. M. with-
out other interruption than the one occasioned by the taking of
the tests at 10 145 or n o'clock. During the afternoon we had

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from two to three hours of work before 5 P. M., and we set to
work again immediately after an early supper — i. e., from about
7 : 15 or 7 : 30 until 9:15?. M. The subjects kept on working
until their time came to be tested. I. spent most of her time
reading German literature (Goethe) ; III. perused books on
psychology and philosophy (chiefly Wundt's Grundriss der
Psychologie), while II. computed the returns from the experi-
ments before referred to, a task by no means easy. The Ger-
man language introduced in our reading an additional element
of fatigue ; Goethe required on the part of I. close attention and
induced very soon real fatigue. We did our best all through
the day not to allow our mind to wander, even though it cost
us frequent painful efforts.

We worked all three in the same room to eliminate the
fluctuations of temperature and of blood circulation which would
have been produced by the passage from the open winter air
into the warm atmosphere of a room. Our life was well regu-
lated ; we retired early and nearly at the same hour each day
and our coffee and tea drinking was kept as much as possible
the same during the six days of experimentation.

The fatigue produced was well marked. The words used
to describe it were, for the first day : « Quite tired ; a little

DETERMINING FATIGUE. 579

nervous' (HI); 'very tired, understand no more' (I);
* worked with energy all day, but could not go on much longer '
(II). For the second day: 'Tired' (III) ; I., who felt very
tired before supper, was somewhat excited and disposed to go
on when 9 : 15 P. M. came ; * very, very tired, tired out' (II).
At the end of the third day we were all three quite tired and ex-
tremely glad at the prospect of the coming days of rest. The last
hour of the morning was usually quite burdensome, not that our
work was lacking in interest, but that we were no more able to
attend spontaneously; it was already fatigue and not simply
nervousness. The reader might wish that we should give the
curves for each one of the six days, together with a designation
of our fatigue feelings at the moment of the measurements and
not only the resultants. If anything more than what can be
inferred from the resultant curves could be derived from the
separate curves, they would be reproduced here ; but it is not the
case : the daily curves do not follow the fatigue feelings any
better than the resultants.

As each one of us engaged for the whole morning in mental
work engrossing his attention and requiring a considerable de-
gree of mental tension and drove himself continuously at full
speed, the reader acquainted with Griesbach, Wagner's or Van-
nod's papers will expect our fatigue-curves to ascend more or
less regularly from 9 A. M. to i P. M. The ups and downs
of the curves of these investigators due, according, to them, to
the different degree of difficulty presented by the lessons, some
of them being hours of relaxation, could not be expected in our
case. At 5 P. M. the curves should not be found much, if any
lower than at i, the after-dinner rest being offset by from two
to three hours of work ; and we should expect them to reach the
highest point at 9 : 15.

Concerning Fig. I the following points are to be noted :
i. The vertical extremes between which the fatigue-curves
wander remain very near together. For II. the distance be-
tween these limits goes once beyond 3mm and reaches that figure
three times only ; for I. it never reaches 3mm and four times only
does it go beyond 2mm, while for III. it exceeds 2mm only once
and then just by a fraction of a millimeter.

58° JAMBS H. LEUBA.

2. A striking and not to be expected lack of agreement be-
tween the curves for the two-threshold and those for the one-
threshold. Concerning the four pairs of curves of I., only the
thumb fatigue-curves agree tolerably well with each other, as
the reader will see. With III. the fatigue and also the rest-
curves for the thumb agree fairly well, but those for the head
show more frequently opposite directions. The tracings of II.
may be called satisfactory in this respect.

3. The corresponding forehead- and thumb-curves agree
still less ; neither in the tracings of I. nor in those of II. is there
any general agreement to be found ; on the contrary, the curves
are on the whole the opposite of each other. III. distinguishes
himself in that he shows two pairs of curves in agreement : the
fatigue-curves of the one-threshold and the rest-curves of the
two-threshold.

4. A comparison of the fatigue- with the rest-curves does
not bring to light any general, decided tendency. The oscilla-
tions of the rest-curves are about as great as those of the fatigue-
curves, although Griesbach states that "the sensibility under
normal conditions [he means no fatigue] changes not at all or
only very little." Sometimes the rest-curve ends higher above its
beginning than in the case for the corresponding fatigue-curves ;
sometimes they follow each other almost parallelly. If we
draw total average curves summarizing for each subject the four
rest- and the four fatigue-curves, we get the tracings of Fig. II,
in which the oscillations are so much reduced that we had to
increase four times the scale of the drawing. The distances
between the vertical extremes of each curve, expressed in mil-
limeters, are as follows: for rest, i (I), i (II), -if (III) ; for
fatigue : ij (I), i| (II), 1} (III). If we compare in each line
the starting with the ending point, we find two of the rest-curves
(I and III) ending exactly where they began and one (I) ending
i mm. below ; while of the fatigue-curves two end higher and
one lower: + i mm. (I), + i| (II), — | (III). If we consider
only the morning part of the tracings, we find that concerning I.
two of the rest-curves end higher than they start, one ends at the
same level and the other lower ; while of the fatigue-curves
two end lower, one at the same level and one higher. Concern-

DETERMINING FATIGUE.

58l

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The scale in Fig. II. is four times larger than in Fig. I. — *". e., four squares,
instead of one, stand for one millimeter.

The starting points of the curves of Fig. II. have been arbitrarily determined.

ing II., two of the rest-curves end higher than^they began and
the two others lower, while the four fatigue-curves end higher.
Concerning III., the rest-curves end lower in three cases and at
the same level in the fourth one, while the four fatigue-curves
end lower than their starting point.

It is clear that from Figs. I. and II. no general deduction re-
garding the effect of fatigue could be drawn with any confi-
dence, and yet the curves put in regard the discrimination sensi-
bility during three days of severe mental work and three days
of rest. If the agsthesiometric method does not yield here un-
ambiguous results, how could it be used in the class-room?

Let us pass to the curves of Fig. III. Each curve, with
the exception of those in the middle, represents the changes in
the discrimination sensibility as they occurred during one hour

5S2

JAMES H. LEUBA.

of adding performed on five successive days. The distances
from one point to the next, measured vertically, indicate the
modification of the sensibility during one hour of adding.
The hour was divided in two halves separated as follows : ist
day, no rest; 2d day, 5 minutes rest; 3d day,. 15 minutes; 4th
day, 30 minutes ; 5th day, 60 minutes. The continuous lines
represent the one-threshold ; the broken line, the two- threshold.
The curves in the middle are each the resultant of the four
others belonging to the same subject. No value is to be given

I.

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7.

S.

2
/

in.

DETERMINING FATIGUE. 583

to the position of the starting-point of the segments as, in order
to get a curve, the end-point of one day was used as the begin-
ning of the next.

Concerning Fig. Ill, we notice that: i. As in Fig. I, the
one-threshold curves agree only occasionally with the two-
threshold curves. Compare, for instance, the thumb-curves of
III. Those agreeing best are the forehead curves of II., and
even then one of them indicates a decrease of sensibility during
the adding of the third day, while the other shows an increase.

2. The agreement of the head- with the thumb-curves is no
better than previously. In the case of II. and of III. the diver-
gences generally reach opposition. In I. the one-threshold
curves exhibit a noteworthy concordance.

3. Regarding the relation between fatigue and the sensibil-
ity, we have in the addition returns a means of measuring
fatigue, and consequently of controlling the results yielded by
the assthesiometric method, which, if not absolutely reliable, is
at any rate of some value. We should not take it for granted,
even though we could assume that the initial psycho-physiolog-
ical state of the subject was each day the same, that the degree
of fatigue varies in inverse proportion to the length of the rest-
period separating the two half-hours of work. The amount of
work actually performed will be a much safer index of the
fatigue increase. But can we accept the statement that the
greater the amount of work, the greater the fatigue ; and that,
as far as the adding periods are concerned, all the work done
is represented by the number of additions ; and can we conse-
quently assume that the fatigue increase bears, in the same
person, a constant relation to the number of additions per-
formed? Man is a too complex and not well enough unified
machine for such an assumption to be true. Coexistently with
the physiological activity involved in adding, many other proc-
esses take place equally efficient as modifying factors of the
body metabolism, but not constant enough to constitute a fixed
quantity. The muscular tensions which vary so much from one
time to the other will, for one, contribute their share towards
the fatigue increase and at the same time tend to bring about a
reduction in the amount of the mental work performed. The

JAMES H. LEUBA.

number of additions will not even represent the whole product
of the physiological activity having a conscious correlate ; the
adding process is at times accompanied, at other times inter-
rupted, by trains of thoughts and feelings varying greatly, from
day to day, in duration and vividness. This supplementary
mental work, the adding does not record ; or if its effect is
perceivable in the number of additions, it is as a decrease that
it reveals itself. Stated in general terms, the objection here
formulated is that the number of additions performed during a
given time is not the whole of the psycho-physiological activity,
and consequently cannot be an exact correspondent of the
fatigue increase. Nevertheless it may serve as an approximate
means, and therefore we give in the following Table the re-
turns of the adding for comparison with the curves of Fig.
III. It is evident that it would be sheer waste of time to com-
pare these figures with the separate curves of Fig. III., as, if
they agreed with one of them, they must necessarily disagree
with another, since between head and thumb, as also between
the one- and the two-threshold there reigns an apparently hope-
less discrepancy. The only possible thing would be to make
use of the resultants of the four curves of each subject, however
slight the confidence deserved by a curve having such progeni-
tors.

A. FOR THE WHOLE HOUR.

I.

II.

III.

2d day — 84
3d « +78
4th" +89
5th" +64

— 10.8

+ 17

Il48-.i

- 72.8

+ I45-2
—424.8
+285.2

B. FOR THE SECOND HALF HOUR.

2d day -|- 12
3d " + 94
4th " + 59
5th" +110

— 21.4

+ 10.6

+234-
+ 49-6

— 101.9

+ 83.1
—231
+176.1

C.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND HALF
HOUR OF THE SAME DAY.

1st day — 103

—148

+ 122

No Rest

2d » +5

— 180

— 9

5m "

3d " +95

-163

+ 12

i5m "

4th " +124

— 72

— 26

3om "

5th " +180

+ 66

+ 41

6om "

DETERMINING FATIGUE. 585

A gives the differences in the number of additions performed
between the day named opposite the figure and the preceding
one. For instance, 2d day — 84., means that during the second
day there was a decrease of 84 in the number of additions of the
first day.

B takes into account only the second half of the hour and
C, instead of comparing two successive days, gives the differ-
ences between the first and the second half hour of the same
day. The influence of practice has been eliminated by the de-
duction of the practice gain. How the practice gain was deter-
mined may be ascertained from Professor Lindley's paper,
already referred to. The figures of C represent, in our opinion,
the nearest approach to a successful expression of the changes
in the fatigue state, provided they are interpreted as follows : a
falling off in the additions in the second half hour as compared
with the first is a sign of fatigue ; consequently we shall expect
the curve to move upward whenever the second half hour
yielded less work than the first, and vice versa. How far this
interpretation is to be relied upon is not at all clear ; but it seems
to us the best use we can make of these figures. When con-
strued in this way the resultant curve of subject II. follows re-
markably well the figures ; and, barring the segment of the first
day, that of I. is also satisfactory. But inasmuch as the curve
of III. does not at all reflect the oscillations shown by the figures,
no general inference can be drawn.

Against A and B^ looked upon as fatigue indicators, it may
be urged that the initial work-power of the subject is not taken
into account, as it should in order that the figures be really indic-
ative of proportional fatigue changes. For instance, the num-
ber — 84 is to be interpreted as indicating a smaller loss of work-
power (less fatigue increase) during the second than during the
first day. But if the initial fatigue was greater the second than
the first day, a loss of 84 in the number of additions during the
second day may very well mean greater losjs of working power
during the hour than was experienced the preceding day, al-
though more work was done ; we should then, if that supposi-
tion was true, expect the curve of the second day to show a
greater rise than the one of the first, despite the fact that less
work was accomplished.

586 JAMES H. LEUBA.

The measurements taken upon the Bryn Mawr students need
not delay us long ; they confirm the negative results of the
others. Out of the thirty-six separate curves obtained, we pick
out twelve (Fig. VI) possessing as fairly as possible the charac-
teristics of the whole batch. The aesthesiometer was used at
Bryn Mawr as Wagner used it — t. e.9 instead of determining the
one- and the two-threshold, the instrument was applied alterna-
tively with the points too far apart to be felt as one and too near
together to give the impression of twoness ; from these two ex-
treme distances the threshold was gradually approached. To
keep the attention of the subject and prevent the influence
which regularly in the succession of the sensations expressed
as ' two,' < one ' ; ' two,' * one ' might have, the subjects were
frequently touched with one point only. The measurements
were taken without haste and with due regard for the cir-
cumstances on which exactness of result depends : absence of
disturbing external stimuli ; ignorance on the part of the subject
of the method pursued ; interruption of about one minute and a
half after every four or five touches, etc. Moreover, to prevent
the bewildering effect which too many touch sensations produce
when crowded in a short space of time, we endeavored to reach
safe results with as few touches as possible. Eight applications
of the instrument were found the lowest practical number for
each threshold. Under these conditions about five minutes were
required for the determination of the two thresholds — forehead
and cheekbone — taken at each sitting. No attempt was made
in this series to find out and avoid the temperature spots, our
intention being primarily to imitate Dr. Wagner's method, and
to use it on persons younger than the Heidelberg subjects.
Nevertheless we proceeded, even in these experiments, with more
care than the German investigators. The students who served
as subjects were requested to keep faithfully at work from 8:15
A. M. to i : 15 P. M. ; they understood that we wanted them to
get as tired as possible, and they willingly entered into our pur-
pose. During the morning they attended either three or four
lectures or recitations ; the rest of the time they filled with private
work. The two post-graduate students who took the measure-
ments here recorded knew that the discrimination sensibility is

DETERMINING FATIGUE.

587

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588 JAMES H. LEUBA.

thought to decrease with fatigue, and expected their returns to
agree with this belief ; instead of this, they show an almost con-
stant increase in the sensibility. The figures increase only 15
times out of 108 possibilities as we pass from one measurement
to the next, and only 5 of the 36 curves end higher than they
begin ; yet the last measurement was taken at i : 15 P. M., after
five hours of mental work, interrupted only by the time neces-
sary for the tests, the first of which was taken 15 minutes after
breakfast. As to the correspondence of the forehead with -the
cheekbone curve, the reader will see that on the whole it is closer
than in the previous curves, but how far yet from the admirable
harmony reigning between Griesbach's tracings ! l

The preceding facts warrant, it seems, the following gen-
eral conclusion : If the ability to discriminate simultaneous
tactile sensations is in some way under the influence of fatigue,
it depends also and to such an extent upon other factors that it
cannot serve as an index of the fatigue-state. These other fac-
tors are the temperature spots, the irregularities in the sensitive-
ness of adjacent bits of the skin surface, the temperature of the
surface tested, the state of the blood circulation, the highly com-
plex inner determinants of the intensity, duration, and kind of
attention paid to the sensation, in so far as they are independent
of fatigue, etc.

It is not our present purpose to enter into a discussion of the
relative importance of these several factors ; to do this profitably
would require long series of skillfully planned and carefully
carried out experiments. But we may, before closing, support
our general conclusion by the results obtained and the opinion
expressed by Tawney in a recent and painstaking work,2 and
also by a criticism of the method used and of the results obtained
by Griesbach and Wagner.

According to Tawney — and this we have ourselves often
noticed — it is of the greatest importance that the points of the
aesthesiometer produce a sensation of equal subjective intensity.
This cannot be secured by equal pressure of the points, since

JThe full-line is the forehead curve ; the broken line, the cheekbone curve.
2 Guy A. Tawney, Ueber die Wahrnehmung zweier Punkte mittelst des
Tastsinnes, Philosophische Studien, 1898, Vol. 13, p. 163.

DETERMINING FATIGUE.

Fig.

Fig. XT

Fig. XT

Figs. VII., VIII. , IX., X. and XI. are taken from Guy A. Tawne/s paper
before mentioned.

59° JAMES H. LEUBA.

neighboring bits of the skin differ considerably in the thick-
ness of the insensitive superficial layer, and probably also in the
sensitiveness of the deeper layer. He found, for instance, in
one part of the shoulder blade that the point touching the skin
lightly was felt more distinctly than the other, although heavily
applied. Concerning the relative importance of fatigue and of the
mood (Gemuthslage), he .writes " Es Wiirde namlich bemerkt
dass die Gemuthslage der Versuchperson eine sehr bedeutende
Rolle spielt, wahrend z. b. der Umstand dass sie bis 12 Uhr in
der vorigen Nacht gearbeitet hatte, fast gar keine Rolle spielte."
He found also that widely different results were obtained when
the attention was transferred from the object touching the skin
to the subjective sensation, or when its intensity was altered by
means of suggestions in the form of information imparted to the
subject on the purpose of the experiments. But the point of
greatest interest to us in Tawney's paper is the great variations
shown by the threshold of the same person, measured at the
same spot and at the same time on different days. Fig. VII
and Fig. VIII, pp. 16-19, g^ve tne thresholds of two subjects
measured at 7:30 A. M., on the same part of the body (the
dorsal side of the forearm in the case of Fig. VII ; the dorsal
side of the upper arm in the case of Fig. VIII) on successive
days.

The thresholds recorded for these curves are, for each day,
averages of four threshold-determinations. This, according to
Tawney, accounts for the regularity of the decrease of curve VII,
a decrease due to practice ; but it does not prevent Fig. VIII
from showing daily oscillations reaching almost 20 mm. We
are not told how the preceding nights were spent, but the re-
mark quoted above indicates clearly enough that, in the opinion
of the author, irregularities of the curve cannot be explained
by fatigue due to late work and insufficient sleep. Fig. IX
shows similar oscillations ; but as the time of the measurements
was not always the same, we cannot make use of them. The
time at which the tests recorded in Figs. X and XI were taken
is not mentioned ; we may suppose that the rule was followed,
namely, to measure always at the same time of day. The fol-
lowing figures, representing the thresholds for the volar side of

DETERMINING FATIGUE. 591

the forearm, measured daily during 19 days, indicate again very
great variations : 60, 52, 60, 64, 54, 52, 55, 50, 42, 40, 45, 40,
45, 40, 38, 41, 42. The table numbered XV in Tawney's paper
exhibits a similar irregularity ; the thresholds for ten days
separated by intervals of one to six days' duration are : 15, 25,
30, 40, 45, 45, 25, 16, 35, 45. The preceding curves and fig-
ures are not picked out of a larger number ; they represent the
whole of the results obtained by Tawney bearing upon our in-
vestigation. He had himself no intention of studying the re-
lation of fatigue to the discrimination sensibility.

When these results and those obtained by ourselves are put
together, it becomes difficult to look upon the work of Griesbach,
Wagner and Vanned with any other feeling than one of wonder.
When the resultant curves of three persons for three comparable
days of hard, persistent work and for three days of rest — to
speak only of the part of our work which we offer here — move
up and down apparently without any reference to a fatigue
clearly felt and legitimately inferred from the work performed ;
when an hour of adding by three persons, during six days,
yields no better result ; when five morning hours of intellectual
activity on the part of six college students interrupted by only
short pauses, bring with them remarkably uniform increase in
the discrimination sensibility ; when, moreover, it is known that
the same spot may yield on successive days and under appar-
ently the same conditions, results varying up to 20 mm., the
admirable consistency and uniformity of the results published
by the said investigators become a problem whose solution is not
easily found. To this should be added that these remarkable
results have been obtained under circumstances far from favor-
able to exactness of return. Wagner, for instance, measured in
10 minutes — the length of the interval between the class sittings
— from six to ten persons at one point, and Griesbach, in ap-
parently the same time, two or three subjects in six different
places. This appears to us verging on the impossible.

If we now turn to the consideration of the method used
by the German investigators, we find that Griesbach is not
very explicit in his description of the manner in which he pro-
ceeded. His method was the one we followed at Heidelberg ;

592 JAMES H. LEUBA.

only, judging from the rather vague utterances of his mono-
graph and from a private communication, he allowed himself a
good deal of freedom. How far one could, with the help of a
little looseness in the use of the sesthesiometer — a looseness un-
avoidable, it seems, when the measurements are to be taken as
rapidly as they were in this case — unconsciously influence one's
returns when possessed by an idea which, if confirmed by ex-
periments, would prove of great scientific and of much practical
value, is an open question. We may be excused for formu-
lating it on this occasion.

Wagner's method was similar to the one used in Bryn Mawr
by our students and ourselves : too great and too small distances
alternating until the threshold is reached. This procedure is
decidedly to be preferred to the former under the circumstances
in point, the alternation of distances giving clearly two, with
distances yielding but one sensation, gives to the subject, from
the very beginning, a clear knowledge of the difference with
which his judgment is to deal. Otherwise, if, for instance, the
experimenter begins with a very small distance and increases it
until the threshold is reached, the subject who has not had the
opportunity of comparing twoness with oneness will often show
by his answers that he does not know what he is to call ' one '
and what ' two.' We tested many persons with regard to this,
and found in almost every case that the usual verbal instruc-
tions are not sufficient : before the subject is made acquainted
with the sensations he is to call ' two ' and « one,' he may call
' two,' two points clearly below the threshold and give the
same answer when touched by one point ; this source of error
will be greatly increased if the subject gets into his head that it
is to his credit to feel two points as often as possible. This ob-
jection applies with all its force to the method used by Gries-
bach, since his subjects changed generally each day and were
expected from the very first trial to give recordable judgments.

Wagner declares his results to be in perfect agreement with
those of Griesbach, and concludes that "the assthesiometric
method of Griesbach is a practical means of determining the
degree of fatigue and of comparing it quantitatively" (p. 12).
There is shown, he holds, ' a clear relation,' between the dis-

DETERMINING FATIGUE. 593

crimination sensibility and six specified circumstances, among
which we find not only the sort of instruction received, but also
the teaching ability of the instructor. For the. interpretation of
separate turns of his curves he shows a boldness of which
Griesbach was not guilty. No doubt his results are in close
agreement with those of Griesbach, yet there is one particular
in which the concordance appears defective ; in looking over
his tracings it occurred to us that their upward gain was made
chiefly, if not entirely, between the first and the second meas-
urement, and that they frequently ended below the point reached
at the second test — /'. £., after the first hour of study. In order
to reach a definite opinion on this interesting point the sum was
made (i) of the measurements taken before the beginning of the
lessons; (2) of those taken after the first hour; (3) of those
taken after the last morning hour, with the results given below.
Each table in Wagner's paper includes the measurements taken
on from five to ten students of the same class, before the begin-
ning of the morning's work and after each recitation of one
day. There were usually five recitations, separated from each
other by an interval of ten minutes. Each one of the figures
composing the first vertical row of our tables is the sum of the
figures representing the measurements taken before work in one
of the tables of Wagner ; the figures of the second row give
each the sum of the measurements after the first class hour, and
those of the third row the sums of the last measurements of the
same table. We have added before the figures the names of
the studies after which the tests were taken. We omitted the
measurements taken after * Religion ' when given during the
last hour, because the lesson was attended by only about half the
students used as subjects. We acted similarly with gymnastics
that intellectual work only be taken into .account. Furthermore,
when the last figure was missing we left out, for that day, the
measurements of the person concerned.

594

JAMES H. LEUBA.

TABLE A.

MEASUREMENTS IN QUARTA.

55

French exercise, 79

Phaedrus, 80

Thresholds of 6 subjects.

42

Arith. (Rechnen), 67

Latin, 91

8

86

French, 108

German, 120

8

78

German, no

Geom., 135

8

70

Geometry, 118

Latin, 106

6

45

Arithmetic, 73

Latin, 97

6

73

Arithmetic, 106

Latin, 136

7

83

104

French exercise, \
German compos., / *

Latin, 173
German, 175

9

10

127

Latin exercise, 178

Latin, 180

10

114

Geometry, 188

History, 167

10

Arithmetic, 160

Totals: 877

1358

1460

88

The average increase of the threshold between the initial and the final test

is, accordingly, in millimeters, 6.6

Between the first and the second measurement, 5.5

Between the second and the final measurement, 1.2

TABLE B.

MEASUREMENTS IN UNTERTERTIA.

27

Latin, 35

Geogr. , 44

Thresholds of 4 subjects.

47

History, 51

Latin, 43

4

55

Greek Ex., 77

Geom., 65

6

93

German, 114

History, 99

8

57

Greek, 65

Geom., 73

5

83

Greek Ex., 114

Natural Sci., 107

8

81

Latin Ex., 107

Geogr., 98

8

97

Greek, 107

Geom., 106

8

87

Greek Ex., 108

Natural Sci., 118

8

90

Latin Ex., 119

Geogr., 114

8

Totals 717

897

867

67

The average increase of the threshold between the initial and the final test

is, accordingly, in millimeters, » 2.2

Between the first and the second measurement, 2.7

Between the second and the last measurement, — 0.4

Remarks on Table B. — Wagner explains as follows the sur-
prising fall of the figures at the end of the morning in the
second series (47, 51, 43) : " * * * alles Erstaunen verschwindet
und die Theorie erhalt gerade hier eine interessante Bestatigung,
sobald man erfahrt, dass alle 4 Stunden dieses Tages von ange-
henden Accessisten gehalten wurden," p. 63 . Unfortunately, the
fourth series exhibits a similar drop (93, 114, 99) without * Acces-
sisten.'

DETERMINING FATIGUE.

595

Notice, also, that the 6th (83, 114, 107) and the pth series
(87, 108, 118) exhibit inverse changes of the sensibility, although
the subjects of study were for both days the same : Ovid, Latin,
Religion, Natural Science.

TABLE C.

MEASUREMENTS IN OBERTERTIA AND UNTERSECUNDA.

35

Caesar,

7i

History,

68

Thresholds for 6 subjects.

75

German compos.,

126

Latin Gram

,117

• 8

32

Latin Grammar,

39

History,

49

1 4

37

Greek,

36

Latin,

54

1 5

72

Greek,

99

Latin,

96

' 7

44

Algebra,

58

Xenophon,

67

' 5 "

Totals: 295

429

45i

35

The average increase of the threshold between the initial and the final test

is, accordingly, in millimeters, 4.5

Between the first and the second measurement, 3.8

Between the second and the last measurement, 0.6

What do these figures mean ? Can they be reconciled with
the claims made in favor of the aesthesiometric method? Are
they to be interpreted as meaning that fatigue takes place al-
most entirely during the first hour, and remains nearly the same
through four additional hours of work, one or two of which re-
quire as much exertion as the first ? Before proceeding with this
problem let us notice that, in this respect, Wagner's results agree
neither with those of Griesbach nor with ours. During the first
hour of work the sensibility of the three Heidelberg subjects
increased (see Resultants, Fig. II). The same is true of the
Bryn Mawr students, while the Griesbach curves continue to
ascend more or less regularly after the first hour and generally
end at the close of the morning (12 o'clock), higher than after
the first hour — we refer chiefly to the cheek bone and forehead
curves. It might be that this lack of agreement between the
German investigators is due to the unequal difficulty of the sub-
jects with which the morning's work opened in the respective
classes to which their subjects belonged. As a matter of fact,
in the classes with which Griesbach dealt, natural history and
modern languages are frequently at the beginning of the
schedule. But whether this be the ground of their disagree-

596 JAMES H. LEUBA.

ment or not, the problem before us remains. It will not do to
have recourse at this juncture to the different degree of atten-
tion required by the several branches of study, for, if we con-
sider only the subjects of the last hour, leaving out of count the
three middle ones, we see that they cannot be said to be clearly
inferior to the first in respect of their fatigue-producing power ;
and even though they were of a somewhat less exhaustive kind,
the curves would not thereby be explained unless it could be
shown that between the first and the last hour the sensibility, in
consequence of the recuperative quality of the three interme-
diary subjects, had nearly returned to the norm.1 But to ac-
cept this would be equivalent, it seems to us, to giving up
the claims of the believers in the method. It cannot be said
either, by way of explanation, that the 10 minutes rest between
each hour was enough to produce return to the normal ; and that,
consequently, the figures show the fatigue increase to have been,
on the whole, about the same for each hour. It is evidently not
true that two, three, four or five hours filled with the Gymnasium
studies just mentioned leave the student just as fresh 10 minutes
after.2 We should rather be disposed to affirm that 10 minutes
after the first hour of work a student might be quite fresh, while
10 minutes after thefifth hour hewould be quite tired and often ex-
hausted. Another explanation, plausible this time, but destruc-
tive of the claims under consideration presents itself to us : al-
though nothing is said as to the place where the first tests were
taken, we may assume that it was in the school building, the first
measurement being taken as the students arrived from their homes.
Now the usual condition of a young man after an early morning

xThe intermediary subjects for the j days on which the measurements were
taken, were : History, Geometry and Phsedrus ; Phsedrus, Grammar, and Geog-
raphy; French, Gymnastic and History; Geometry and History; Drawing, Re-
ligion and Geography (this group is found only once) ; Drawing, Algebra, Ovid ;
Geometry, French, Greek and other similar groups. Considering Gymnastic,
Wagner says (p. 126) summarizing: "The hour of Gymnastic has * * * in y$
of all the students (according to the most favorable construction of the figures)
produced a relative recuperation ; in the two other thirds it induced a clearly
marked [ganz ausgesprochene] fatigue."

2 Or shall we assume that it is only during the first hours that the Gymnasium
student really works and that during the rest of the morning, either because of
exhaustion or of laziness, he foregoes all tiresome mental effort ? Probably no
gymnasium director would countenance such a supposition.

DETERMINING FATIGUE. 597

walk and the exhilarating encounter with classmates is one of
comparative bodily and mental alertness. An hour later, after a
recitation in Latin, Greek or Geometry, the blood circulation,
the respiration and the general feeling may be assumed to have
changed considerably. Under such dissimilar circumstances we
should hardly expect to get comparable aesthesiometric results.
We have taken some measurements with the hope of determining
the influence of these physiological changes, but we have been
unable to have our subjects fulfill sufficiently well the conditions
necessary for exact experimentations to warrant any positive
conclusion. The temperature of the part of the body tested and
of the room in which the measurements are taken should also
be taken into consideration in an attempt to interpret the curve-
peculiarity under discussion. Wagner experimented during
February and the first part of March ; consequently both the
temperature of the skin of the face and that of the room would
change materially during the first hour. Loewenton found that
the threshold was elevated by an increase of temperature of the
room. We need not insist on the possible influence of these
two factors ; the reader will see how they might have combined
to bring about the relatively low figures of the first measure-
ments. If accepted, this explanation would invalidate the con-
clusions drawn by the German investigators : the chief rise of
the curves would not be due to fatigue, but to other causes.
Unfortunately, we do not know whether Griesbach's different
figures must be interpreted as discrediting this solution, for we
are not informed as to the circumstances on which the compar-
ableness of the figures of the two investigators depends. As to
our own curves, all that can be said on this point is that they
do not show a corresponding rise during the first hour ; and that
the cause we have suggested for this rise as it occurs in Wagner's
curves existed neither in the case of subjects I., II. and III.,
nor in that of the Bryn Mawr students, since the latter and I.
and II. were tested in their own rooms, while the measurements
of III. were taken 15™ after his entrance into the rooms occu~
pied by I. and II.

Returning to the general problem of the discrepancy exist-
ing between our results and those of the German investigators,

598 JAMES H. LEUBA.

we may, in closing, advert to such thought as the following :
the Heidelberg and the Bryn Mawr subjects might be, one and
all, abnormal persons ; or, we may have failed to get correct
thresholds because of lack of skill in handling the instrument ;
or, our subjects were older than those of Griesbach and Wag-
ner ;l or, the discrimination sensibility of German youth is not
comparable in its behavior to that of American men and women
— thoughts which appear to us either inadmissible, or insufficient
to silence the suspicion that the conclusions of the papers here
considered are not well founded.

In this state of indecision we must let the matter rest for the
present and until a thorough and systematic investigation of all
the factors affecting the discrimination of simultaneous touches
enables us to assign to fatigue its particular role. Two groups
of factors will have to be taken into consideration : (i) those
affecting the peripheral organs — temperature, thickness of epi-
dermis, the peripheral blood supply, etc. ; (2) those affecting
the general psycho-physiological condition of the subject, and
more especially his ability to attend. An a -priori considera-
tion of the influence possessed by these factors leaves but little
ground for the hope that the discrimination sensibility to simul-
taneous touches may serve as a practical test of fatigue, for
many of them (temperature, blood circulation) vary under un-
changed fatigue conditions. As to attention — considered inde-
pendently of its relation to fatigue — it lacks the constancy and
steadiness which are absolutely required if the experimenter is
to draw his inferences from a very small number of measure-
ments. It is a rhythmic function, and, moreover, is readily and
rapidly modified by the will to attend — a quantity that cannot
be maintained constant.

1 No age limit is set by them to the applicability of the pretended relation
existing between the discrimination sensibility and fatigue. When testing per-
sons of the age of our Bryn Mawr subjects, Griesbach found the same results as
when dealing with younger persons.

ON THE INVALIDITY OF THE ^ESTHESIOMETRIC
METHOD AS A MEASURE OF MEN-
TAL FATIGUE.

BY DR. GEO. B. GERMANN,
Columbia University.

While engaged in reading the literature on fatigue some two
years ago, I became interested in Dr. Griesbach's investigation
on the relation between mental fatigue and the discriminative
sensibility of the skin.1 Dr. Griesbach, it will be recalled,
claimed to have ascertained a close and definite correspondence
to exist between the extent of sensation areas and the fatigue
incident to school and other mental work, the main hypothesis
being that fatigue increases the size of such areas, while rest
diminishes their extent on any defined portion of the skin.
His interesting results apparently confirmed this hypothesis,
but I doubted the validity of his method and therefore his re-
sults. That method consisted in rapidly increasing minimal
distances and decreasing maximal distances between the aes-
thesiometer points until the extent of the sensation area was de-
termined. Furthermore, apparently only one determination
was ascertained in each case. Griesbach fails in his paper to
indicate how he satisfied himself that he had obtained this end
within any reasonable degree of accuracy. It is a matter of
common experience that as the sensation-area limit is ap-
proached, tactile illusions become numerous, and any sin-
gle determination near the limit may be more of a guess, or
perhaps a purely illusory statement, than a safe judgment.
The employment of the method of right and wrong cases is un-
doubtedly the safest method whereby to determine the accuracy
of a series of judgments relative to tactile discriminations.

Wishing to get at the facts of the case, I undertook the fol-
lowing investigation during the period from February 24 to

1 Archivfur Hygiene, 1895, Vol. XXIV., 124-212.

599

600 GEO. B, GERM ANN.

March 25, 1898. As subject I made use of my sister S, age
twenty-three, a student at Barnard College, an earnest and
diligent worker, health good, nervous condition normal.

The method employed was that of right and wrong cases.
Jastrow's aesthesiometer was used during the entire investiga-
tion. This aesthesiometer is so constructed that when the points
are placed upon a horizontal surface the pressure upon that
surface is equal to the weight of a constant portion of the in-
strument. In order to obviate the inequality of pressure inci-
dent to tipping the aesthesiometer sidewise in securing a one
point contact, the instrument was slightly modified so as to
secure the desirable equality of pressure without the usual
inclination.

All of the usual and necessary conditions attaching to aesthe-
siometric experiments, such as equality in the temperature of
the room, absence of undue surface tension of the skin, blind-
folding the subject, securing focalized attention, etc., were care-
fully observed and rigidly adhered to. All determinations were
made upon a circumscribed area of the skin of -the back of
the right hand between the second and third metacarpals and
about two-thirds distant from the corresponding carpals. A
previous series of morning determinations, checked by means of
the method of right and wrong cases, had indicated the length
of the sensation area of the circumscribed region tested to be,
on the average, a slight fraction of a millimeter over two centi-
meters. This (2 -f cm.) was the constant distance between the
aesthesiometer points employed during the investigation.

Fifty contacts were made during each of the first thirty-five
tests, while during each of the other seven tests I had an oppor-
tunity to make one hundred contacts, thus affording a total of
2450 separate discriminations to be made by S during the prog-
ress of the investigation. Each contact lasted about one-half
a second. An interval of ten seconds was allowed to elapse
between successive contacts. On 27 out of the 30 days covered
by the investigation a total of 42 tests was made. Of these 42
tests, 20 occurred in the morning between 8 and 10 o'clock,
previous to any definite study, while the remaining 22 tests were
made in the evening, slightly distributed, but for the most part

MENTAL FATIGUE.

601

between 9 and 10 : 15 o'clock. At least eight hours of the in-
terim between the morning and the evening experiments were
always fully occupied by S with her collegiate studies, of which
two hours' work usually preceded the evening test.

In collating my data I have, in order to reduce the results of
the experiments to a very simple form, determined (a) the total
percentage of errors in discrimination occurring during each
test, (&) the percentage of errors occurring during each test in
the discrimination of two points only, and (c) the percentage of
errors occurring during each test in the discrimination of one point
only. The references to (a), (&) and (c) are in the following state-
ments designated by total, two and one, respectively. The re-
sults of the investigation may be most readily collated as follows :

(i) MORNING.

(2) EVENING.

AVERAGE.

VARIATION.

AVERAGE.

VARIATION.

Total.
Two.
One.

iS.i %

17-3%
12.8 %

6.8 %
10.1%

9-5 %

12.6
20+%

5 +

9-1 %
16.4%
5 %

Explanation. — Glancing at statement (i) we perceive that
during the morning tests the total percentage of errors arising
in the discrimination of both two points and one point amounts
to 15.1^, with a variation of 6.SJ& ; that the percentage of er-
rors arising in the discrimination of two points alone amounts
to 17.3^0, with a variation of 10.1^; and that the percentage
of errors arising in the discrimination of one point alone amounts
to 1 2.0^, with a variation of 9.5^. The interpretation of state-
ment (2), which refers to the evening tests, is to be made in the
same way.

Of the total number of tests, 14 pairs were conducted on
the morning and evening of the same days. It is both interest-
ing and significant to consider these pairs apart from the entire
series, and I believe that the following statements will serve to
throw the results into bold relief.

(3)

(4)

(5)

A. M. = P. M.

A. M. > P. M.

A. M. < P. M.

Total.

4

8

2

Two.

I

9

4

One.

2

9

3

602 GEO. B. GERM ANN.

Explanation. — Statement (3) indicates the number of times
that the morning (A. M.) and evening (P. M.) tests of the same
day contained the same total percentage of errors in the discrimi-
nation of both two points and one point (total), of two points
only (two), and of one point only (one). Statement (4) indi-
cates similar results with respect to the number of times that
the percentage of errors was greater in the morning than in the
evening ; while statement (5) refers to the number of times that
such percentage of errors was less in the morning than in the
evening.

A comparison of statements (i) and (2) brings to light several
important facts. The percentage of all errors occurring during
the morning series is 15.1^ =b6.8J&, while the percentage of all
errors occurring during the evening experiments is 12.6^)^9.1/0.
That is, less errors occurred in the evening than in the morning,
if the variation be discarded. Including the variation, we have
practically equal results at the upper limit, while at the lower
limit the errors are less and in favor of the evening tests. It is
also readily seen that the percentage of errors in the discrimina-
tion of two points is slightly less in the morning than in the
evening (this taken by itself would favor Dr. Griesbach's hy-
pothesis) ; and that the percentage of errors in the discrimina-
tion of one point is more than twice as great in the morning
than in the evening.

If we now examine statements (3), (4) and (5), the general
trend of my results will become much more clearly defined.
We see at a glance that out of the 14 days there considered, on
8 days the total number of errors was greater in the morning
than in the evening, on 4 days the total number of errors of
both morning and evening was equal, and on only 2 days did
the total number of errors in the evening exceed the number
occurring in the morning. Furthermore, on 9 days was the
number of errors occurring in the discrimination of two points
greater in the murning than in the evening, on 4 days less in
the morning than in the evening, and on i day equal. The in-
terpretation of the results of the one-point discrimination can
be readily made in a similar manner.

Now according to Dr. Griesbach's hypothesis, mental fatigue

MENTAL FATIGUE. 603

diminishes cutaneous sensibility, and this diminution in sensi-
bility is normally accompanied by and correlated with an in-
crease in the extent of any single sensation area. Were this
normally and universally true, then in a series of experiments
where the distance between the aesthesiometer points remained
constant we should be led to expect an appreciable increase in
the number of errors in discrimination, at least in the discrimi-
nation of two points, toward evening and after a day of severe
mental work. But my results plainly indicate that in a suf-
ficiently prolonged study of these phenomena in the case of a
normal, healthy and active student no such appreciable increase
in errors occurs. In fact, an examination of the above state-
ments (i) to (5) in toto may have the tendency to force the con-
viction that just a diametrically opposite condition of affairs
prevails ; so that were I inclined to be rash I might be tempted
to advance the hypothesis that, in the case of at least one stu-
dent, mental work and its concomitant nervous strain have a
tendency to refine cutaneous discriminative sensibility, probably
owing, I should then be tempted to add, to a general hyper-
aesthesia induced by a general diffusion of neural energy. But
I do not advance any such hypothesis.

The results of this investigation are summarized in the ac-
panying curve.

Explanation of the Curve. — The line of abscissae represents
the successive tests, while the line of ordinates represents the
percentage of errors occurring during each test. The three
main lines of inquiry are here indicated. The dash curve indi-
cates the percentage of errors occurring during the tests in the
discrimination of two points ; the dotted curve indicates similar
errors in the discrimination of one point, and the continuous
heavy line indicates the total percentage of error in each test.
The following numbered tests represent morning experiments :
2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 29, 31, 33, 37, 38,
40, 42. The others represent the evening experiments. The fol-
lowing tests occurred in pairs — i. e., on the morning and evening
of the same days : 6 and 7, 8 and 9, 10 and n, 13 and 14, 15 and
16, 17 and 18, 19 and 20, 21 and 22, 23 and 24, 25and 26, 29 and
30, 31 and 32, 33 and 34, 40 and 41. It will be observed that the

604

GE O. B. GERM ANN.

MENTAL FATIGUE. 605

above continuous heavy curve contains several of the character-
istic properties of a practice or habit curve. This is what we
should be led to expect from the work of others, who have ascer-
tained that a refinement in tactile discrimination ensues as the
result of the continued exercise of this sense. It may, further-
more, be of interest to note that during the progress of the ex-
periments S several times remarked of her own accord that she
believed she could feel the two points better than at the begin-
ning of the series. Beginning with the twenty-fourth test, the
variations are not so great as previously, nor are the percentages of
errors very large. Yet the record of the subjective condition of
S indicates a state neither more nor less favorable or unfavorable
toward the end than at the beginning. In order to anticipate
any objections that might be raised on the ground of the experi-
menter's clumsiness at the beginning of the series, I wish merely
to remark that I thoroughly tested my method and gained fa-
cility before applying it. Of course, added practice begets added
facility.

From the above results, I believe, we may reasonably con-
clude that the aesthesiometric method in a special normal case,
at least, does not furnish a constant nor even relative index as to
the amount of mental fatigue experienced by the individual.
I have found in several investigations on sensation areas, by
Judd and Tawney, an enumeration of normal fluctuations that
correspond quite closely with the amplitude of variation which
Griesbach, and more recently Wagner, ascribe to the influence
of fatigue. Furthermore, the subjective state of S was care-
fully ascertained during the progress of the investigation. A
general comparison of that subjective condition with the per-
centage of errors during each test gives further evidence in
support of my conclusion that in at least one normal case the
-percentage of errors in cutaneous tactile discrimination bears
no constant nor even relative correspondence to the menial
fatigue experienced by the subject.

I am convinced that, in special cases, the agsthesiometric
method is absolutely inadequate for the determination of mental
fatigue. Moreover, I strongly doubt its validity in any case.

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. II.

BY W. P. MONTAGUE,
Instructor in Logic^ University of California.

6 De Nattira AmmceS

This inquiry into the nature of the soul, or, more exactly,
into the nature of soul-substance, is the sequel to a former paper
on the existence of soul-substance. The contents of that paper
were as follows :

1. An introductory statement of the causes for the unpopu-
larity of conceptions of substance in modern philosophy and
particularly in modern psychology.

2. A description of the central problem of explaining the
apparent interaction of the world of Mind or teleological law,
and the world of Matter or mechanical law.

3. An outline of the five hypotheses actually used in the
solution of this problem of the seeming causality between in-
commensurates, to wit :

a. Absolute Teleology — the denial of efficient causes.

b. Materialism — the denial of final causes.

c. Occasionalism — the co-reality of mechanism and teleology
admitted — their mutual interaction being explicable only by
miracles.

d. Parallelism — the admission of both realms as real, but
their apparent interaction explained as an illusion due to a com-
plete parallelism.

e. Spiritualism — the theory of a soul-substance different
from mind and matter, yet partaking of the nature of both —
therein explaining the possibility of real causality between the
two spheres.

4. An exposition and attempted refutation of the first four
theories — especially of Parallelism.1

1In this refutation of Parallelism I made use of the fact that concomitant
variation excluded Parallelism. There seem to me to be a certain obscurity and
606

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 607

5. An indirect proof of the existence of soul-substance based
on the failure of all other possible solutions of the problem. Di-
rect proof based upon the axiom of " No action at a distance."

6. Conclusion — exposition and proof of the three require-
ments to be fulfilled by a valid conception of Substance in order
to distinguish it from (a) the * Ding an Sich,' (b) the « addi-
tional attribute,' (c) the ' totality of attributes.'

It is the explicit purpose of the present paper to show the
nature of the soul-substance the existence of which is to be re-
garded as proved in the first paper. To accomplish this task it
is necessary to show that experience affords us an example of a
mode of sequence which, while it is neither merely mechanical
nor merely teleological, is nevertheless (i) simple and intelligi-
ble in itself; (2) related to efficient and final causality as genus
to species, and (3) as species to genus.

Such a mode of experience would be the direct expression
or definition of the nature of soul-substance. Its substantiality

imperfection in the argument as there given, and I therefore take this oppor-
tunity of supplementing it bj the following statement :

Notwithstanding the fact that Mill (Logic Bk. III. Ch. 8) regarded the
Method of Difference as superior to the Method of Concomitant Variations, yet
it seems to me that the latter method is by far the more cogent, supplementing,
as it does, the Method of Difference very much as that method supplements the
Method of Agreement. The Method of Agreement gives a probability that A
is at least part of the cause of B. The Method of Difference gives a certainty
that A is at least part of the cause of B. The Method of Concomitant Varia-
tion gives a certainty that A is part of the cause of B, and also a probability
that A is the whole cause of B, which probability approaches certainty as the
concomitance approaches perfection. The ground of our belief that A is not
merely a part or ' collocation ' of the cause of B, but the whole cause itself, is the
fact that for every part of B there is a corresponding part in A, and that there
is nothing in A without its correlatein B. The concomitant variation of the
ratiocinative and physiological sequences, which is admitted by the parallelist to
be perfect or complete, carries us beyond parallelism ; for if it is complete, it
implies a correspondence of every infinitesimal part of the one process to every
infinitesimal part of the other. Such a type of relation is perfect as to its
homogeneity and is all that we can mean by causality. Just as two parallel
lines when prolonged to infinity cease to be parallel, and just as two similar ob-
jects if their similarity were infinite would cease to be similar and become iden-
tical—-just so a psycho-physical parallelism when it is made as perfect as it claims
to be — and must be — ceases to be parallelism and becomes causality. In short, the
parallelistic theory when closely examined is seen to be necessarily and pecu-
liarly self-transcendent.

608 W. P. MONTAGUE.

with respect to the mental and material attributes would be pro-
visionally manifested in its appearance as the common Limit
approached on the one hand by a series of teleological sequences,
becoming more and more perfect, /'. e., more free from the taint
of contingency — and on the other hand, by a series of mechanical
sequences approaching mechanical perfection or absolute inde-
pendence of all teleological references.

The resemblance between the concept of Limit and the con-
cept of substance is sufficiently striking to demand careful
consideration. What is a mathematical limit? It is the goal
or end approached by a series, e. g., the sum of i + ^ + J^
_j_ y§ _j_ ... approaches 2 as its limit. Now 2 is a perfectly
definite thing with a perfectly real and definable nature ; at the
same time it differs absolutely from the sum of n terms of the
series, when n is any number we please. If we represent the
sum of the first r terms of Jthis series by 2"r, we may express our
series thus : 2\ 22 23 2r ••> 2, where 2 is the limit or last term
of the series. It is to be noted that the members of this series
(so far as they are viewed serially, i. e., as interrelated) have
one common quality which makes us classify them as members
of one series. The influence of the limit of a series is present
throughout the series determining the relations of the members to
one another precisely as the Universal of a class is present in
each of the particular members.

The limit differs, however, from the mere Universal in two
highly important points :

1. While it is admitted by all except Platonists that the Uni-
versal can never exist apart from or independently of its partic-
ulars, yet it is perfectly evident that the Limit can and invariably
does exist as prior to and aside from the members of the series
which approach it.

2. The Universal can never be made a member of its own
genus (although Aristotle accused Plato of doing that very
thing) ; while, on the other hand, the Limit is always a member
of the series which it determines, e. g., 2 is the last member of
the series given above, and it is also a member differing from
all previous members in that it alone is an integral number.
Thus it appears that the Limit has not only the generic char-

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 609

acter common to all universals, but that it also has the individual
character of existing and of being known independently of any-
thing outside. And last and most remarkable, it has the char-
acteristic of being a member, and a wholly unique member, of
its own class (series).

When we affirmed that the substance concept must possess
the three qualities of being :

1. Self-intelligible.

2. Related to its attributes as genus to species.

3. Related to its attributes as species to genera. We might
well have felt that modern philosophy was fully justified in re-
pudiating such a thoroughly inconsistent and paradoxical notion
as that of Substance. And yet in the familiar and useful con-
ception of a Mathematical Limit we are able to see with the
greatest clearness and certainty all of these three essential prop-
erties of Substantiality. By virtue of its knowability and defi-
niteness, the concept of substance, like its mathematical brother
the Limit, differs from Pure Being or from the Ding an Sich ;
by virtue of its generic character it differs from all particular
qualities or atoms, and by virtue of its specific character it differs
from universals or ideas.

In view of these considerations we shall be guided in our
search for the nature of soul-substance by the well-known
method of Limits. We have for our problem given the nature
of the attributes (viz., mind and matter), and the fact of their
interaction — to discover the nature of the Medium (viz., soul-
substance), in virtue of which the relation of these attributes is
possible.

Our undertaking will be divided in two general parts.

i . The search for the limiting forms or perfect types of me-
chanical or material relation. 2. The search for the limiting
forms of teleological or mental relation.

First, then, we have to seek for the limiting or perfect form
of mechanical causality or of the relation between facts as such.
Take the following case : I hear the word 'Jacques/ and im-
mediately there presents itself to my mind a picture of a melan-
choly fellow in a green doublet ; following upon this picture
there comes another picture of another melancholy man in a

6iO W. P. MONTAGUE.

red cloak. I am a school boy commanded to write a composi-
tion on * As you Like It,' and I write the sentence, "Jacques
resembles Hamlet." This is a typical psychical sequences, and
without attempting the impossible task of a complete analysis
of what occurs, it will at least be useful for our purpose to note
some of the more obvious factors at work in the process. In
the first place, Hamlet and Jacques both possess the quality of
* melancholy,' hence I have a rational ground for asserting their
resemblance. Hamlet is associated with Jacques as co-member
of the same species. This then is the teleological ground of
my judgment regarded as a psychological sequence, and when
so regarded it is usually called Association by Similarity. In
the second place,'! write down the sentence, "Jacques resembles
Hamlet." I write this because I want to finish my exercise in
composition as soon as possible in order to be free to go skating.
I do it to fulfill a want or need of my immediate organism.
This desire for satisfaction, or aversion to dissatisfaction, may
be called the organic or biological cause of the action. In the
third place, the image of Jacques in a green doublet calls up
the image of Hamlet in a red cloak — why this change of color?
Upon reflection I cannot remember ever having seen Hamlet
dressed in red, and yet it is this color and no other that is pre-
sented with vividness to my mind's eye. We know, however,
that green and red are complementary colors, and that one is
apt to call up the other owing to what is probably a chemical
change in the substance of the retina. Let us then call this the
chemical cause of the process. And now there is one more
type of causality at work in the production of this judgment.
It so happened that I read < Hamlet ' and * As You Like It ' to-
gether. As a consequence of this fact, the sense impressions
of the one play are very closely bound up with those of
the other. The two sets of personages are associated by
Contiguity. No one doubts the validity of this psychical
law of Association by Contiguity. Some psychologists, in their
praiseworthy ambition to banish final causes from their science,
even go so far as to reduce Association by Similarity to a mere
complex kind of Association by Contiguity. Inasmuch as
Contiguity is a mechanical and temporal affair, while Similarity

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 6ll

is Ideological and non-temporal, we may assume, on the strength
of the criticism of Psychophysical Parallelism given in the
former paper, that this attempt at simplification is doomed to fail-
ure. It may perhaps be asked on what grounds we select the
law of Association by Contiguity as the distinctively mechanical
type of mental causality. By way of answer let us consider
what probably happens when two ideas are associated by Con-
tiguity. A sense impression a is suggested to the mind at a
given time tr Another sense impression ft is suggested to the
mind at a later period of time /2. Physiological psychology
warrants the supposition that at the moments when a and ft are
perceived there are two physical modifications a and b induced
on the matter of the brain, and the same science also warrants
us in supposing that, corresponding to the mental process of a
arousing ft, there is a physical process consisting in the com-
munication by spatial transition of something in a to something
in b. Experimental psychology proceeds further, and assures
us that, other things equal, the rapidity and the certainty or con-
stancy of the association between a and ft varies inversely as
the length of the time interval separating tl and ty Granting
these facts, we have the case of a mental sequence conforming
exactly to the laws which govern a purely physical change, i. e.,
a change from one position in space to another. The rapidity
and certainty of this change moreover are measured by the ' dis-
tance ' between the two positions. From this it follows that we
are justified in the assertion that in Association by Contiguity
we have a case of psychical sequence conforming to the quanti-
tative laws of mechanics.

So much for the four kinds of causes which we may call the
Teleological, the Biological, the Chemical and the Mechanical.
Let us now leave the domain of mental life in which these four
kinds of cause are usually found operating together, in order
that we may study in comparative isolation, and so far as may
be in serial order these several types of relation. At one end
of the series we have purely ' final causality,' at the other end
we have * efficient causality.' Between the two we have the
biological causality, which is predominantly teleological, and the
chemical causality, which is predominantly mechanical. When

6l2 W. P. MONTAGUE.

we leave the neutral or mixed ground of psychology for the field
of biology, what difference do we notice in the laws of the two
sciences, as to their respective types of relations between facts?
In biology, all changes or sequences are explained on the
basis of the desires or needs of the organism. Two phenomena
a and ft are seen to follow one another in time. If the sequence
fulfills the three conditions requisite for the valid inference of
causality, viz., mutual presence and absence and concomitant
variation — then the biologist is justified in assuming that a and
ft are connected with some specific need of the organism and
therein connected with one another. This medium of relation
has two aspects — a qualitative aspect which depends upon the
kind of organism in question and the particular circumstances
in which it is placed, and a quantitative aspect which is simply
the strength of the desire. Given the knowledge of these
two conditions the actions or sequences of an animal may be
predicted. In the higher organisms the qualitative aspect is
much more pronounced than in the lower organisms. In the
case given above in which I associated Hamlet with Jacques, the
quantitative aspect of the sequence, regarded biologically, would
be the degree to which my judgment of resemblance contributed
to the preservation of my organism. Obviously this was very
small indeed. If I had made any other assertion or had failed
to make any, the vitality of my organism would have suffered to
an extent almost inappreciable. Supposing, however, that, in-
stead of desiring to write a composition on a play of Shakes-
peare's, I had desired to satisfy a particular craving for a certain
kind of food — in this case the quantitative aspect of the causal
relation would play a much greater part. In a healthy organism
all cravings are normal, and the satisfaction of any one is a direct
contribution to the vitality of the animal. In so far as these
cravings are numerous and varied the same needs of the organism
can be satisfied by different objects. An animal desires one kind
of food, but if this is unattainable, his desire can be almost as
well satisfied by another. In short, just what the particular acts
of an animal will be depends upon qualitative conditions much
more than on conditions of quantity. Nevertheless as we de-
scend in the scale of organic complexity the qualitative factor

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 613

in the actions decreases in importance, until in the lowest types
of animals or the highest types of vegetables we find a few well-
defined desires, usually arranged in a pretty definite hierarchy,
and it becomes more and more difficult to satisfy one desire with
the objects of another, or to leave a desire unsatisfied without
destroying the whole organism. We express this decrease of
qualitative and increase of quantitative causality by saying that
the lower the organism the less' selective are its acts, the more
is it dependent upon or determined by its environment, and
the more certainly predictable are its changes. Its nature is
less intrinsic and more extrinsic. Finally when in the descend-
ing scale we leave the lowest type of vegetable and enter upon
the study of the actions of the crystal, we find the qualities of
this semi-organism arranged not merely in a general hierarchy,
in which each desire is indefinitely stronger or more important
than its neighbor next below, but rather do we find a state of
things in which each quality bears a definite and mathematically
determinable relation to every other quality. The changes in
the crystal become subject to the a priori laws of quantity when
once we have learned empirically the specific or qualitative
nature of the crystal. We may put the matter thus — why and
how the crystal should be what it is is not explicable, i. e., not
dependent upon any objects external to it, but being what it is,
all its changes may be explained or predicted.

Let us now pass from the sphere of Biological Causality to
that of Chemical Causality. At first sight the new class of phe-
nomena does not appear to differ very much from the phenomena
of crystallization. We have a substance known to possess cer-
tain properties or qualities, known also to be decomposable into
a definite number of certain other and simpler substances called
elements, and finally known to possess definite and unchange-
able relations both qualitative and quantitative to all other sub-
stances. We notice, however, that we can decompose a chem-
ical substance into its elements and then put these elements
together and get back the original substance. Now with no
type of organism or of crystal is this reverse process possible.
And this is the most noteworthy difference between the sub-
stances of biology and the substances of chemistry. The chem-

614 W. P. MONTAGUE.

ical substance has apparently no intrinsic life of its own, not
even a crystalline power of initiative. It has, to be sure, a very
rich qualitative nature, but we can force it to run through the
whole gamut of its changes simply by altering its relations to
other substances. An organism, however, refuses to be put
through its tricks against its will. Break a crystal or an
organism and you cannot mend it. Break the chemical com-
pound and usually nothing is easier than to mend it. Hence in
Chemical Causality we first come to what appears to be a rever-
sible series — the possibility of a change which is not also a
growth. A chemical substance can be changed in two direc-
tions— can grow old and can grow young, i. e., not grow at all,
but only alter. We have, to be sure, the interesting fact that
all chemical processes have strong preferences of direction in
these reversible changes. It is very easy to produce water by
combining hydrogen and oxygen, while it is somewhat more dif-
ficult to decompose the water into its elements. And this fact
is interesting, I say, as showing that the break between the or-
ganic and the inorganic world may not be an absolute matter,
but only one of degree. A chemical substance which persisted
in altering in one direction only in spite of all external agencies
could very properly be classed as an organism.

As we turn from the more complex substances to the less
complex, we naturally find the qualities of the substance grow-
ing more and more simple and the quantitative factor coming
more and more into prominence. Until the discovery of Men-
deleef's Law it seemed that the process of simplification had
come to a final stop with the classification of all chemical sub-
stances into various quantitative compounds of the original ele-
ments. Mendeleef s Law, however, shows that these elements
are not only related to one another quantitatively, but that the
several qualities which distinguish the elements from one another
form a somewhat irregular, though undeniable series, analo-
gous in type to the series of spectrum colors. The nature of
this series is such as to enable us to predict the qualitative na-
ture of an undiscovered element simply from a knowledge of
its quantitative relation to Hydrogen. Thus in this last dis-
covery we see the element of quantity all but supreme, and it is

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 615

an easy step from these quantitatively related elements of Phys-
ical Chemistry to the quantitatively related states of matter which
form the subject-matter of physics proper. Ice changes to
water and water to gas, and these three qualities are all pro-
duced in turn by simply changing the motion of the molecules.
Motion, however, is but a function of Space and Time, and
to reduce all change to a change of molecular motion is equiva-
lent to reducing all causality to the change of spatial position
by a material body. The laws that govern molecular motion
are not yet known, hence physics is still to some extent depend-
ent upon the empirical observation of qualities. But now the
qualitative element is merely the ratio cognoscendi of the causal
laws and not as in biology, the ratio essendi. In mechanics and
kinematics we at last arrive within sight of pure quantitative
causality untainted with any spark of teleology, /. £., of qual-
ity, unless indeed the quanta of mass and distance be themselves
called qualitative.

Mechanical change is change of position. Mechanical
causality is the law which governs this change of position, and
it is a simple function of the initial velocity, the mass and the
distance. The velocity or measure of motion is, as we have
seen, simply the limiting ratio of a particular filled space to a
particular filled time, while the mass of a body, as Karl Pear-
son so well shows, can be expressed or measured in terms of
the acceleration produced upon other bodies. The velocity of
the falling apple has a definite acceleration, which is the effect
and measure of the mass of the earth. Since mechanical change
can be adequately expressed wholly in terms of space and time,
and since time relations permit of spatial representation, we
have it in our power to symbolize adequately every mechanical
change by a geometrical graph, called by its discoverer a
6 Hodograph.' When a body moves according to mechanical
law we can regard any antecedent state of that movement as the
cause of every consequent state or effect. In short, it is only
in the case of the freely moving particles that we can accept
with a clear conscience the Humean identification of causality
with universal sequence. If we feel it necessary to ask for the
third substance, or thing in virtue of which the two terms of ante-

616 w. P. MONTAGUE.

cedence and consequence are causally united, we simply point
to the empty time and space intervals separating the two terms.
The very fact that the pure movement between two * space-
time ' or « Hodographic ' points is not only a continuous change
in the popular sense of the word continuous, but a homo-
geneous or truly continuous change, is enough to satisfy the
demand of reason for the third thing or medium as ground of
relation between two terms. Two commensurate quantities are
just as truly related through the fact of continuity as are two
qualities through the fact of participating in a third or generic
quality.

Now not only has Professor Pearson (after Clifford) reduced
Mechanics to a species of geometry, but geometry itself is re-
ducible to a species of algebra, called analytic geometry. In
virtue of this latter science we are, with respect to a fixed point
chosen arbitrarily and called an origin, able to express all posi-
tion in space as a complex algebraic quantity, the degree of
complexity depending upon the number of axes necessary to
distinguish every point from every other.

If all positions were confined to a straight line, we could de-
termine each of them by a single algebraic quantity (V). If,
again, all our points were in a plane we should require a dual
quantity for the definition of a point (x9y) • In our actual three-
dimensional space we require three axes from which to meas-
ure, and consequently a point can only be algebraically defined
by a three-fold quantity (x9y9 z). When we introduce in addi-
tion to the merely spatial relations the kinematical factor of the
temporal velocity with which the particles are altering their po-
sitions, we are obliged to bring a fourth element (z;) into our
quantity in order to define it as distinct from its ' spatio-tem-
poral ' or hodographic neighbors ; and finally when we take into
consideration the mechanical factor of Mass or accelerated
velocity (w), we may be said to be dealing with changes in a
five-dimensional world, and consequently to require a quantity
of five-fold complexity in order to express the whole state of a
body with a given mass and velocity, at a given point in space
and time, in such a way that its future states, i. e.9 its future
relations to another similarly determined body (viz., the center

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 617

of mass of the system in which it is), may be predicted with cer-
tainty. Thus any body which being a member of a mechanical
system is at any moment of time ^ represented by the five co-
ordinate quantities ( \xv yv ^J,^, z^), signifying respectively
its position in three-dimensional space, its velocity or position in
time, and its acceleration or mass, all relative to a fixed point
O which is both origin and center of mass — will at any subse-
quent moment /2 have changed to a state which can be repre-
sented by Q#2,jx2, z2] v2, w^, where ({#2, j/2, z2}va, w^) is a deter-
minable function of ( \xl9yl9 z^\vv ^1)9 and as before said, we
can regard the body in the first state as the cause of the body in
the second state. For brevity let us call these two complex
quantities Al and A2. Now we know for various reasons (among
others the fact of the loss of energy necessary in every system)
that no change is wholly cyclic, t. £., the state of a material sys-
tem never repeats itself in time. With respect to O9 Al and
A2 or An and An -f m must differ, and what is more important,
they must differ positively or in one direction only — for if they
did not the history of a system would repeat itself and we should
have a cyclic change, which is impossible. An + m can never
be equal to An, and consequently An, An + i, An -f 2 ...
An + m must be quantities which stand in an irreversible series
— a series such that any member Ar must be * further ' from
Ar — 2 than from Ar — i. This character is, however, pre-
cisely the character of our own numerical series, and we may,
therefore, say that the series in question is not only an irrever-
sible but an increasing series. But it must be remembered that
all this is only true with respect to our own chosen origin O.
We can always select another point in space O' as origin and
center of mass, with respect to which the series A19 A2, A^ could
be read in the reverse direction, where, for example, A2 with
respect to O could be shown to be less than Al with respect to
O'. Hence it is only on the supposition that O is a fixed point
that we can show that mechanical change is irreversible or ab-
solute, and not reversible or relative. What does this possibility
of selecting another origin mean ? It means simply that no given
system is absolute, but only relative, and that consequently the
changes in a system can only be predicted in so far as that system

618 W. P. MONTAGUE.

is taken as absolute, /. <?., as either isolated from or inclusive of the
rest of the universe. This is precisely the assumption upon which
Science proceeds. In a small system of bodies the error due to
the interference of other systems is great. As the system is en-
larged the changes become more regular, and the error decreases,
owing to the diminishing interference of other systems until it
finally can be neglected. Could we grasp the universe as a
whole, we should then have a system in which every element
necessarily changed in one direction, and could consequently be
expressed as an increasing quantity or series of quantities with
respect to an absolute center of Mass or Origin.

We have now reviewed the various types of causality in the
order of descent. Starting from the mixed stage of psychical
causation, we traversed the fields of biology, chemistry and
physics, gradually eliminating the qualitative or teleological
element until we finally reached the perfect or limiting form of
mechanical causality in which the cause became the antecedent
and the effect the consequent ; the sole relation between the two
being the relation of a less quantity Al to a greater quantity A2.
Pure quantitative increase is then the limit or substantial form
of relation in the mechanical world or world of Facts. Let us
now endeavor to find the limiting form of teleological causality,
the relation between Meanings.

Returning to our point of departure, the case of mixed
causality or psychical association, we may remember that the
process in which the psychical state « Jacques ' called up the
psychical state ' Hamlet ' (which we expressed in the judgment,
'Jacques resembles Hamlet ') was grounded or explicable on a
dual relation between the antecedent subject and the consequent
predicate. These two types of causal relation are named by
psychology Association by Similarity and Association by Con-
tiguity, the former being a case of teleological or final causality ;
the latter, a case of mechanical or efficient causality. In order
to find out just what mechanical causality meant, we were
obliged to work downward through the various conditions which
governed this particular sequence, regarded on its factual or
particular side, until in the course of our process all those teleo-
logical elements which permeate the factual order were one

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 619

after another eliminated. We have then now to follow the
exactly opposite course ; instead of gradually eliminating the
biological and chemical qualities which taint the space-time
world of the factual order with a teleological meaning — a nor-
mative significance — which is logically foreign to it, we must
now proceed to eliminate the hypothetical and assertorial par-
ticularity which taints the non-temporal world of teleological
norms with an irrational and mechanical character which de-
tracts from its purity. Indeed this is one of the most noteworthy
and remarkable characteristics of the universe — that although
the ' world of norms ' is diametrically opposed to the ' world of
facts,' yet each of these diametrically opposed worlds is tainted
and permeated with the characteristics of the other. Biology
and chemistry are certainly factual, as distinguished from
normative, sciences, and yet we have seen to what extent they
imply the qualitative or teleological element. Just so logic and
ethics are distinctively normative sciences, nevertheless they
imply as we shall see all sorts of factual considerations. And
it is this fact of separation without purity which makes the
method of limits the only proper instrument for attaining a com-
prehension on the one hand of what an Idea or norm really is,
and the nature of its relation to other Ideas or norms ; and,
on the other hand, of what a mechanical or material fact is
and its relation to other facts. The Judgment « Hamlet re-
sembles Jacques ' is not a purely normative judgment, that is to
say, it does not adequately represent that absolute relation be-
tween two meanings which we call Truth. For in the first place
there is no such person as Jacques and no such person as Ham-
let. They live in a world which does not truly exist, and it is
only by my assumption of this make-believe world as a real
world that my judgment is true. In short my meaning would
be more truly expressed if I said, " If Jacques were real he would
resemble Hamlet." This judgment is then a judgment of possi-
bility, and as such its truth is imperfect. We call this kind of
imperfect judgment by the name < Hypothetical,' which means
that the relation is not grounded in reality but on a hypothesis.
But you will at once reply — Hamlet and Jacques are not merely
hypothetical personages, mere empty possibles, a mere possible

620 W. P. MONTAGUE.

is nothing, and obviously Jacques is not nothing but a very im-
portant being whom the world could ill dispense with. In fine,
Jacques has some sort of actuality as a state of my conscious-
ness and of many consciousnesses, of which Shakespeare's is one.
As such then it is more than a hypothetical relation in which he
stands to Hamlet. Taking Hamlet and Jacques as states of
consciousness it is really and not hypothetically true that they
resemble one another. But what is the ground of this relation?
Is it a ideologically necessary connection, or does it just hap-
pen to be what it is? We can conceive Shakespeare to have
made a Jacques who would be merry instead of melancholy,
and who consequently would not have resembled Hamlet. From
this consideration we derive the important conclusion that the
teleological similarity of Jacques to Hamlet is itself dependent on
certain unteleological brute facts in the temporal world in which
Shakespeare lived. Our grounds then for making the judg-
ment are to some extent at least purely factual, and we express
this imperfection by saying that the judgment is * assertorial.'
But just as we saw above, that it was unfair to regard the judg-
ment as merely hypothetical for the reason that Hamlet and
Jacques were something more than purely possible beings,
so here also we must admit that it would be unfair to call the
judgment merely assertorial. Hamlet and Jacques are related
not merely as facts, but also to some extent as necessary
facts. Given the fact that both conceptions involve the charac-
ter of melancholy, it is rationally or ideologically necessary to
admit that they resemble one another. In short I must acknowl-
edge that these semi-hypothetical facts, being what they are,
bear a certain relation to each other which I, as a rational being,
cannot disregard nor look upon with the indifference with which I
have a perfect right to look upon pure matter of fact. A pure
fact might be other than it is, but the relation between these
particular facts when once they are accepted could not be con-
ceived to be other than rational and necessary. This character
of necessity makes the judgment in which it is present an
* apodictic ' judgment. These three degrees of modality are
always to be found in teleological sequences, i. e., sequences
whose terms are related in virtue of their common participation in

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 621

some third quality. And now that we have shown in a somewhat
labored fashion that our chosen example of the mental sequence
in which Jacques calls up Hamlet not only contains biological,
chemical and physical causality on the mechanical side, but also
hypothetical, assertorial and apodictic causality on the teleolog-
ical side, it will be necessary to study these types of teleological
causality in isolation in order to discover the limit approached by
the teleological relation as it is gradually freed from the un-
teleological factors which usually accompany it with the result
of obscuring its true nature.

Absolutely hypothetical judgments or judgments about purely
possible entities would possess no psychical cogency, would ex-
ercise no constraint over the mind of the thinker. An example
of such a judgment would be the assertion — " If there is a
jaberwock, he would eat a griffin." This judgment exercises
absolutely no control over the mind, for two reasons : first, be-
cause neither jaberwocks nor griffins exist; and, secondly, be-
cause there is no reason for connecting even the bare idea of
jaberwock with the idea of griffin-eating. Now take an exam-
ple of a judgment of the next higher degreee of modality.
" If there's a mermaid, she lives in the sea." This resembles
the preceding judgment in so far as its subject is unreal, and
again in so far as there is no rational connection between subject
and predicate — no intrinsic reason for a mermaid's not living in
a pond ; it differs from the previous judgment, however, in so far
as in the quasi-real world of fairyland it has actually been
learned from experience that mermaids live in the sea and no-
where else. What is actual for a hypothetical world is hypo-
thetical in a real world. We are actually limited by this judg-
ment, i. e.9 forced to recognize its cogency whenever we choose
to talk about fairyland.

These two types of judgment exhaust the realm of the hypo-
thetical, and we have now to enter on that of the actual or as-
sertorial judgments. And just as we found two degrees of
hypothetical judgment dealing respectively with unreal connec-
tions, and with real connections in an unreal world, so now we
shall find two kinds of assertorial judgments — (i) non-rational
or contingent relations between real facts, and (2) necessary

622 W. P. MONTAGUE.

relations between unreal facts. The non-rational between real
facts is exemplified in such judgments as " The grass is green,"
" The rain is falling," " The match is twojnches long," " To-day
is Tuesday, not Wednesday." These judgments are true, and
there is no discoverable teleological ground for their truth.
They differ from the hypothetical judgments in that they have
absolute cogency over the mind for the moment in which their
terms are perceived. They are necessary not for the under-
standing, but for the sensibility. (The hypothetical judgments
only had cogency over the mind on the condition of the mind's
voluntarily accepting the hypothetical world.)

The other type of assertorial judgment is not a judgment of
fact, but a judgment about determined relations between unreal
entities. For example : If a mermaid is defined as a being
which if it lived would live in the sea,rthen the judgment that
a mermaid would be able to endure salt-water would have as-
sertorial validity, /. £., cogency over the mind of the thinker as
a brute fact in the real world. Or, again, whether any three
things A, B and C are real or not, it is nevertheless a fact that
if A = B and if C = B then A = C, and the validity of this
conclusion is absolutely independent of the existence or non-
existence of A, B and C. It has, however, assertorial validity
and nothing more. The thinker would only have to recall the
fact that A and B were creatures of his fancy and all sense of
necessity would cease — his judgment would resolve itself into
the mere recognition of his consciousness as having a certain
form. He finds this character of unity in his consciousness and
recognizes its existence in this particular case, just as he recog-
nizes that the grass is green or that to-day is not yesterday. In
short, the final test of the degree of modality possessed by any
judgment is the amount of the force which it exerts over our
actions. The fact that an unreal thing is identical with itself is
equal to no more than a simple recognition of an actual relation,
whose terms being unreal is itself nothing more than a fact, and
as such only determines our actions in so far as they concern
themselves with it.

If we now pass to the third and final type of teleological se-
quence we shall be able to see better the justness of this serial

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 623

arrangement of the first and second degrees of modality. We
come to the world of necessity in which judgments are neither
hopothetical nor assertorial but apodictic. If it be true that pos-
sibility, actuality and necessity really stand in a serial order, we
ought to be able to predict the nature of apodictic validity from
a consideration of hypothetical and assertorial validity. We
found that hypothetical judgments could be of two kinds. We
could assert a possible relation between possible facts — " a jaber-
wock would eat a griffin "or " people in Mars have three arms "
(and these judgments, exerting absolutely no cogency, could
fitly be called ' problematic ' rather than hypothetical) ; or
again, instead of asserting a possible relation between possible
facts, we could assert an actual relation between possible
facts, t.e., "Mermaids live in the sea." The mermaids are
to be sure unreal, but the relation between the concept 'mermaid '
and the concept ' sea-dwelling ' is real though contingent when
taken merely as a relation. The hypothetical judgment or the
judgment about possibilities concerns itself with relations and
not facts. The assertorial judgment or the judgment about
actualities concerns itself with facts apart from relations. The
fact was either simple, as in the judgment of the grass being
green, or complex, as when formed by the actual coexistence
or intersection in one consciousness of two purely hypothet-
ical judgments or assertions of mere relation. If the com-
bination of two possibles makes an actual we should expect
that the combination of a possible and an actual, a relation and
a fact, would yield a necessary. Let us see if this really hap-
pens. A triangle is an actual fact and the relation between
the sum of the angles of a triangle and two right angles is a
genuine relation, i. e., a relation which is, if not genuinely in-
telligible, yet more than a mere fact of perception. Hence the
judgment, " the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two
right angles," is a judgment which combines a relation or rule
of reason with an actual thing or fact of sense experience, and
as such possesses apodictic validity. Now the question arises
as to whether there are degrees of necessity. Would there be
any meaning in saying that one apodictic judgment was more
necessary than another? We have said that the degree of

624 W. P. MONTAGUE.

validity of any judgment was measured by the degree of
cogency which it exerted over the mind of the thinker. Hence
if we find that several apodictic judgments differ in their
cogency, we can admit that there are degrees of necessity. Let
us examine the following three judgments : (i) A straight line
is the shortest distance between two points; (2) 7 +5 = 12;
(3) Every event is identical with itself. All these judgments
are apodictic, but they possess different degrees of importance.
We cannot, indeed, deny the axioms of geometry, but can we
not to a large extent neglect them ? In so far as our experience
is spatial it is dependent upon the laws of space; but a large
part of our experience is not spatial and is to that extent inde-
pendent of the axiom of the straight line. It only possesses
cogency over part of the mind. Now the second judgment, like
all judgments about particular numbers, involves in itself the
whole number series ; and as number applies to inner experi-
ence as well as to outer, we have in the numerical judgment a
greater because a more extensive cogency than in the judgment
about the straight line. Finally in the third judgment, the
axiom of identity, A = A, we have a cogency and consequently
a validity more nearly universal than that of either spatial or
numerical judgments. For if there is a large part of experience
that is independent of the laws of space and a smaller surplus
of experience which is independent of number, there would at
first glance seem to be no experience at all that is not dependent
upon the law of identity. We must then admit that there are
degrees of necessity, that apodictic validity may vary in its ex-
tent. Hence it will not be enough to say that any apodictic
judgment can be regarded as the limit of the series of teleolog-
ical sequences. To find the limit we must find the judgment
which is cogent throughout all experience and not merely
throughout particular departments. Perhaps the axiom of
identity fulfills this demand for an absolute or universal neces-
sity. To prove this we have only to show that there is no case
in which a thing changes its identity. But does not the very
statement of the task bring out the impossibility of its attainment?
Wherever there is change the law of identity is neglected. A
does not remain identical in so far as it gives rise to B. One

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 625

thing becomes another thing. We need not take the fact of
change as a violation of the law of identity for there must
always remain a constant or identical element throughout every
change. We have, however, the right to regard change as an
example of the limitation, if not the contradiction, of the axiom
that A = A. Change may imply identity; but identity is not
the whole essence of change, and whenever we attend to the
changing forms and states of a thing rather than to the thing
itself, we are in just so far attending to a phase of experience
over which the judgment of identity is not cogent.

Professor Royce in his Religious Aspect of Philosophy gives
an example of a judgment which would seem to possess the
sort of universal validity for which we have just sought in vain
in the judgment of identity. The judgment that ' every doubt
implies a reference to an objective truth ' is absolutely universal
throughout the realm of reason. To deny or to doubt the truth
of this judgment is to affirm it, because any rational doubt of
the truth of a proposition is based upon the belief that it does
not conform to the established nature of things nor to objective
Truth, and the existence of this objective Truth is all that the
judgment asserted. Before submitting this proposition of Pro-
fessor Royce's to a final test of the universality of its cogency,
we should recall the manner in which the limitations of the pre-
vious judgments were manifested. When confronted with the
axioms of geometry we could say : There is a portion of our
experience over which these laws have no sway. Again in the
case of the axioms of arithmetic we could point to the concrete
differences in the qualities of experience as being outside the
laws of number. Finally in the third judgment we could in-
stance the phenomena of time and change as examples of ex-
periences, the whole nature of which could not be expressed by
the principle of identity. We have then, if we would show
Professor Royce's refutation of scepticism to be limited in its
degree of validity, simply to follow the same path as before,
z. £., to find some experience over which the law in question
does not hold. The topic of the judgment is itself an indica-
tion of its limitation. What are truth and error? They are
objects of Reason — the law which binds them together is a law

626 w. P. MONTAGUE.

of Reason. Is there any portion of experience that is not
purely rational? Feeling and acting may be reasonable but
are they not something more? Every sensation and every act
of will contains an element or an aspect which is not reducible
to the laws which govern our thought. And in so far as we
have experience which is not merely rational, just in so far is
our experience independent of Professor Royce's proposition
about the necessary implication of a rational doubt. For a non-
rational being and for any being in so far as he is non-rational,
the judgment in question possesses no cogency nor validity.1

The question naturally arises here as to whether there is any
single judgment the consequences of which we cannot escape
by changing or extending our point of view. We may remem-
ber that when we arrived in the series of mechanical sequences at
what seemed to be a purely quantitative and irreversible change,
we found that it was possible by changing our origin or center
of mass to view the sequence in reverse order. The only ways
in which it was possible to transcend this reversibility or rela-
tivity of mechanical processes was by extending the material
system until it embraced the entire universe for which there is
only one center of mass, or by selecting a system (e. £•., an
organism) which possessed a unique center of mass which could
not be exchanged for any other. The case is precisely the same
in the present series of teleological sequences. All rational
sequences, z*. £., all apodictic judgments, seem to be permeated
with relativity — there is always some other point of view, as it
were, some other center of mass, with respect to which our
sequence loses its validity. I can think of only one type of
judgment from the consequences of which it is impossible to
escape. In the moral judgment or judgment of duty there seems
to me no relativity whatever. The judgment that A = A does
not forbid us to neglect it in so far as experience is temporal or

*If this reasoning be valid, there follows what seems to me to be a rather
important result, viz., this : In so far as the arguments used by Professor Royce
and Mr. Bradley for the demonstration of the Absolute as a being in whom evil
and pain are transcended — depend upon the conclusion that error is transcended
— they are baseless. That is to say, there is no inconsistency in regarding God
as necessarily rational but by no means either good or happy. The divine tran-
scendence of evil and pain does not follow from the mere transcendence of error.

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 627

subject to change. The judgment that every rational doubt
implies an absolute truth does not prevent us from neglecting
altogether the world of the rational in favor of the world of
sense. But the moral judgment that something ought to be not
only forbids us to deny it, but it also forbids us to neglect it for
anything else. When we stand in the presence of a duty, the
moral law does not simply assert its validity or cogency for a single
department of experience, it asserts its own apodictic truth and as
it were in the same breath it claims our attention and our absolute
and peremptory obedience to it. This is the peculiarity of the
' Categorical Imperative,' that in addition to the apodictic valid-
ity which it possesses in common with all necessary judgments,
it puts in an extra claim to be recognized as more important
than anything else. It forbids us to deny its truth, and it also
forbids us to neglect it. Its cogency is not merely negative but
positive, it commands us to vindicate our recognition of its abso-
luteness by determining our actions in accordance with its
maxims. It appeals to us not in so far as we are subject to the
laws of space and number, not in so far as we are subject to the
Laws of Identity and contradiction, not even in so far as we are
rational or sensuous, or social or virtuous. It condescends not
at all to justify itself by pointing to any one mode or aspect of
our nature. It bids us unconditionally to recognize it and to
follow it with all the strength that we have. These attributes
of the moral law may be very edifying or they may be the re-
verse ; our interest in the Categorical Imperative is not in the
least emotional, we simply cite it as a very peculiar phenomenon
and a very significant one for students of epistemology and
logic. Its significance is due to the fact that it fulfills the ideal
of absolute validity or truth. It is the limit of the series of
judgments in which each possessed a greater degree of truth
than the one before.

From the problematic judgment which exerted no cogency
whatever, and the hypothetical judgment which was valid only
if we voluntarily admitted the condition upon which it was
based, on through the assertorial judgments whose validity was
limited to the moment of perception, up to the apodictic judg-
ment which was absolute through some one department of ex-

628 W. P. MONTAGUE.

perience and finally to the judgment of Practical Reason, which
possessed an absolute and unconditional cogency over the entire
self — through all this process we have noted the genuinely
serial order. Each term of the series, each type of judgment
possesses all that the previous terms possessed. And at the end
of the process we reach the limiting term, the type of judgment
which declares itself as absolute. The moral judgment alone,
as the limit of the series, contains in itself the perfect validity to
which the speculative judgments could only approximate.

We hear a great deal at present about the judgment of worth
as superior to the judgment of truth. Practical Reason is dog-
matically asserted to be more real than speculative Reason, and
the return to the epistemological dualism of Kant is advocated
as ' the only refuge for Theology in its flight from the persecu-
tions of science.' The object of this study in the method of
limits is simply an attempt at some sort of justification of Kant's
hypothesis of the supremacy of Practical Reason. If one is
content with simply asserting that moral truths are superior to
the truth of reason, he is helpless against anybody who makes
the opposite assertion. If Speculative and Practical Reason are
wholly incommensurate the one with the other, there is no cri-
terion for deciding as to the supremacy of either. To assert
one as prior to the other is a senseless and arbitrary act. But
if we can show that the judgments of the one faculty form a
continuous series with the judgments of the other, we vindicate
our right to a division into higher and lower. In the light of
our analysis it is no longer a paradox to assert the existence of
duty as truer than truth. For as we have seen the degree of
truth possessed by a judgment is measured by the degree of
cogency which it exerts over the mind. The judgment of duty
is absolute or unconditional and as such has more cogency than
any other possible judgment, hence it possesses a maximum of
validity or truth.

Now that we have found the limit of the series of teleolog-
ical sequences it is necessary to analyze it in order that by ob-
serving its inner nature we may be able to see if it is at all com-
mensurate with the limiting type of mechanical sequence. To
simplify this analysis I must ask you to assume, without proof,

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 629

that the moral law only, or at all events primarily, appears in
its own form under certain definite conditions. We use the
word ' ought' in a variety of cases in which moral obligation is
not felt at all, or if felt, it is only indirectly and by analogy.
The three conditions under which the moral law makes its ap-
peal are :

1. The recognition of a good.

2. The immediate possibility of realizing the good.

3. The fact that I and not someone else am the agent for its
realization.

We make use of the word ought when any one of these con-
ditions is present ; but we only use it in its true and^proper, z*. £.,
in its moral sense when all three conditions are fulfilled.

Omit the first condition, and we have the class of what Kant
called Hypothetical Imperatives. "I ought to come in out of
the rain " — there is no moral obligation contained in this judg-
ment unless I make the further judgment that it is morally good
to keep dry.

Again, omit the second condition, *'. £., the possibility of
action, and we get that class of judgments which express regret
or remorse or distress without obligation to act. " My past ac-
tions ought to be different." " I ought not to be in this condi-
tion." In these judgments I see the impossibility of realizing
the good by any action, and with this recognition the obligatory
cogency of the judgment of duty is destroyed. And, thirdly,
when I say you ought or he ought to do so and so, I fail to per-
ceive the peculiar strain or compelling force of the Moral Im-
perative. It is only when I realize that there is, first a good,
wL.~ i s, second, immediately -possible, third, for me to realize
— it is only then, I say, that the judgment of Practical Reason
sets up its claim for absolute and peremptory obedience. And
I think that if one takes the trouble to analyze his feelings when
he fancies that moral obligation is present independently of
the presence of all these three conditions, he will find that
either on the one hand the apparent obligation will pass away,
or on the other hand, he will insist on projecting himself into a
world in which the duty in question is possible and possible for

630 W. P. MONTAGUE.

him alone.1 Granting this we may state the judgment of duty
as a judgment in which a possible good is connected with its
realization in the world of fact — by means of the ego. The
cause or antecedent term of the judgment-sequence is an idea ;
the effect or consequent term is the idea realized or actualized.
We must here note a further peculiarity of the moral judg-
ment. It is self-transcendent in the sense that it refers to some-
thing beyond itself, z*. e., to its realization in the world of fact.
The judgment, " I ought to do this," is only fulfilled or com-
pleted in the process of realizing the judgment in action. To
recognize or think a duty as binding is only the most rational
of judgments when it is accompanied by the specific realiza-
tion of the good. The moral judgment is truer than the specu-
lative judgment, but the acting out of the moral judgment is
the only way to complete or exemplify this truth. Hence this
final type of teleological sequence is the change from an
idea of a good deed to a good deed. It is the change from the
possible to the actual. A is the subject of the judgment, A' is the
predicate. A is the idea of the good, A' is the realized fact.
A is the antecedent or causal term of the sequence, A' is the
consequent term or the effect. A as a possible is the cause of A
as an actual. To find the essence of the sequence we have sim-
ply to find the difference between the possible and the actual, the
idea of the fact and the fact itself. The effect only differs from
the cause in possessing existence. What then is the predicate
of existence? As Kant expressed it, How does the actual dollar
which will pay a debt differ from the idea of the dollar — which
will not pay a debt? That there is a difference between a fact
and the idea of a fact we cannot doubt. A man is thoroughly
good when he turns his ideas of good into facts ; a man is thor-
oughly bad when he possesses the idea of the good, the knowl-
edge of his duties, but refuses to realize that knowledge. The
antithesis between the idea and the fact is of the same kind and
of the same degree as the antithesis between conscious sin and

1This is what happens in the case of remorse : we either recognize the use-
lessness of regretting what is necessarily the case and the remorse vanishes, or
we persist in projecting ourself into the past circumstance in which the regretted
action was not a necessary but a freely chosen possibility.

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 631

conscious virtue. The existential predicate is something real,
but it is not a quality. We cannot point out any quality which
the actual dollar possesses that is not also possessed by the pos-
sible dollar. How do we detect the presence of this predicate
of existence if it is not visible as a quality ? We detect it by its
effects, it manifests its reality and its nature in its functions in
its relations to other things. The real dollar is known to be
different from the ideal dollar because the two stand in different
relations to a debt. The one produces certain effects which the
other does not, and by the principle of sufficient reason we are
bound to explain the visible difference in the effects by positing
a genuinely real though invisible and non-qualitative difference
in the respective causes. There have been suggested various
criteria for distinguishing the external world from the sensa-
tions about it.

There is Humes' criterion, based upon the difference of
vividness between the real and ideal. This criterion is imper-
fect in so far as it affords no basis for condemning as unreal or
merely subjective the remarkably vivid hallucinations of an in-
sane man. We are driven to adopt a second criterion, the
opinions of our fellow-men. What our fellows pronounce actual,
that is really actual ; and what they say is mere idea or possi-
bility is really so, no matter how vivid it may seem to us. There
is to-day an increasing body of thinkers who stop here and accept
the verdict of the ' social consciousness ' as the final and all-suffi-
cient criterion for distinguishing the real from the ideal. What
constitutes lunacy? — simply having an experience which your
neighbors do not have. If there were ninety-nine men who
possessed in common a certain hallucination, and one man who
did not possess it, then we are told that that one man would be
insane so far as that community was concerned. It is doubtful
if any one could ever seriously believe in this theory, if its
necessary implications were clearly seen, and yet like all forms
of Berkeley's doctrine of the identity of esse and percipi, it is a
pleasant paradox and one that is easy to defend.

For in the first place, this appeal to the verdict of the Social
Consciousness as the ultimate test of what is real, involves an
endless and vicious regress. " A thing is real because my

632 W. P. MONTAGUE.

neighbors say it is real." Why do my neighbors say it is real ;
what is the rational ground for their assertion? According to
this theory their only ground must lie in the fact that their
neighbors assert the experience as real, the opinions of the latter
being in turn justified only by the beliefs of their neighbors,
and so on until finally we should exhaust the number of men
and arrive at the individual who acted as bell-wether to the
human flock. Whatever he said was real, that also everyone
else would pronounce real. But what would be his ground
for distinguishing between the real and the ideal? Not the
rational ( ?) ground of ' imitation ' because in this first case there
would be no one to imitate. We must either admit that in the
last analysis the distinction of subjective and objective rests
upon pure caprice, or else we must seek a criterion beyond the
' Social Consciousness.' Other men happen not to dream your
dreams, but that is not the reason that your dreams lack an
existential predicate I1

There is, however, a third criterion for distinguishing the
ideal from the real, viz., the criterion of permanency. When
the patient suffering from an illusion refuses to believe his
neighbors, he is when possible taken to the apparent cause of
his illusion and allowed to test it with other senses than the one
affected, upon which the illusion usually vanishes. The part of
it which is unaltered by changes in time and in sense remains
for him as real. Hence, in general, we may take the common
sense view that the unalter ability of a thing is the final test of
its reality.

Now what is the meaning of this word * Unalterability ' ? It
means what cannot be altered. A man tries to alter an ex-
perience and can't succeed. Why? Because the thing resists
him ; he tries to change it and fails — then he feels safe in pro-
nouncing it real or objective. A baby feels an uneasy sensation

1There is nothing mysterious in the seeming plausibility of the Social Con-
sciousness theory, for this plausibility is due to a very simple hysteron proteron.
A real thing usually shows its reality by being an object for a plurality of sub-
jects, in much the same way and for much the same reason that to a real body in
space a number of lines can be drawn. Stand this truth on its head and we get
the idealistic doctrine that because a body has relations it is real. Relations are
at most the ratio cognoscendi, but never the ratio essendi of existence.

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 633

in its finger — finds he can stop it. He also sees the moon and
wants it and can't get it. What is the obvious and legitimate
induction for the baby to make? Finger sensations, thoughts
and gurglings are one kind of thing ; moons and cribs and other
people's voices are a different sort of thing. The first class be-
long to me, they are subjective the other class do not belong to
to me, they are objective. Why even such a very subjective
thing as a pain will if it resist long enough be objectified. The
first day of a hard toothache the sufferer speaks of * my tooth-
ache ' ; the third day he speaks of ' that infernal pain,' as
though it did not belong to him at all.

A thing which resists our will is actual, a thing which does
not is possible. We identify that which resists our will with the
realm of external experience, because a purely internal thing,
like a train of thought, is wholly identified with and amenable to
our wishes. The feeling of resistance or of continuity with
something not our self is at once the ground of our belief in ob-
jective experience as being caused and in subjective experience
as being free. There is no sensation so purely possible as not
to contain a slight degree of stubbornness or resistance, nor is
there, on the other hand, any sensation so intensely actual as not
to be in some degree changeable by our will. The property of
resistance is then a relative or quantitative affair. It is recog-
nized as akin to our own effort-feeling because it varies con-
tinuously and directly with our effort. As in our feeling of
effort we get the intuition of pure quantity freed even from the
semi-qualitative attribute of extension, so in our intuition of the
objective correlate of effort we are likewise compelled to think
of a purely quantitative entity. The moral change from the
purely possible or practically unresisting idea of the good to
the actual or practically unalterable good deed is not only the
most thoroughly rational and teleological of sequences, but it is
also a change from one quantity to a quantity infinitely greater.
Existence is manifested in resistance and resistance is a matter
of quantity, hence existence is also a matter of quantity. The
change from a possible dollar or a possible good deed to an
actual dollar or an actual good deed, is a change which involves
the addition of an existential predicate, i. £., the addition of an

634 W. P. MONTAGUE.

infinite quantity. We cannot change the possible dollar into
the actual dollar, but we can change the possible good into the
actual good. But you may answer, Surely the difference be-
tween the idea of the good and the fact of good is too funda-
mental to be explained by a mere increase of quantity. To this
I answer by offering an analogy. If we decrease a surface in-
finitely we reach a line. Now the difference between the line
and the plane is of the same fundamental nature as the difference
between fact and idea, and yet the conception of an infinite
quantitative increase is all that is required to explain the one
case. May it not then explain the other also?

The limit approached by the first or mechanical series was
the change from a less to a greater quantity, the^ amount of
change being finite. The limit approached by the second series,
/. £., the series of teleological judgments is also a change
from a less quantity to a greater, though in a perfect moral act
the change would be infinite. The two attributes of the soul
are in their essential or limiting forms homogeneous -with each
other and imply a common substance.

But the most cursory examination of the act of duty reveals
another and equally important characteristic, viz., r its perfectly
material physical causality. Our actions are quantitative or
mechanical in so far as they follow from the intensity of desire,
rather than from the quality of the desire. The moral law is
essentially and peculiarly material or physical, in that it bids us
seek the greatest possible quantum of Good, the maximum of
desirability quite regardless of the quality of the object. This
is why the good manifests itself in such a variety of objects,
though never completely or adequately in any one. Pleasure
qua pleasant or Beauty qua beautiful can never be moral ends.
Only what is most desirable and because it is most desirable can
be recognized as an object of duty.

The moral action then has as much to do with the sensuous
and physical as with the rational and teleological, and the
realization of an act of virtue manifests its quantitative and
spatio-temporal nature in the feeling of effort, to the same ex-
tent and at the same time that it exhibits its non-temporal and
universal or ideal validity. This double aspect of moral phe-

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 635

nomena is evidenced in the use of the two terms ' right ' and
1 good.' Every moral act is right or rational and at the same
time * good* or ' desirable.' The ethical rationalists or rigorists
attempt to restrict ethics to a study of the law of right, the
Categorical Imperative. The opposite school of ethical writers
— who are in general Hedonists — regard ethics simply as a study
of the summum bonum. The former claim that the Good or end
of conduct is deducible from and secondary to the Right, or law
of conduct. The latter claim that the Right or categorical imper-
ative is deducible from and secondary to the summum bonum.
The end must justify means is their watchword, while the watch-
word of the Rationalists is " Let Justice prevail though the Heav-
ens fall." The means must justify the end. The Hedonists
forget that the limiting or perfect type of the Desirable must
somehow imply the existence of a perfectly right or rational
means by which it is to be attained, the Highest Good must be
compatible with Right action. The Rigorists on their side forget
that the limiting or perfect form of Right must be something
more than a merely rational or formal law, and must lead towards
the maximum Desirable. To find a single principle of moral ac-
tion which should in its own simple nature express and harmo-
nize these two opposite motifs of our moral nature, upon which
the two methods of ethics are based, would constitute the solu-
tion of the moral antinomy, the ' masterknot.'

For our purposes it is sufficient to recognize the significance
of the moral act as the unique embodiment of a perfectly pure
or limiting type of efficient causality, and a perfectly pure or
limiting type of teleological causality. When Kant pointed out
the Practical Reason as the only clue to the nature of Reality,
he discovered a veritable mine of metaphysical wealth,1 none the
less rich from the fact of its all but universal neglect at the hands
of his disciples.

From the nature of the moral act as containing in its own

1Not least among the many curious and beautiful phenomena of the moral
consciousness is the fact which we have foreborne to mention that although the
moral act is the only example of perfect efficient causality and of perfect final
causality, it is also the only act whose causality is genuinely indeterminate or
free. The extent to which a man realizes any given ideal of good is a wholly
independent variable governed by nothing in the past or present except itself.

636 W. P. MONTAGUE.

simple and irreducible nature, both efficient and final causality,
we can and must infer the nature of the moral agent as a being
or substance, which is at once as particular and as material as
the atom of the physicist, and as universal and intelligible as the
concept of the logician.

Such then is the nature of the soul. We may call it a
* substance ' because it fulfills the three conditions mentioned
above as the requisites for a valid concept of substance. It
differs from a mere Ding an Sich in that it is known to exist
under a form of its own, viz., the moral form ; and it stands to
its attributes in that peculiar double relation (due to its nature as
limiting type or essence) whereby it is at once the common
genus of both and a distinct species of each. That the soul
exists as a substance distinct from matter and mind, yet com-
mensurate with each therein, furnishing the only possible ex-
planation of their interaction, we have seen. We have seen, too,
that it is a simple and not a composite substance, for the act of
duty in which the soul manifests itself under its own form is a
simple act, and not a mere complex of elements. May we ask,
in conclusion, as to the destiny of the soul ? Does the soul enjoy
a genuine immortality, i. £., an individual continuance of con-
sciousness under conditions to some extent analogous to those
of time and space? The outlook is extremely sobering and
dark. The evidence, when candidly scrutinized, seems to re-
duce itself to a few ghost stories and a mighty yearning. What
indeed does the universe want of an individual's consciousness
after death ? The world of the physicist certainly does not need
it. The dead body in its mere decomposition fulfills satisfactor-
ily all the laws of conservation of matter, motion and energy.
Not only is there no need for a ' loose consciousness,' but if
there were anything left beside the dead body the symmetry
and unity of the physicist's world would seem to be threatened.
Nor is the case different with the world as viewed by the
transcendental philosopher. An individual consciousness is as
far from harmonizing with the Platonic Ideas or pure forms of
the panlogist as with the atoms and energy of the materialist.
For the individual consciousness, just so long and just in so far as
it is individual is permeated with a particularity and contingency

A PLEA FOR SOUL-SUBSTANCE. 637

which absolutely defies and sets at naught the attempt to define
it in terms of universals. In short, consciousness is in very much
the same position as the classical bat, there is no place for it in
the empire of the earth, neither in the empire of the air, and
condemned to flit helplessly between the two realms, it will ever
be as a thorn in the side of the consistent empiricist and mate-
rialist and the consistent rationalist and idealist. For what
indeed is the individual consciousness but the hybrid product of
the union of * matter ' and ' meaning,' of ' facts ' and ' values/
of brain cells and ' pure forms ' — a thing incommensurate with
and wholly different in its nature and processes from the two
orders of being with which it deals ? Truly an 'epiphenomenon '
with respect to either of the two factors from whose union it
arises, what right can it possibly have to continue to exist when
that union is annulled? And, indeed, modern philosophy when
true to itself must answer the question as to a genuine immortality
in the negative. We have, it is true, several substitutes for
genuine immortality. The transcendentalist doctrine that the
ego is a timeless fact, and hence not mortal, but possessing non-
mortality of the same type as that possessed by the Pythagorean
theorem or any other eternal verity. Again, we have the other
type of panlogistic ' immortality ' — that advocated by Dr. Paul
Carus, according to whom, as I understand it, we may hold
man immortal in so far as the form or meaning of his life is
preserved in the memory of his successors and is influential in
moulding history. And, finally, we have the materialist's * im-
mortality,' which assures us that our real self is the matter of
our body and will continue forever.

It seems to me that if we regard the real man as consisting
in the matter of his body or the sensational modifications of that
matter, or in the timelessly valid ideas with which his intellect
deals, or finally and most of all in the mere Hegelistic unity
of these two sides of his nature, that we have no right to
hope for genuine immortality. But in truth the real man,
the man himself, is neither matter nor idea, nor both together ;
the real man is the ' something I know not (thoroughly)
what,' which makes possible the extraordinary phenomenon
of consciousness, i. £., of the union of the two apparently

638 W. P. MONTAGUE.

incommensurate orders of existence. Nature makes no leaps
— there is no action at a distance ; and it is simply unbe-
lievable and unthinkable that a bundle of Platonic Ideas and a
bundle of brain cells could on their own initiative and without
any third thing or medium commune together in the violation
of all laws of logic and of physics. And yet they do so com-
municate. All consciousness bears witness to the fact, and the
moral consciousness testifies to the additional fact, that these two
phases of being have their true reality, their essential nature in
something which is more real than either, viz., the substantial
soul. And when consciousness goes out and the universal
truths and ideals which swayed the life of the living man re-
turn again to their own place, leaving the brain cells again free
to follow the laws of inorganic matter — when that event takes
place, something will remain, something more real and more
precious than what has gone, something that being the condi-
tion of consciousness, and having under certain circumstances
manifested itself in consciousness, may, under new circumstan-
ces, once more feel and think and act.

DISCUSSION AND REPORTS.

THE GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY CONTROL.

Some time ago a series of experiments was conducted by Professor
Ladd connected with the voluntary control of the ' Eigenlicht.' Little
attention was paid to the results, which were briefly embodied in an
article published at the time in the PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW. This
was somewhat surprising considering the importance of the general
principles involved. There can be no doubt that the dominance of
the physical explanation of phenomena has reacted to the detriment of
our naive faith in the all-powerfulness of the will. Mechanism has
the floor just now. We should be entirely unwarranted, however, in
drawing the conclusion that the will and its old-time spontaneity are
4 for sale cheap.' The experiments conducted by Professor Ladd
showed that the common conclusion is, to say the least, hasty. For
the averages obtained, based on an extended series of experiments and
conducted, under his direction, by some twenty special students of
psychology, revealed the fact that voluntary control, though varying
in degree in the particular function in question, as was to be expected,
was nevertheless in every case more or less superior to the physical
conditions which surrounded the experimenters. We are not, then
(for I was one of the experimenters), wholly submerged in the meshes
of mechanism.

I propose to trace, briefly, the growth of this fact of voluntary
control, especially in connection with the function, illustrated in Pro-
fessor Ladd's experiments, which the will serves as a mediating term
between mechanism and so-called freedom. For I take it that the two
statements, « the will is limited' and 'the will is free/ cannot be
reconciled except through the study of the evolution of the mind's pro-
gressive self-mastery. The real significance of the will, as an element
of psychic life, is to be found, I think, in the way it is occupied in ad-
justing means and ends, mechanism to freedom. This aspect of voli-
tion has not, it seems to me, received the attention it deserves. To
present some of the facts connected with this phase of mental life,
taken from the psychology of volition, may serve the double purpose
of calling attention again to the facts contended for by Professor Ladd

639

640 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY CONTROL.

in the experiments above referred to ; and also to suggest a new way
of approaching the problem of freedom as a psychological factor of
noetics and ethics. We may present the subject under the following
heads: spontaneous control, or tact; immediate control, or conscious
adjustment; teleological control, or self-control.

i . The subject of tact is one of the most mysterious in the whole
range of psychology. Here we can only follow out the suggestions
given by nature ; for the key to the mystery lies in the organic and
instinctive activities, the preexistent factors of which may be taken as
affording the clues to the various concrete types of spontaneous con-
trol. These are mainly three : (i) One kind of spontaneous control
results from a peculiar facility of the will to isolate itself in the de-
veloping organism in certain directions to the neglect or indifference
of others. We may call this the tact that isolates. Ultimately, this
form of spontaneous control rests upon the relationship of the chemical
and physiological elements of the vegetative life and the resultant dif-
ferentiation of organ and function. The will, in some cases, and at
some periods always, follows the index finger of nature, and the tact
manifested, for example, in the control of the bodily functions, in the
progress from infancy to youth, is a concrete illustration of this general
fact. Where this species of tact is pronounced, the tendency to con-
trol by isolation is continued. The phenomena of genius, in all its
forms, depend upon this fact of organic tactf ulness for isolation ; on
this side of it, genius is merely the spontaneous ability to ignore certain
directions of possible control for the sake of those which are more
spontaneous. Isolation is the physiological condition of self-limitation
and it is largely a matter of spontaneity, the will tactfully taking the
line of least resistance as the ' rational ' line of self-realization. In
support of this, it is a fact, well vouched for by physiological students,
that certain organs and functions develop more quickly than others and
this fact has its corresponding feature in control. In abnormal cases,
e. ^., abnormal and neurotic children, and children born of parents
married late in life, it is frequently observed that the rudimentary or-
gans of the mind, the head and brain in particular, attain to a quicker
relative development and are thus isolated for spontaneous voluntary
control for the rest of life. This fact, however, if associated with rela-
tive stability among the elements, leads to marked character and greatly
increased facility of control. (2) The will spontaneously and instinc-
tively controls the changes introduced by growth and experience.
This is another species of tact, viz., the tact for variation. The body,
at first in absolute isolation from the world, always shows this tendency

DISCUSSION AND REPORTS. 641

when introduced into its larger environment. But it may also become
a specialized form of activity, just as the tendency to isolation does ;
both isolation and variation are organic ; but either may, under appro-
priate and opportune influences, become voluntary and automatic.
In early life, we have doubtless noticed the tendency of the will to
make departures in the matter of control. Abnormal and criminal
children are cases when this tendency has run to excess. It rests upon
the relative instability of the elements of organic life, as well as upon
the failure of training. Tact for change, for variation, is a positive
gift of the normal individual, however, as these abnormal cases show.
The control is spontaneous in this case. No teaching or training
seems to be necessary. The child suckles the breast without any
previous education and this is a type of the tactful control of variation
in all its phases. Further illustrations occur in the voluntary control
of the means of conscious and teleological control. (3) Isolation and
variation are conditions of natural selection ; natural selection itself,
however, is conditioned on the law of heredity. It is matter of general
observation that many of the spontaneous acts of the will are heredi-
tary, i. £., reproduce the features of tact based on preexistent determi-
nation: e. g., the kind of spontaneous control shown by the children
of musicians, artists, etc., resembles in kind, though not in degree,
the peculiarities of their originals. For all species of tact, and there-
fore all kinds of spontaneous control, depend on conscious and teleo-
logical control, subject to the laws whereby acts are mechanized in
habits and temperaments. The notion that the voluntary control itself
is a matter of heredity is still unproved. Reflex movements are par-
tially determined by heredity ; but tact is more than reflex movement
plus heredity ; there is a residuum not contained in the chain of organic
conditions which is the self-activity of the will itself. Thus, in cer-
tain of the arts and crafts, aptitude for the control of tools has become
considerably facilitated by the operation of heredity laws. In the
Middle Ages, the guilds of workmen exhibited this fact in a very con-
crete way : generations of the same families continued in the line of
service marked out by their ancestry. So to-day in older countries,
where the tendency to variation has not entirely overcome the other
tendencies, a great part of domestic and industrial life rests upon the
spontaneous control of hereditary instincts.

These three kinds of spontaneous control condition all other kinds
of voluntary control. Tact constantly broadens as life unfolds ; but
the development of individuality and character is unfailingly faithful
to the type discovered in the earliest spontaneous reactions of the will.

642 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY CONTROL.

In other words, voluntary control, in its spontaneous form has a mo-
dicum of "freedom," and a maximum of u mechanism." The point
we make is that freedom and mechanism could not be mediated in any
case, not even in the form of tact, without the control of the will, at
least in the assenting and instinctive manner peculiar to it. Tact it-
self is the result of contact, i. e., of the intercourse and inter-play of
spontaneity and mechanism. It is, in short, the will that gives to our
earliest exertions at control the aspect of experience.

2. There is no marked line between spontaneous and conscious
control ; the one develops out of the other ; the latter bears all the char-
acters of the former. The new factor introduced is the influence of
training ; for as soon as we leave the phenomena of instinctive and
tactful control, we see the necessity of the will ' to take a hand ' in
all its experience. Now this conscious exertion of will is the main
characteristic of the mind of the child. Dim and inchoate are its ideas
and but for a rough-and-ready equipment of bodily organs and func-
tions, together with tact in the progressive control of them, everything
has to be learned. But a great deal of this conscious control rests
upon tact: e. g., the formation of the various areas of reaction in the
brain rests upon an organic adaptation in the organs concerned for
their particular functions. Take the visual area. This is, mechan-
ically, easily explained ; but from the standpoint of voluntary control
it is a very complex process, involving adjustment of eye balls, con-
trol of muscles and the unique fact of development in the visual area.
The same is true of the other so-called ' ideal ' sense, hearing. Me-
chanically organ and function are beautifully adapted ; but the will,
only after long processes, learns to control this source of perceptions
and sensations. To a large extent, tact again explains the difference,
e. g., between the organic response of a child to sound stimulation
and that of a trained musician. The large interpretative factor in the
4 ear ' of a Beethoven points to the relatively larger control of the
sound impressions. The ear of both, other things being equal and
presupposing a normal organ and auditory area, records equally well
the stimuli ; but only conscious and immediate voluntary control can
explain the fact that Beethoven wrote his grandest music after losing
control of the mechanism of hearing altogether. But the conscious
and progressive control of our organs of sensation is, nevertheless,
largely a matter of spontaneity, of tact, dependent upon the large
amount of mechanical process involved. And facts go to show that
our conscious efforts follow the features of tact already mentioned.

The control of the senses in combination is a matter of conscious

DISCUSSION AND REPORTS. 643

voluntary effort, i. e., it is the result of immediate forth-putting of
conation. Indeed, when sufficient strength has been obtained, the
voluntary control becomes competent to inhibit and even suspend the
activities of the bodily mechanism. It is now generally understood
that the feelings and the will are intimately related, and that the feel-
ings are closely allied to certain visceral and sympathetic nervous cen-
ters. These are under the control of the will, so that, in states of
fear, anger, or remorse, or similar more or less complex affective
states, the constitutional arrangements of the body may be interfered
with. Functional activity, indeed, we regard as subject not only to
immediate control, but to teleological also. We train children upon
this assumption at any rate : that the spontaneous will to indulge these
functions must give place to a higher and immediate control. Dirti-
ness is not only a matter of functional defect ; it is a moral affair.

The control of intellection shows, in like manner, a growth of vol-
untary activity. Language is the greatest achievement of man and to
a large extent language is a matter of tact in the form of the so-called
imitative will. The conquest of vocabulary, beginning as it does in
single words, and extending as intelligence extends, to verbs and rela-
tive parts of speech, is based upon experience of the self in its action on
the environment. No emergence of intelligence is easy, still less nec-
essary, when the motor centers are undeveloped. Activity again ex-
presses the normal feature of the formation of speech. ' Willie do
this,' ' Willie do that,' shows the mode of self-activity. Always ' do '
something. The will must be appealed to and aroused. No word is
truer of children and grown men than that they learn by doing. The
order of volitional control in speech is first the noun. 'Willie'
stands for certain associated images of actions ; and this is based on
previous experience with other concrete objects. Next verbs : ' do '
implies the impulsive and imitative will ; and this is securely founded
upon experience with self in the past and instinctive tactfulness.
'This' and 'that' show the related yet the discriminated thought of
purposive action. The complicated phenomena of speech are often
amusingly illustrated in the voluntary control of the aspirate. The
h ' is a very active part of speech, and failure to control it is an evi-
dence of failure in motor control, as connected with the imitative use
of the will. This is a serious matter in self-consciousness; for it
points to volitional instability in muscular and functional reaction.
No one can doubt the volitional effort required to control this refrac-
tory member, involving breathing, muscular contraction, intellection
and conscious and immediate will-power. Some children never con-
trol the aspirate. Some nations make havoc of it even.

644 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY CONTROL.

The control of thought is another and higher step in voluntary ac-
tivity. Through speech thought is coordinated and knowledge ex-
tended. Whether thought exists apart from speech cannot be de-
termined from the introspective standpoint. What we know is that
thought develops and comes under the control of the will as speech is
mastered ; thinking and speaking are the same things on different sides,
speech being the volitional expression of thought. Now no thought
bears the aspect of reality which lacks will. Even the comparatively
passive process of sense-perception would be blind without the active
presence of the laws of thought ; for an object, thoroughly perceived,
observed in all its elements, is a thought-object ; even the infant's per-
ceptions are, potentially, of this nature. Strictly speaking, of course,
thought cannot be controlled, but only followed ; but thought is not a
matter of experience and knowledge without will, and in so far as the
nature of thought becomes a matter for speech, it is entirely under
voluntary control, i. £., it is an adaptation of mechanism and spon-4
taneity.

In both these processes, speech and thought, the tact of sponta-
neous control betrays itself. Generically, this fact may be expressed
by the manifestation of peculiar combinations of instincts, feelings and
motions in the back ground of thought so to speak. These subjective
aspects of consciousness are, however, forms of willing and involve
intellection. For we are never merely receptive. A feeling, even an
organic impulse, is an active state, whether viewed from the aspect of
pleasure or pain. The volitional control of feeling is therefore ob-
viously possible, either through the spontaneous activities, or through
intellection. There is no affective state which cannot be, to some ex-
tent, controlled through these channels. We may thus summon the
intellect and emotions to support the will against any attack upon
4 freedom.' It is true the intensity of the stimulus, say an intense
feeling of pain, cannot be controlled by the will, i. e., cannot be got
rid of, or displaced by indifferent mental contents, since the relation
of stimulus and reaction is permanent; but all our higher life, all
teleological control, rests upon the assumption that the will is not
bound by this mechanical relation. For the will's significance in
mental life is just this : it is endowed with the function of standing
between the mechanical relation of stimulus and reaction and the ends
involved in consciousness as a progressive and self-conscious reality.

This voluntary control of intellection can be illustrated in the ac-
tivity of attention. Attention is a complex operation involving both
voluntary and involuntary elements. In a loose sense, primary intel-

DISCUSSION AND REPORTS. 645

lection is a species of spontaneous voluntary control based on reflex-
activity ; in the simplest act of attention, however, there is involved,
something more than reflex-activity, though it is difficult to draw the
line between what is mechanical and what is ' free/ The bridge over
the chasm between mechanism and freedom is again to be found in
the phenomena of progressive control. This control proceeds along
two lines. Along one of these we observe a growing power of the
will to subordinate the character, intensity, and duration of the sensu-
ous content, upon which so much of what requires attention depends,
to ends. This power, primarily, rests, as all else in voluntary control,
upon the organic and affective life. We adjust ourselves easily to what
greatly excites us. The clearness and degree of absorption in our at-
tentive states, in other words, depend on motor control of the sub-
conscious sort. What is called mind wandering is simply the inability
of the will to control the motor side of our mental associations in an
immediate and conscious manner : the will flows spontaneously along
the stream of suggestion. But training, i. e., the practice to which our
organic powers are submitted in contact with suitable environments,
soon gives the cure for this state. That cure consists, essentially, in
introducing into the stream of sensuous and mental stimulation, the
deeper principles of suggestibility involved in control of the ideolog-
ical sort. Along another line, control is secured in attention through
interest. A certain school of thinking to-day, following the isolated
suggestions of thinkers as far back as Comenius, says that interest is
the alpha and omega of attention. We think not. It is undoubtedly
a strong influence : we easily attend to what interests us ; but the ' prick '
of sensuous* organic, excitement is just as strong. The strength of
interest lies in the large amount of the self-referring activity involved.
We are concerned when ' our interests ' appeal to our wills. The
ego, in the form of feeling, is what we mean by interest ; but, for the
reason that the ego is involved, interest expresses the complex unity of
thoughts and volitions which go to make up the total man considered
as a person. Interest is thus the total man ' bulging ' in the curve of
feeling ; it is self in the intensest form, self-interest. As such it is al-
most entirely under the voluntary control of the will. Attention, at
any rate, either as sensuously determined or as determined by self-in-
terest, is a growth in which we discover a progressive adjustment of
reflex-action to higher and higher modes of self-activity. The phe-
nomena of religious experience, in conviction of sin, repentance and
new life, show, as Hoffding says, a relative failure of control ; but
he is entirely wrong in his analysis of humility.1 The interests which
1 Outlines of Psychology, p. 244.

646 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY CONTROL.

we may deem at any time desirable as favoring our private ends are
not so high and noble as those which may be contrary to our personal
prospects. Egoistic influences, exclusively followed, do not make the
demand on voluntary control that those of the more sympathetic type
make. So far as attention is concerned, the voluntary control grows,
in very few cases, normally, and the types of tact maintain themselves
in their concreteness, just as the forms of feeling and temperament re-
main relatively permanent. The point we make is this : the attempt
to resolve interest into exclusive states of feeling, purely self -regard-
ing, and to maintain that it is interest, in this sense, that determines
attention, is not a complete analysis of the phenomena of attention.
Interest involves a certain instinctive and conscious exertion of the
will and so far is not merely a state of feeling. That it also involves
representation, in intellection and thought, is obvious when the object
of attention is considered. It is nothing against the will that in any
particular act of attention it adjusts itself to the prevailing forms of
feeling at hand ; this is no disgrace, no compromise of freedom ; it is
the type of all forms of voluntary control. At any rate, the whole of
the religious and ethical life proceeds upon the assumption that the will
is responsible and free, and what this can mean, if attention is abso-
lutely conditioned on the affective experiences involved in interest, is
more than can be understood, at any rate, by the writer.

Immediate and conscious control, then, is a belief which is sup-
ported by a considerable array of facts. It will be observed that it
starts and abides in instinctive control, or tact ; but presents this
marked character : the gradual subordination of the mechanism of
mental life to its ends. Step by step, the will assumes the power as
it is disclosed, and maintains its self-activity by practice until the
authority of reason has become possible. In short, we meet with the
same phenomenon here as we meet in spontaneous volition, viz., the
constant mediating of reflex action and ' freedom.'

3. The same fact is presented in what I have described as teleo-
logical control, or self-control in the ultimate sense. The life of man,
says Hartley, is a journey from self-interest to self-annihilation. This
thought, which is sadly neglected in both psychology and pedagogy,
owing to the dominion of physical theories of conduct, plainly im-
plies a progress from a certain aspect of the self to another, with the
full consciousness of ends. Not to wrangle on the meaning of the
terms, * self-interest,' and « self-annihilation,' all will finally admit that
the most distinctive characteristic of mind is activity directed towards
ends. The will, in other words, is teleological. In the first place, it

DISCUSSION AND REPORTS. 647

is so, spontaneously. Tact is a species of semi-conscious adaptation
of means to ends. Mechanism is not opposed to purposive selection ;
it is itself an example of selection, and therefore rests finally on vol-
untary control. In the case of spontaneous control, the end sought is
so largely involved in the operation of the reflex-activities, that the
apparent automatic response given bears the outward marks of being
purely involuntary. But in so far as ends are proposed will is involved.
If the phenomena of tact be resolved entirely into mechanism, it ceases
to be a state of the finite consciousness except as re-presented.

The presence of ends in immediate voluntary activity is more
readily verified. Synthetic activity is now denied by none but mate-
rialists, and so far, therefore, the will in seeking the control of the
operations of consciousness is teleological. In specific cases, multi-
tudes of which can be gathered in the class room of any school in the
land, the conscious adjustment involved in this fact can be seen. The
presence of ends is the light of all mind.

But it is more particularly when the ideals of reason are consid-
ered that the full swing of voluntary activity is made known. The
will is never 'freer' than when it brings itself under the laws imma-
nent in reason. A lawless will is an abnormality : spiritual principles
lie back of all mechanism, and it is one of the glories of man that he
can be appealed to on grounds higher than those of self-interest. Now
the stable condition of voluntary control which is reached as a result
of ' self-denial ' for the sake of higher objects and ideals, is the result
of conscious adjustment: c The self as an immediate object of direct
cultivation is brought under higher rational ideals, through the unify-
ing activity involved in all our teleological self-activity. What we
call self-control, which expresses both spontaneity and final purpose,
is thus the most concrete case of voluntary control. It includes the
so-called bodily self, with its mechanical arrangement of organs
and functions; it includes the empirical self, and developing intellec-
tion ; it includes the ideal self, that is, the spiritual self which furthers
or hinders all the other processes. In the construction of this self,
it is will that plays the controlling part. The feeling about the neck
and head, into which some1 would resolve the consciousness of self,
is purely an organic matter, not directly connected with self-con-
sciousness. But ' nature ' could appear a unity only for the reason
that the will teleological ly synthesizes the complex activities of the self ;
nature has no meaning apart from unifying intelligence, and therefore
knowledge would be impossible, even knowledge of the neck- and

1 Cf. Professor James' Principles of Psychology, Vol. I., 300 p. ff.

648 GROWTH OF VOLUNTARY CONTROL.

head-feelings, apart from voluntary control. The essence of selfhood
is this voluntary activity directed by ideals.

In ethics and religion these phenomena are matters of obvious ex-
perience.1 The point we make is that the phenomena of voluntary
control are obedient to a general relation, which obtains between re-
flex-activity and all the forms of ' freedom ' ; that the real question in-
volved is this mystery of control, and not freedom or mechanism, as
the alternative is usually put.

The relation of these facts to the problem of noetics and ethics is
obvious, but too large to be explained in this connection. It is plain,
however, that the claim for free intelligence as a constitutive element
of knowledge and conduct ; the claim that knowledge is impossible
without synthetic activity, turns on the implicit acknowledgment or
denial of the phenomena briefly presented above. In the experiments
conducted by Professor Ladd, briefly referred to, the claim made was
that the will not only can, but does, control the physical conditions of
intellection. It is true the isolation involved in all experimentation
required special conditions, and the purposive choice of means and
ends, in the class of facts brought out by him ; but the general result
was to establish a far greater degree of control than was commonly,
or academically, supposed possible. Even making all due allowance
for the influence a distinguished teacher is almost always able to exert
on the pupils he teaches ; making all allowance for the fact that we
are liable to see what we 'want to see ; the simple fact is (and it is
borne out by the psychology of suggestion),2 that the will has more
control and is a more prominent factor in our life-history than current
psychology is in the habit of admitting. Whether we look at the
spontaneous, the conscious, or the teleological form, we make our own
character and destiny ; I would go further and say, in the light of the
few facts we know, that unknown possibilities of voluntary control are
the necessary corollary of the known, and that the future life and hu-
man immortality are (in any worthy sense), dependent upon the
'free' adjustment of our souls, in the society of being (the ultimate
nature of which cannot exclude intelligent purpose) to God, freedom
and immortality.

HENRY DAVIES.

YALE UNIVERSITY.

1 Cf . Bosanquet, Psychology of the Moral Self.
2Cf. Sidis, Psychology of Suggestion.

DISCUSSION AND REPORTS. 649

ETHOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

In the PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW for September, 1899, Mr. C. B.
Bliss reviews my pamphlets on Ethology in sympathetic and apprecia-
tive fashion. These pamphlets were prepared primarily at the sugges-
tion of one of my colleagues at the University of California and for
the purpose of giving the University people some idea of the work I
was trying to do. New work is always in great need of both criti-
cism and sympathy. I hungered and do hunger for both. Knowing
that my colleagues could find out more about the work if they wanted
to, I ventured to pack into a very few pages an amount of material
far too great to be clearly set forth in anything less than a good-sized
book. As some of the readers of this REVIEW may agree with Mr.
Bliss that the work is important, perhaps I may be pardoned if I com-
ment on the impression my work has produced on — may I say — my
fellow-psychologists. The history of the terms ' Education as Rela-
ted to Character ' and ' Ethology ' cannot well be discussed here ;
suffice it to say, they have a history and are largely due to local condi-
tions. I certainly have no desire to give new names when they can be
avoided.

In a sense, all the sciences that have to do with consciousness may
be called psychology. I do not plead guilty to the charge of holding
unworthy views of psychology. Unless, however, the social sciences,
philosophy, and the study of education must all be called psychology,
I cannot agree that the science of the development of concrete charac-
ter ought to be called a chapter in psychology. If we agree that all
the sciences concerning themselves with consciousness should be called
psychology, I see no reason why the term ' ethology ' should not be
changed to * ethological psychology.' In one sense, geology may
be called 4 geological physics.'

I am exceedingly sorry if I have given the impression that I regard
psychology as 'unsympathetic, mechanical and lifeless.' Such an
assertion certainly does not occur in my writings. For instance, I re-
gard the teaching of psychology by my colleague, Professor Stratton,
as sympathetic, organic and full of life. Perhaps Mr. Bliss will agree
with me that what is ordinarily spoken of as * empirical psychology '
does not deal with concrete character, however much it may concern
itself with interesting and concrete psychical experience. The other
psychological sciences deal with various aspects of our complex char-
acter-life ; ethological psychology deals with these aspects in their in-
terrelation as functions of actual characters. Hence, for instance,

650 ETHOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

ethology is particularly interested in the study of scientific biography.
Most of my advanced students are working on biography. ' Child-
study ' is regarded by us as a phase of biography. We try to keep
the characters we study l all of a piece ' as far as we can. Hence
the necessity of using diagrams. " A science of character must make
the whole man significant, must show his development in all its aspects,
must integrate the ethological aspects of biological, psychological,
social and historical sciences, as well as relate itself to the various
philosophical disciplines." In the sentence just quoted I am willing
to strike out all of the adjectives qualifying the word ' sciences ' ex-
cept the term ' the psychological.' Ethology would still remain as a
chapter of psychology very different in its method and standpoint from
all the other chapters. *

The ' cone ' diagram in my pamphlet is not intended to show all
aspects of the subject. Diagrams are like parables ; they must not be
taken too literally or pushed too far. Not only are we careful in our
work not to put too much dependence on mechanical devices ; we are
also careful to provide ourselves with diagrams that show to some ex-
tent the varying value of the different aspects of character. To illus-
trate : we use a diagram showing the spiral movement in the develop-
ment of character from the predominance of self-assertion, through
the predominance of religious instincts, to the primacy of logical in-
sight. In another diagram we indicate the connection of self-asser-
tion with the instincts or tendencies for play, art and ideality.

As my work at present is in connection with a department of
pedagogy, it is natural that I should seem to put too much stress on
the school-studies and too little on the influence of authority and per-
sonality. Mr. Bliss would not find that fault with the actual etholog-
ical work. I meant what I said when the following words were written
in the pamphlet on ethology : " Each one of us reflects the universe
from his own peculiar standpoint. Each is himself and not another.
Each character is unique; particular and universal; social, individ-
ualistic and personal. The universe's interests are ours and ours are
the universe's. We seek to bring about the society of which each one
of us is a member. We seek not the society apart from ourselves, or
ourselves apart from the society. So far as we interact with others
we are simply natural agents, products and not creators; so far as
we really cooperate with others, we are creators, and are members of
the Kingdom of which God is the Integrator." Indeed, the 4 studies '
are partial results of character-life, and cannot take the place or even
share the place of real living. My ' ethology ' would have a poor out-

DISCUSSION AND REPORTS. 651

come if it made me exalt the machinery of education. In an essay
recently published (JLove and Law, San Francisco, 1899) I take
strong ground against the dispensation of the ' Hoe with the Man.'

It is only fair to say that our study of ethology is being applied to
the school-work. With the aid of Mrs. Frances Bracken Gould, a
graduate of the University of California, and a very clear-headed
kindergartner, we have been able to see many of our ideas put to the
test of practice. Work is also being done on history in the schools,
and in other directions.

THOMAS P. BAILEY, JR. •

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

SENSATIONAL ATTRIBUTES AND SENSATION.

Professor Calkins, of Wellesley, in the last number of the REVIEW,
brings up a topic still much in need of similar discussion by psychol-
ogists ; it, however, seems to me that she makes her conclusions, demon-
strated by excellent arguments, tend in rather the wrong scientific
direction, her logic assisting, moreover, the contention of the present
writer, namely, that these conclusions do not go far enough.

The very fact that introspection at once belies the common as-
sertion of the best text-books that sensations do have attributes, and
this despite the circumstance that by definition they should not have
them, would seem to argue that the definition itself is useless, or worse.
That the term is, indeed, worse than useless is, in short, the conten-
tion of the present writer. No one term in current psychology seems
to be more misleading or, as Miss Calkins shows, more illogically
used than that of this very concept.

The expression sensation *seems to be one that indicates little, if
anything, more than a somewhat which if it did exist might serve as
a basis for the better understanding of something else, namely, the
term feeling. It is as if one precise about technical terms, in teaching
psychology should say : You all know what a feeling is — well, im-
agine all the attributes taken away from feeling and you have a notion
of a sensation. Indeed, to current usage, a sensation is nothing more
than the unnecessary Ding-an-sich of a feeling, or its logical substance
in the Spinozistic sense.

It is not here the place to sketch a history of affective terms as
used in mental science, nor is it needful to do so clearly to suggest

652 SENSATIONAL ATTRIBUTES AND SENSATION.

that at present this term is ordinarily devoid of meaning. It is hoped
that in the forthcoming philosophical dictionary all these terms will
be fixed as is best for future scientific usage. It surely is not neces-
sary to keep the term in use in its common sense as defined by Wundt,
James, Ladd, Titchener and the rest, for the sake of denoting the insep-
arable periods of special consciousness which an infant is supposed to
have during the first days of his life, nor yet to signify certain rare and
almost abnormal experiences had by adults in the so-called ; anaesthesia,'
or on awakening from coma. Yet these are almost the only occasions
on which a ' sensation ' has any objective existence. If we examine into
the connotative properties of these periods of consciousness, we find
but one, and that deficiency — deficiency of ' quality, intensity, extent
and duration/ the so-called attributes of sensation. This Professor
Calkins aptly shows. Science has no proper use for terms thus
purely negative.

It is, in part, the presence in psychology and in allied branches of
knowledge of such concepts as this of sensation that makes the sub-
ject so often difficult and confusing to the beginner and frequently so
uncertain of expression to the more advanced psychologist. The
term sensation is not, like the purely abstract notions common enough
in other sciences, denotative of something fundamentally important,
but its proper use, as noted above, is very infrequent and relatively in-
significant. The terms atom and ether, for example, have for chem-
istry and physics fundamental importance, for on them, at present, is
reared in part the noble structures of these sciences. ' Sensation,' on
the contrary, is a relic of a now quite outworn psychology of mind-
stuff, and positively misleads therefore in this important regard,
while indicating nothing of value as amends. Sensation, as defined
and in use to-day, is not the substance out of which is characteristic-
ally carved, so to say, a feeling ; nor is the sensation buried beneath
the feeling, forming its base; but in general the sensation simply is
not concerned in the feeling at all : the feeling is feeling all the way
through and it is nothing else.

Modern advance toward demonstration of the doctrine of paral-
lelism has done away with any usefulness the term sensation might
have (as defined by J. S. Mill, for example), as the immediate con-
comitant of a bodily change, for feelings as certainly as sensa-
tions are now considered to be direct correlates of somatic conditions.
For popular use the term still has, of course, reason to exist ; our
present strictures apply only to the technical usage, when it is im-
portant to be exact.

DISCUSSION AND REPORTS. 653

My attack then, is not, like that of Professor Calkins, on the attri-
butes of sensation, but upon the term sensation itself as its most fre-
quent application defines it.

GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

AFTER-IMAGES.

In his recently published monograph on 'After-Images,' Mr. S. I.
Franz makes with reference to some work of mine a slightly mislead-
ing statement. The article referred to appeared in Mind for last
January, and Mr. Franz implies that its writer while noting the ex-
istence of individual variations in the color changes of the image, ar-
bitrarily eliminated them, and that ' her subjects had to be drilled to see
a normal image (i. e., like her own)/ This way of putting the
matter would lead one to suppose that the uniformity of results at-
tained was an artificial one, produced by suggestion : that is, that the
subjects were told what I saw, and drilled until they could see the
same thing. On the contrary, as the object of the study was to ob-
serve the effect of suggestion on the image, I was careful to give no
hint to my subjects of my own experiences, during the experiments to
determine the normal course of the image. I simply found that while
great individual differences existed at first, they tended to disappear in
large measure with practice. I quite agree with Mr. Franz that the
causes of these variations deserve thorough investigation, but I am in-
clined to think that one important cause is simply lack of practice in
discriminating the image from subjective or other retinal phenomena,

MARGARET FLOY WASHBURN.
WELLS COLLEGE.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE.

NEUROLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.

Nevroses et idees fixes. Etudes experimentales sur les troubles de la

volonte", de 1'attention, de la memoire ; sur les emotions, les idees

obs6dantes et leur traitement. DR. PIERRE JANET. Felix Alcan.

1898. Pp. 492.

In this work Dr. Janet has brought together a number of papers
of psychological interest read before various societies, and has added
to them a series of chapters based upon studies made upon invalids
suffering from various forms of mental disease.

In the introduction he calls attention to the fact that much valu-
able information for psychologists is to be obtained from the study of
abnormal minds, and that no psychological system can be considered
adequate which does not take into consideration the disturbances of
will, of attention, of memory and of emotion so commonly manifested
by the insane.

At the Salpetriere Dr. Janet had the opportunity of studying
many such cases of mental disease especially among the hysterical pa-
tients of Professor Raymond, to whom the volume is dedicated. The
first fifty pages are devoted to a careful analysis of the mental pro-
cesses in a young hysterical girl, who manifested a number of fixed
ideas. These led in her case to apparent defects of will power, to im-
perfect power of attention and memory and to abnormal acts of many
kinds. The attempt is made to trace these acts and defects to the ex-
istence of ideas, present to the subconscious self rather than existing in
consciousness. And the proof of this is given in the fact that hyp-
notic suggestions succeeded in combatting the ideas and thus changing
the character, acts and conduct. These fixed ideas seemed to vary in
duration and intensity, a fact which Janet implies by the expression
idees fixes stratifiees, and the most permanent were found more diffi-
cult to reach by suggestion than others. A true hysterical explosion
seemed to be followed by a clearing away of the ideas and a normal
train of thought, and eventually the patient returned to a state of com-
plete sanity after a number of such attacks.

This chapter with its painstaking analysis of this girl's character
illustrates well the position of Janet that "experimental psychology
654

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 655

consists above all in mastering the particular subject studied, his life,
his temperament, his character, his ideas ; and in being convinced that
one can never learn enough. It is necessary to place this subject in
various given circumstances and notice exactly what he says and does.
This method enables us to discover many things which are not with-
out interest for pathological psychology" (67).

In chapter second Janet describes certain results obtained in an
attempt to measure the degree of attention and the reaction time of
certain individuals, normal and abnormal ; his results being about the
same as those of other observers.

Chapter third contains a careful study of a patient whose memory
of events was suddenly arrested by a shock at a given date and who
for nearly nine months appeared to have no memory of things occur-
ring subsequently to that shock, i. <?., she lost her power of acquiring
new memories. Janet distinguishes this condition from the more
common one in which certain memories, as of language, are obliter-
ated by disease ; and he shows what a different influence it has on the
character. This form of defective memory he names continued am-
nesia. The subject Mme. D. seemed to see persons and objects, but a
moment after failed to recognize them or to have any memory of hav-
ing seen them. All impressions rolled away and left no trace, even
events of importance to her were entirely forgotten at once. An indi-
vidual may after an accident forget a few weeks of his life but up to
the time of the accident his memory was good. An individual of two
personalitities under suggestion may forget in state II the events of
state I, but when again in state I the memory becomes continuous.
But in Mme. D. there was a disappearance of the power of acquiring
new memories for this entire period. When, however, she was hyp-
notized and questioned, she related accurately all the events which had
occurred during this period showing the existence of an unconscious
memory which was not available on the conscious state. Hence
though apparently without memory Mme. D. really was not deprived
of memory and her talk during sleep revealed the existence of memo-
ries of things about her. She also had a clear memory of things sug-
gested in a hypnotic state, would execute post-hypnotic suggestions.
Automatic writing also showed the existence of memory of current
events. Janet attempts to explain this condition by separating the
power of acquiring memories from the power of reproducing memories
acquired. In the case of Mme. D. the latter was defective. It is not
enough that a simple isolated sensation should be produced in the
mind that it thereby should be perceived. There is needed for com-

656 NEUROLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.

plete consciousness of a sensation which is expressed by the words I
perceive, a second mental operation in addition to the first — not only
a personal perception of memories but a psychological assimilation of
images (p. 135). And any distraction of the mind is capable of in-
terfering with this process. Hence Janet explains this defect of
memory as he does the anaesthesia of hysterical subjects as a limitation
of the field of consciousness, a feebleness of the personality incapable
of synthetizing all the sensations. The origin of this defect of mem-
ory in Mme. D. was a sudden shock, and Janet, believing that this
shock was really a fixed idea before the mind causing a distraction,
succeeded in curing Mme. D. by modifying her emotional state during
hypnosis by suggestions directed to the emotion. Thus all suggestions
of return of memory having failed, he suggested certain modifications
of the original emotion and thus changed the distraction of the mind
by the emotion into a more normal state. As a result the distraction
ceased and then memory returned.

Another case was that of a young woman who became possessed
of the fixed idea that she was a victim of cholera. All the symptoms
followed in a series of attacks, but from each she recovered, remain-
ing, however, completely unequal to any mental or physical effort on
account of this prevailing fear. Various attempts in a hypnotic state
succeeded in modifying the fixed idea but not in abolishing it. Finally
Janet tried to decompose the idea and thus destroy it. " The fixed
idea consists of a synthesis of many images, and instead of attacking
it as a whole we attempted to transform its elements, substituting one
for another and thus to destroy the idea as a whole" (p. 164). The
patient had a mental picture of cadavers ready for burial. Janet sug-
gested a certain Chinese general with his robes in place of the cadaver,
and then suggested that this figure was alive and walking about, thus
removing the fear of the cadaver and of the cholera causing death.
But this was not sufficient, and then the attempt was made to substi-
tute for the word cholera other words by analyzing its syllables and
suggesting others in their place, until finally the word cholera appeared
to lose its significance for the patient. She could not recollect it, and
it no longer caused alarm. In this way the fixed idea being removed
the fear ceased and recovery ensued. There were in this case other
secondary fixed ideas which are most interestingly discussed in this
chapter, and which in turn finally disappeared.

On the basis of these cases Janet gives, in Chapter V. , a resume
of the great influence such fixed ideas may play on the mental char-
acter of hysterical patients ; the idea being sometimes subconscious,

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 657

not recognized or known by the patient, yet nevertheless determining
the acts and feelings and conduct. The essential feature of hysteria
is the existence of these subconscious ideas or representations ( Vorstel-
lungen). They are perfectly comparable to post-hypnotic suggestion,
controlling action without being conscious. In some cases such ideas
may be, however, conscious, develop in spite of the will, and are not
under voluntary control. In the majority of cases it is some emotional
shock which gives rise to the idea either conscious or unconscious, and
hence emotional shocks are the frequent cause of hysterical symptoms.

In the succeeding chapters Janet studies various forms of hysterical
manifestations, hemianopsia, allocheiria ; contractures and spasms of
the trunk with disturbances of respiration, in all of which he shows that
the subconscious idea determined the effect, and its removal by hypnotic
suggestion resulted in a cure of the symptom. Such cases as he pre-
sents in detail with much interesting psychological analysis are familiar
to many physicians, and are not at all peculiar to the French. It is,
however, unfortunate that in this country patients are far less easily
hypnotized in the ordinary manner, although the success of the admo-
nitions of mental healers and Christian scientists, so-called, demon-
strate that auto-suggestion has over many minds a controlling influ-
ence. It is quite certain that the mental state of calm induced by
certain methods advocated by these misguided and ignorant individuals
may act as hypnosis acts to counteract states of emotional excitement
of a subconscious kind and thus benefit the individual.

Chapter IX. contains a study of a case of insomnia, the remark-
able case of a young woman who for two and a half years did not
sleep at all, being wakened within a minute of falling asleep by a
terrifying idea, the memory of the death of her child. The actual
character of this idea she had no recollection of during her waking
state ; and it was only in a state of somnambulism induced by hypnotic
suggestion that Janet succeeded in eliciting from her the memory
which caused the terror. By suggestion during hypnotism this mem-
ory was disintegrated and she was cured. Janet emphasizes the great
influence which subconscious or semi-conscious ideas have upon sleep
and its disturbances, a fact only too well known to almost every one
practically who has suffered from insomnia. The existence of a fixed
idea on the subconscious level is enough to prevent or disturb the con-
dition of the mind necessary to the obliteration of consciousness oc-
curring in normal sleep. Many persons in sleep are really in a state
in which the subconscious self is quite awake. Thus a mother may
watch her child while asleep, waking at the least movement or cry of

658 NEUROLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.

the child yet remaining undisturbed by other far louder noises. Many
persons can waken at a given hour. Thus it is evident that subcon-
scious processes may go on during sleep and may modify or prevent
it. Such disturbances of sleep as are thus produced must be treated
as Janet shows rather by suggestion than by drugs, by removing the
fixed idea which dominates the subconscious self and reacts upon con-
sciousness.

Chapter X. contains a study of demoniacal possession in a lunatic
and of Janet's success in exorcising the demon by hypnotic suggestion.
The analysis of the condition of the patient is most interesting and
will well repay the study of every alienist as there are doubtless in
every asylum similar cases easily curable if one had the patience to ex-
amine the mental characteristics, the method of the development of
the delusion, and to obtain control of the individual. The clue to
these cases according to Janet lies in discovering the fixed idea, almost
always subconscious, which gives rise to their insane acts, and by re-
moving it by hypnotic suggestion. There is incidentally introduced
into the chapter an interesting hint regarding the explanation of the
acts and revelations of spirit mediums.

Janet ascribes their automatic writing and unconscious statements
to the subconscious self open to the suggestion of the individual con-
sulting them and hence responding to him as he may desire.

In Chapter XI. crystal vision is described, and the position taken
is that the visions are unexpected involuntary visual memories of the
unconscious self which becoming conscious cause surprise, and seem
like revelations.

Chapter XII. is of particular interest, as it is devoted to a study of
the effect of hypnotism upon the person hypnotized. Janet affirms
that after each seance there is a period of exhaustion during which
suggestions made become fixed, and then a latent period in which sug-
gestions are active but are gradually fading in intensity, and at the
end of this there comes a period of desire to be re-hypnotized with a
state of mind in which the patient is very dependent upon the hyp-
notizer. If not re-hypnotized the original ideas, paralysis, etc., recur.
Hence, Janet emphasizes the need of a course of hypnotization in any
case of disease rather than the expectation of cure from a single or a
few seances. He then proceeds to study the state of mind of depend-
ence which those who have been hypnotized feel, and shows that this
state of mind is characteristic of many individuals in the community
who need direction by others, and who are thus influenced without be-
ing hypnotized. It is the subconscious self which is really reached

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 659

and directed by a strong will in the case of these weak persons, and
unless it is directed they are unhappy and incapable.

As a study in psychology few recent works can approach this book
of Janet's for interest and profit. The one fact which it emphasizes
is that character and conduct are the result as much of unconscious as
of conscious mental activities, and that no study of individual action,
either sane or insane, can be considered complete which neglects both
these factors. M. ALLEN STARR.

Nervous and Mental Diseases. H. CHURCH and FREDERICK PE-
TERSON. Philadelphia, Saunders. 1899.

It is not an easy task to write a text-book upon mental disease.
The writer should possess considerable knowledge of psychology both
of its subjective side and also of the many recent advances in the
physiology of the brain. He should, furthermore, have such a prac-
tical knowledge of insanity as can only be acquired by its clinical
study in an asylum. And lastly it is of no little moment that his lit-
erary style should combine clearness and accuracy of thought with
a felicitous use of language. Among recent text-books upon Mental
Diseases, that of Dr. Peterson seems more nearly to fulfill these con-
ditions than any with which we are acquainted. He has a facility in
stating his facts which renders his views easily understood by the
the student or by the ordinary reader. He has a thorough knowledge
of insanity from long residence in a large institution where his time
was not devoted to the petty detail of management but to the study of
his patients — and his familiarity with psychology is easily detected on
every page.

The book falls naturally into two portions — the study of the symp-
toms of insanity and the study of its various forms as they are clin-
ically manifest. In the first part the physiology of the brain plays a
prominent part, and the unqualified materialistic position is, of course,
assumed. This seems inevitable from the medical standpoint, and we
cannot but feel that too little importance is given to the subjective side.
There are many mental processes which wholly defy physiological
explanation such as the formation of delusions, or the permanence of
fixed ideas which either subconsciously or consciously control thought
and action, and it is the tendency of the materialist to devote his at-
tention to these rather than to the hallucinations or defects of memory
which are so much more easily explained. It seems to the writer that
too little attention has been given by the author to the writings of the
French school, especially to such works as those of Fere" and Janet ;

660 THE EMOTIONS.

and that their theories in regard to the existence of fixed ideas below
the level of consciousness which certainly play a large part in the de-
velopment of certain symptoms of insanity might have been utilized
in this section.

Dr. Peterson has avoided very nicely the abyss into which many
writers on mental diseases have fallen by refraining from any discus-
sion of the classification of the insanities. The time has not yet come
for a classification, as no basis — pathological, clinical, or theoretical —
has yet been found. He merely takes pains to give certain classifica-
tions of other writers, and then takes up the well-recognized forms of
insanity, melancholia, mania, demenoia, paranoia and paresis. These
are carefully discussed and well described, and will give a good clin-
ical picture to the reader.

The work can be recommended to the student of psychology and
of medicine as a concise and satisfactory text-book upon a difficult
subject. M. A. S.

THE EMOTIONS.

La peur et le mechanisme des emotions. DR. PAUL HARTEN-

BERG. Rev. Phil., XLVIII. Pp. 113-134. Aug., 1899.
Observations sur le pouls radial pendant les emotions. N. VAS-
CHIDE. Rev. Phil., XLVIII. Pp. 276-316. Sept., 1899.
Hartenberg's article is written from the point of view which re-
gards an emotion as an interior synthesis of motions. Hence the or-
ganic changes which, on the James-Lange theory, are the cause of
the emotion, are here considered to be the emotion itself and only the
cause of the consciousness of the emotion. This is clearly a pure
difference of definition. The distinguishing feature of the author's
analysis of the emotional process is the insertion at both its initial and
its final stage of a central process of association. The efferent dis-
charge is held to be controlled by a motor image having its center in
the prefrontal convolutions, an image whose associative function is to
coordinate the various discharges and to mediate between the ' psychic
representations' and the 'emotion.' And on the completion of the
circuit there is held to be a similar sensory image, situated in the same
area, whose function is to combine the impressions received and to
connect them with other images. There is here a recognition at least
of the coordination of elements in the emotional process, though no
distinct recognition of the important problem of their coordination
relatively to the so-called ' object.' Unfortunately, so many of the

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 66 1

bodily ' expressions ' appear to fall outside of this last coordination
altogether and to be mere accidental accompaniments. Moreover, we
may at present perhaps still hesitate to accept the views of association
centers, on which the author builds his theory, as final. As to the
emotion of fear, the only thing noticeable in the incidental treatment
here given of it is the testimony against Lange's view of the im-
portance of the vaso-motor phenomena, the fact being pointed out
that, while the most constant phenomena in fear are arrested respira-
tion, constriction of the thorax and the feeling of stifling, there is a
great deal of individual variation.

Vaschide's investigations have also reference to Lange's theory, in
that they deal with one aspect of the relation of emotion to circula-
tion. The particular question studied is the relative frequency during
the course of an emotion of the radial pulse. This subject had been
already experimented on by Binet and Courtier in the laboratory ; the
present study deals with it in the case of emotions spontaneously
aroused by the experiences of common life. The investigation under
these circumstances was naturally one of great difficulty and delicacy,
and opinion will probably differ, not only as to the value of the results
obtained in any given case, but also as to the conditions under which
investigations of this sort are even admirable. The proverbial savant
who botanizes on his mother's grave is certainly not more shocking
in his devotion to the sacred cause of science than our psychologist who
takes his mother's pulse on their first meeting after the death of his
father (p. 300), and again at his father's grave (p. 301), and who ex-
amines and records his own pulse when alone at the grave, after the
emotion had seized him ' avec une fureur et puissance enorme ' (p. 307) .
However, the results are not a little interesting. They go to confirm
the experiences of Binet and Courtier, viz., that in all emotions, what-
ever their quality and tone, there is usually first an acceleration and
then a slowing-down of the movement of the heart. Vaschide found
this result uniform in all his observations and under all circumstances.
The only important difference was that in the strongest emotions of
grief, the movement both rose higher and fell less evenly and to a
lower point than in the intensest emotions of joy. In emotions of
moderate strength there was almost no difference. The conclusion,
therefore, is that the pulse alone is no criterion of the quality of an
emotion.

H. N. GARDINER.
SMITH COLLEGE.

662 THE EMOTIONS.

Ueber den Begriff der Gemilthsbewegung. C. STUMPF. Zeitschrift
f. Psych, u. Phys, d. Sinnersorgane. Bd. XI. Pp. 47-99.
The interest of the author in this article is to get the adequate and
defensible definition of emotion, rather than to point out the conditions
of its origin and development. Though implying the entire affective
process, the considerations are limited to those phenomena which are
especially regarded as emotions {Ajfect}, viz., joy, sorrow, hope, fear,
wonder, etc. The positive outcome is rather speedily reached in the
preliminary analysis which concludes thus. The peculiar quality of a
definite emotion, which constitutes its inner nature for our conscious-
ness, cannot be defined in any manner. The most exact and complete
definition can mention only certain rather uniformly recurring marks ;
but to one, who has never lived through the state, the definition cannot
make plain what would transpire in his breast. This need of imme-
diate experience does not forestall an analytical account of the emo-
tional content of consciousness, which admittedly presents nothing
new, but confirms the older intellectual accounts given of the emotions.
The popular equivalency of emotion and affective process does not aid
scientific psychology. There is a recognizable difference between
emotion and other feelings, as to intensity, time-rate, ideas, and judg-
ment involved. Emotions do not arise from sensations directly. The
sphere of emotion is greatly widened when judgment is integrated in
the emotive state. This factor adds no difficulty to the definition.
Emotion is also distinguishable from desire. The latter is related to
the actual, the former to that which ought to be. In this respect, emo-
tion may be defined as a passive condition of feeling, which relates
itself to a judged content. S. insists that a real emotion presupposes a
certain amount of mental development, rather than being innate, or
given with the biological structure.

The scientific need of pointing out the inner nature of emotion
more conceptually, so to speak, has given occasion for the formation
of the more modern sensualistic theories. It is supposed that referring
to blood and muscle makes the phenomena ' clearer,' because we are
more familiar with these in life, than with the intellectual principles
of the older theory. It is also supposed that the problems of classifi-
cation are hereby simplified. The critical portion of the article takes
up the theories advocated by Ribot, and by James and Lange. The
former regards emotion as only complicated states of the sensuous
feelings of pleasure and pain. This theory might have a show of ac-
ceptability if judgment, as affecting feeling, could be reduced to mere
idea or sensation. Most psychologists to-day reply to this demand in
the negative.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 663

The James-Lange theory is not to be identified with that of Ribot,
though there is much in common. This view finds the essence of emo-
tion in the peripheral corporeal processes, L. selecting vaso-motor
changes, J. the vegetative processes, or visceral sensations. The ob-
scurity of the theory lies, in part, in its general inability to locate the
emotion in its exact relation to the sensory stimulation and the attend-
ant organic reflexes. It is shown how the real conception of the theory
depends finally upon the psycho-physical principle adopted, since it be-
comes a question of the casual direction. The state of the discussion
of the theory, after fifteen years of defense, is not encouraging. Op-
ponents are more numerous than adherents. The advocates forget
that, in spite of all objective and physiological psychology, an oppor-
tunity of self-observation must be essential to any attempted definition.
The question of the theory cannot be referred to facts, since new facts
of emotive reactions are not forthcoming. It remains a question of
the power of the arguments. The proof rests on two considerations :
Nothing of the emotion remains when we think away all the so-called
accompanying phenomena and the corresponding organic sensations ;
secondly, emotions are produced by purely physical means, even when
the representation of objects is entirely wanting, the latter being the
chief feature of the older theory. In the first instance, the pathologi-
cal proofs fail, since the argument supports either the old or the new
theory. The proof is robbed of all power by the fact that in anaes-
thesia, e. g., there is necessarily a reduction and impairment of the
intellectual functions. The hypnotic cases tried by Sollier fail in a
similar manner.

Besides the particular grounds of proof offered, the two projectors
of this theory appeal to certain general principles to support their
views. We are presented with the strange spectacle of a physiologist,
L., invoking the aid of philosophical monism, and J., a philosopher,
putting forth the physiological law of ideo-motor effects, to support
the theory. Monistic hypotheses are rejected, however, where psy-
chological observation alone must be admitted in determining a defini-
tion. Emotions are something psychical, whether the monism be-
comes physical or spiritual in its logical formulation. The law of
dynamogenesis, as interpreted by J., is not fully proven. The factor
of the stimulus threshold is omitted. Ideo-motor effects are apparent
only when the stimulus has reached a certain intensity. Fere's re-
sults on sensation and movement are not conclusive, since they con-
tain too many defects of method. The brain is not a mere tube,
through which every drop of the stimulus flows immediately to the

664 THE EMOTIONS.

periphery ; it is more like a catch-basin. Every sensation does not,
fortunately, as shown by Sommer and Herschlaff, necessitate re-
action. J's contention must be regarded as a gross exaggeration.
Thus the critic proceeds in pointing out the gaps in the progress of
the arguments, until it is maintained that there is not a shadow of
proof from the standpoint of the theoretical principles dragged into
the debate.

Finally, it is shown with some detail, that there are positive
grounds of proof against the sensualistic definition. It stands in di-
rect contradiction with the facts of consciousness. According to the
theory, all organic sensations should be emotions, which is manifestly
untrue. Again, in case the theory were a real interpretation, emotions
must be identical in intensity, quality, and time-rate with the sensa-
tions through which they become defined. Nothing of these relations
are found. J.'s classification into ' coarser' and ' subtler' implies, by
comparison, a common, but unnamed, factor which should have been
taken as the defining mark of emotive states. The article closes with
a recognition of certain justifiable points in the physiological doctrine,
and a brief discussion of the nature of apathy as an emotive state.

EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCHNER.
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY.

A Study of Anger. By G. STANLEY HALL. The American

Journal of Psychology, July, 1899.

President Hall contributes a very suggestive inductive study of a
much neglected subject. A good list of words in the English lan-
guage bearing on states of anger is given in the beginning. Medical
literature and anthropological lore are ransacked for hints and sugges-
tions bearing on the anger psychosis. An empirical, inductive study
is then pursued based on the questionnaire method. Cases of spon-
taneous anger are cited. They may be due to the necessities of
growth or over lability of nerve cells or centers. The satisfaction
and real physical pleasure that sometimes follow anger suggest that
it has its place in normal development. A long summation of petty
vexations culminating in a form of erethic inflammation may reach its
fulminating stage without any cause assignable by the subject or ob-
servable by others. Opposition to the dogmatic habits of a rutty
specialization is one of the most frequent of chologenetic agencies.
Education is defined, in part, as learning to be most angry with those
things that most deserve it and maintaining a true perspective down
the scale. Chologenetic agencies are, of course, numerous, such as

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 66$

personal antipathies based on physical forms and features, aversion to
particular acts or automatisms, dress, ornaments, habits, thwarting of
expectation or purpose, contradiction, limitations of freedom, pride,
justice, etc. Play and mock fights often contain a little repressed
anger and are good vents.

The physical manifestations of anger include the vaso- motor distur-
bances, glandular secretions, salivation, swallowing, nausea, spitting,
disturbances of the respiration, various involuntary movements, atti-
tudes and postures, biting, scratching, kicking, etc., etc. The vaso-motor
disturbances present a very alluring field for investigation. The very
painful cardiac sensations are quite prominent. Letting of blood
seems to modify considerably the strength of the anger attack. Men-
struation is sometimes arrested. Erethism of the breasts or sexual
parts occurs at times. A glandular psychology is mooted. The
effect of anger upon the mammary secretions of women is noted.
Constipation and diarrhoea are at times the result of irascibility. In
two cases a rash, once said to be all over the body, follows every fit
of anger in the child. Swallowing, gagging, etc., preliminaries of a
fit of anger, are referred to as possible residua of the actions of car-
nivora as they are about to attack and slaughter their prey. As swal-
lowing is the act of appropriating life-giving food, so the nausea and
the antiperistaltic movements of anger mean the repulsion or even
the regurgitation of food. By a process of short circuiting and trans-
ference of associated kindred meaning the same physical movements
accompany a similar mental action or state. Some good hard common
sense remarks are made in matters prophylactic and jtherapeutical
which might be taken to heart by those, who by reason of their senti-
mentality have outgrown their age.

The present reviewer cannot but suggest a few theoretical points
of view in reference to the study of anger. The emotions appear to
represent the inchoate, uncivilized elements of our lives. They are
the Saturnalia of the animal and slave parts of our inherited constitu-
tion. As reversions they are subject to some possible explanation.
An extension of Hughlings- Jackson's nervous level theory may be of
assistance here. With progressive automatization of the various levels
in ascending order, consciousness normally accompanies the latest
evolved levels. There is apparently maximum of consciousness with
maximum of nervous hindrance and nervous expenditure and a mini-
mum of consciousness with a maximum of automatism. In the nor-
mal intellectual life the lower levels with their vascular, glandular and
muscular subordinated attachments act more or less automatically. At

666 THE EMOTIONS.

one time we can easily imagine the whole mental life of our early
ancestors was almost wholly absorbed in the reports from these
4 serving organs of our nether world/ To-day in unusual circum-
stances and unwonted contingencies some peculiar stimulus or combi-
nation of stimuli, as for instance a physical injury, may set that same
nether world of the lower levels in unwonted excitement and the vas-
cular, glandular and muscular combinations of another age may be set
in motion and reports thereof, confused and tumultuous, be sent to the
present seat of consciousness, the cortex. I can discover in the rougher
emotions at least nothing else but disordered masses of sensations from
the central and peripheral organs of the muscular, glandular and vas-
cular apparatus accompanied generally by joy or depression. In the
emotion of fright, for instance, at an umbrella being opened at my
side, I can discover nothing but a mass of disordered sensations arising
from the convulsive movements of the muscular mechanism accom-
panied by vaso-motor sensations arising from cardiac congestion.

Sutherland has well shown the growth of vaso-motor adaptations
in the presence of sudden emergencies and unwonted stimuli. Now
some of these older adaptations, some of these older coordinations and
combinations existing between the nervous system and the motor
mechanism of the body may lie relatively dormant or may act auto-
matically and unconsciously. In the civilized life of to-day there may
be no need for them to report to consciousness excepting in cases of
emergencies. Moreover when they do function they may result in
disordered masses of muscular, glandular and vascular sensations ow-
ing to the disorder produced by the superimposition of newer and
more modern coordinations due to the newer adaptations and to
changes made necessary by correlation of growth. Remove the later
coordinations, that is, remove the inhibition and control of the later
formed associations of ideas and movements and the result is the emo-
tional phenomena of actual warfare, the struggle in all its forms,
strikes, holidays, disease, etc.

With the report of every new investigation on the nature of the
emotions it is becoming increasingly clear that visceral functioning
furnishes the organic algedonic basis of the personality. Some one
has said that consumptives generally die happy, but no matter how
certain a man's convictions are of a happy immortality, he will never
die a triumphant death with disease below the diaphragm.

ARTHUR ALLIN.
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 667

EXPERIMENTAL.

Ueber die l Verschmelzung* von Empfindungen, besonders bei Klang-
eindrucken. EJNAR BUCH. Philos. Stud., XV., 1-66 ; 183-278.
These articles were first published in Danish as the habilitation
address of the author in the University of Denmark. The first is
theoretical, containing a criticism of current theories of fusion, es-
pecially those of Stumpf, Cornelius, Helmholtz, Wundt, Kiilpe, and
James. He takes up in order the subjects of attention, apprehension
or perception (Auffassung), analysis, and fusion proper. The r61e of
interest in voluntary attention is illustrated by examples from genetic
psychology. The perception of a complex sense presentation is shown
to depend upon interest and knowledge of the fusing elements. Then
interest and previous experience, as determining the observer's attitude
toward the presentation, are found to be important factors in determin-
ing the limits of analysis or fusion. His definition of fusion is essen-
tially expressed in the following: We speak of fusion when we en-
counter a number of stimuli which, in place of each arousing its own
sensation as clearly and distinctly as if it appeared alone, produce a
combination-presentation or presentation-mass in which a change
would take place upon the elimination of one of the stimuli. The
avowed object of the research is to determine by experiment whether
this fusion is a mental process by itself or is simply the general desig-
nation for known influences upon perception.

The second article contains the report of the experiments. The
principal apparatus consisted of a series of twenty-three organ pipes
with a manometric contrivance by means of which the pipes could
be energized with equal force. A variety of combinations of tones
were produced by sounding the pipes simultaneously in pairs. The
principal tests were made upon nine observers who were simply re-
quired to state whether they heard one or two tones. The ob-
servers fall into two classes according to the attitude they take toward
the presentation. One class of observers attempt to analyze the tone
and consider failure to perform the analysis a criterion of fusion.
The other observers seem to judge merely by the general effect. This
difference in method brings about radical differences in the results,
each class however, presenting some common characteristics. Tones
at some intervals apart have a greater tendency to fuse than at other
intervals. The intervals may be arranged in a series according to the
number of times the respective tones fused in these experiments. The
author shows by an elaborate analysis of the results that these differ-

668 EXPERIMENTAL.

ences may be accounted for by the variation of such known factors as
consonance, beats between partials, familiarity with certain intervals,
etc., and therefore concludes that there is no ground for assuming the
existence of degrees of fusion aside from the variation in such factors.
In order to check the results, he performed the same experiments us-
ing an Appunn 'Tonmesser,' and obtained results that virtually agreed
with those obtained with the pipes. Notwithstanding the keen criti-
cism and the careful and elaborate experiments., the author does not ar-
rive at anything essentially new, and the contribution has its chief value
in the exposition of his own theory of fusion.

C. E. SEASHORE.
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA.

Neue Untersuchungen iiber die Zeitverhaltniss der Apperception
einfacher Sinneseindriicke am Complicationspendel. CHR. D.
PFLAUM. Philos. Stud., XV., 139-148.

This is a repetition of Wundt's experiments to determine the di-
rection and extent of disparity in time in the perception of two simul-
taneous impressions through different senses. The ' Complications-
pendel' described in Wundt's Physiological Psychology is employed.
A pendulum moves a pointer over a circular scale and rings a gong as
the pointer passes any desired number. The observer is required to
state at what number on the scale the pointer was when the sound oc-
curred. The author finds that the amount and direction of the dis-
placement vary with different individuals and depend upon the speed
of the pointer. He thus reconciles the contradictory results previously
obtained by Wundt and von Tchisch by showing that there are indi-
vidual differences just as in the personal equation in the eye and ear
method of astronomers. The maximum difference between individ-
uals in this test is about o.oi sec. which is much less than the differ-
ences found in the corresponding personal equations of different as-
tronomers.

C. E. SEASHORE.

Die Prdcision der Blickbewegung und der Localisation an der
Netzhautperipherie. CHAS. B. MORREY. Ztsch. f. Psych, u.
Physiol. der Sinnesorgane. XX., 317-325.

The author measures the error in the eye -movement, by which we
seek to fixate a momentary peripheral stimulus, by the discrepancy
between the actual position of an electric spark and the position of a

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 669

pointer, placed by the observer at that point of a dimly lighted back-
ground, where the spark appeared to be.

After correcting for inaccuracy in placing the pointer, the error
of movement is found to increase directly with the distance of -the pe-
ripheral stimulus from the primary point of regard, and to consist of a
constant tendency to underestimate the distance.

The error in peripheral localization is assumed to be identical with
the error in the eye-movement.

The results published are based upon single experiments, each for
more than 700 different positions of the peripheral stimulus. No
measurements are made for movements of less than 8°. The ap-
parent error in the method of designating the terminus of the eye-
movement averages half the total error, while for 8° the two are equal.
These facts undoubtedly account for the extreme irregularity of the
author's curves.

The problem is interesting and important, but the method used is
full of complications and probably incapable of giving accurate re-
sults. It is doubtful if anything will be entirely successful, except
some means of photographic registration.

RAYMOND DODGE.

WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY.

Die Form des Himmelsgewolbes und das Grosser-Erscheinen der

Gestirne am Horizont. W. VON ZEHENDER. Zeitsch. f . Psych.

und Phys. XX., pp. 353-357.

This paper is supplementary to the earlier article which has already
been criticized by the present reviewer in the September number of the
PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, page 547. The same errors are committed
here as in the first aricle. The author speaks of ' die Volkmanrische
scheinbare Divergenz zweier -vertical stehender Parallellinien '
(p. 356), and states on the next page: — ' nur solcJie Verticallinien
paralell erscheinen, die in Wirklichkeit nicht ganz genau parallel
sind, sondern * * * nach oben ein wenig convergiren.' As has
been pointed out these statements are the exact reverse of the truth.

The other part of the paper is devoted to an effort to show that the
apparent flatness of the heavens is a result of ' Tradition ' rather than
of connate ideas or of experience. Finally, the apparent variation of
the size of the sun and moon is explained by contrast with the ap-
parent angular extension of the sky which is overestimated at the
zenith and underestimated at the horizon (again an incorrect state-
ment) , although no reason is given why the sun and moon should not

670 PHIL OS OPHICAL.

suffer exactly the same sort of false estimation as the sky in these
two positions.

CHARLES H. JUDD.
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY,

SCHOOL OF PEDAGOGY.

PHILOSOPHICAL.

Through Nature to God. JOHN FISKE. Boston and New York,

Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899. i6mo, pp. xv -f 195. Price,

$1.00.

Mr. Fiske's latest book constitutes the third part of the trilogy
initiated in 'Man's Destiny in the Light of his Origin* (1884), and
continued in ' The Idea of God as affected by Modern Knowledge '
(1885). The earliest work, as it may be apposite to recall, offers a
summary account of evolution designed specially to lead up to an
avowal of belief in the soul's immortality, not as a provable fact, but
as an essential implication of ' the' reasonableness of the universe/
The theistic continuation, still basing upon evolution, contains a pro-
fession of faith to the effect that " the Infinite Power of which the uni-
verse is the multiform manifestation is psychical, although it is impos-
sible to ascribe to Him any of the limited psychical attributes which
we know, or to argue from the ways of man to the ways of God."
The last little monograph proceeds with the discussion of problems in
Philosophy of Religion, and contains illuminating chapters on (i)
The Mystery of Evil; (2) The Cosmic Roots of Love and Self-Sacri-
fice; (3) The Everlasting Reality of Religion.

The first is mainly remarkable for the outspoken way in which it
accepts the conclusion so paradoxically put by a younger American
thinker — that God is the Devil. In other words, God must be viewed
as the author of evil, as well as of what we call good ; and the problem
is to throw such light upon this unavoidable inference as modern in-
vestigation may bestow. The second repeats, with great force and
freshness, Mr. Fiske's well-known doctrine as to the part played in
the evolving series by the lengthened infancy of the human species of
ape, and concludes with an earnest, though dogmatic statement, that
the universe exists for moral ends, if any at all. The third defends
the reasonableness of the three chief conceptions incident to all re-
ligion— the quasi-Human God; the Undying Human Soul, and the
value, as a scientific fact (that is, as a cause in the process of evolu-
tion), of the postulate of the Ethical Significance of the Unseen World.
Needless to say, the argument is presented with all the charm that

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 671

this author has accustomed us to look for ; and, although exceedingly
brief, and therefore wearing a certain air of dogmatism, anyone who
reads between the lines can note the wonderful range of knowledge it
presupposes. It seems to me that, without doubt, similar, if not
identical, ideas will be enunciated by some expert in this subject,
when the new systematic philosophy of religion, that so many await,
makes its appearance.

I have but two criticisms to pass. In the hands of those who
know, books of this type can be productive of nothing but good. But,
most unfortunately, in the hands of theological reactionaries, whose
unconscious hypocrisy is their besetting sin, a sin that takes form in a
persistent defence of that for which there is no evidence, I feel sure
that Mr. Fiske's outspoken opinions will work widespread harm. It
is, possibly, a pity, too, that he has almost repeated the title of Dr.
Edwin A. Abbott's striking work (Macmillari, 1877).

R. M. WENLEY.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

The seventeenth volume of the Bibliotheque Sociologique Interna-
tionale is Des Religious Comparees au Point de Vue Sociologique,
by M. Raoul de la Grasserie, who is a judge at Rennes. The subject
is one of the first order of importance, but M. de la Grasserie is evi-
dently too much of an amateur in the field of comparative religion
for his conclusions to have much weight. His chief authority is a
certain M. de Millone who is not known to fame on this side of the
Atlantic at least. ' Cosmosociology ' is the name that the author would
give to the ' society of God and man ' which is religion ; he discusses
also the ' inter-divine society '- of the gods themselves on the lines of the
Iliad; mortuary religion is not neglected; and the 'organic nature*
of religion is brought to the front. The chief value of M. de la Gras-
serie's work is in occasional classifications like that of * religious di-
seases ' (pp. 194 +) and such occasional touches as calling the monks
4 the specialists of Christianity.' As a treatment of religion as a social
force, the book is quite inadequate. — Paris, V. Giard and E. Briere.

N. P. GILMAN.

MEADVILLE, PA.

Spinoza und Schopenhauer. Von Dr. SAMUEL RAPPAPORT. Ber-
lin, R. Gaertners Verlagsbuchhandlung. 1899.
This work is not, as its title might suggest, merely a comparative
study of the two systems, but an attempt to determine the character
and extent of the influence of Spinoza upon Schopenhauer.

672 NEW BOOKS.

It is a recognized fact that Schopenhauer, like Schelling, Hegel,
Schleiermacher and all of the important thinkers of the time, was af-
fected by the pantheist. But the influence might be direct or indirect
— either the result of an immediate acquaintance with the works of
the pantheist or merely a product of the Spinozistical ideas which
were ' in the air ' during that period. Our author attempts the task,
which is not as simple as it might seem to be, of showing that
Schopenhauer was not only early subject to a distinct mediate influence
from Spinoza but actually acquired a first-hand knowledge of his
works before and during the formation of his (Schopenhauer's) sys-
tem. This proof is made valuable, and for that matter possible, by
reference to the still unpublished MSS. of the pessimist.

The writer also endeavors, in an exhaustive manner, to determine
Schopenhauer's opinion of the doctrines and personality of Spinoza.

The work seems to be conscientious and thorough, and as a detail
out of the history of philosophy it is valuable. However, it is of in-
terest only to the technical student.

F. KENNEDY.

NEW BOOKS.

A Manual of Psychology. G. F. STOUT. University Correspond-
ence College Press. London, W. B. Clive ; New York, Hinds &
Noble. 1899. Pp. xvi -f 643.

History of Ancient Philosophy. W. WINDELBAND. Authorized
Translator,* H. E. Cushman. New York, Charles Scribner's
Sons. 1899. Pp. xv + 393« $2.00.

The Evolution of General Ideas. TH. RIBOT. Authorized trans-
lation by Frances A. Welby. Chicago, The Open Court Pub-
lishing Co. ; London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Ltd.
1899. Pp. xi + 23i. $2.25.

Social Laws, an Outline of Sociology. G. TARDE. Translated by
Howard C. Warren. New York and London, The Macmillan
Company. 1899. Pp. xi + 213. $1.25.

Discourse on Method. Rene Descartes ; Veitch's Translation. Chi-
cago, Open Court Publishing Co. 1899. Pp. vi -f 87.

NOTES. 673

NOTES.

WE regret to record the death of the well-known French philoso-
pher, M. Paul Janet, member of the Paris Academy of Political
Science and formerly professor at the Sorbonne.

A. KIRSCHMANN, Ph.D., lecturer in philosophy at the University
of Toronto since 1894, has been appointed prof essor of philosophy and
director of the psychological laboratory.

DR. CHARLES G. SHAW has been appointed to the position in the
department of philosophy in New York University rnade vacant by
the resignation of Dr. J. H. McCracken, to accept the Presidency of
Westminster College, at Fulton, Mo.

The Regents of the University of Texas have provided a psycho-
logical laboratory which has been placed under the charge of Professor
Caswell Ellis, of the department of pedagogy.

MR. CLARK WISSLER, of the Ohio State University, has been ap-
pointed Assistant in Psychology in Columbia University.

S. I. FRANZ, Ph.D. (Columbia), and G. V. N. Dearborn, M.D.,
Ph.D. (Columbia), have been appointed Assistants in Physiology in
the Harvard Medical School.

R. S. WOODWORTH, Ph.D. (Columbia), has been appointed As-
sistant in Physiology in University and Bellevue Hospital and Medical
College.

PROFESSOR W. H. SQUIRES, who holds the chair of psychology
and pedagogics in Hamilton College has been given a two years' leave
of absence, which he will spend in study in Germany. W. B. Elkin,
Ph.D. (Cornell), Teachers College, Columbia University, has been
appointed acting professor.

DAVID R. MAJOR, Ph.D. (Cornell), Teachers College, Columbia
University, has been appointed Acting Professor of Pedagogy in the
University of Nebraska, Professor G. W. A. Luckey, who holds the
Chair of Pedagogy, having been given leave of absence to carry on ad-
vanced work at Columbia University.

PROFESSOR G. S. FULLERTON has returned to the University of
Pennsylvania after a year's absence abroad.

PROFESSOR J. MARK BALDWIN is at present at Oxford (3 Museum
Road), where he is revising for the press the MS. of his Dictionary
of Philosophy and Psychology. Professor A. C. Armstrong, Jr., is
also at Oxford, and Professor G. H. Howison is expected there.
Professor William James may also spend part of the winter at Oxford.

674 NOTES.

DR. JAMES H. LEUBA, of Bryn Mawr College, has compiled a
card catalogue of psychology, containing about 10,000 titles. The
catalogue consists of the contents of periodicals from 1860-1899. The
periodicals selected are not confined to those devoted to psychology,
but include many -journals such as Nature, The American Journal
of Science, etc., in which psychological articles might be readily
overlooked. There are indeed many journals omitted, such as the
German physiological archives, but it is hoped that these may be in-
dexed at some future time. Dr. Leuba offers to supply mimeo-
graphed copies of the catalogue on standard cards at a price not to
exceed $50.00.

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Absolute, The, 228
After-images, 173, 420, 449, 451, 653
Animal Intelligence, 157, 262, 412
Animals, Mental Evolution in, 568
l'Anne"e sociologique, 568
Apprehension, Psychology of, 229, 428
1'Art et le re"el, no
Association of Ideas, 320
I'Asymetrie sensorielle, 562
Attention, 166
Automatic Reactions, 376
Automatism, Social and Imitation
Theory, 440

Belief and Will, 150
Breathing, Rates of, and Mental Ac-
tivity, 164

Cannabis Indica, 153

Child Study, 316, 440

Citizenship and Salvation, 312

Color, Physiology and Psychology of,

162 ; Illusion, 173
Conduct and the Weather, 539
Consciousness and Organic Processes,

32
Currents of High Frequency, 165

Dynamics of Personal Religion, 484

Education , Cross, 165 : Self, 564 ; of
Will, 566

Emotions, The, 540, 660

Ether, Experience under, 104

Ethical, Scepticism and Psychology,
171 ; System of Adam Smith, 556

Ethics, Visual Instruction in, 327

Ethology, 563, 649

Eye, Reaction-time of, 477 ; Move-
ment, 667

Fatigue, 203 ; and Movement, 159 ;
Griesbach Method of determining,

573> 599
Fluctuation of Sensations, 326

Genetic Determination of the Self, 172
God, Conception of, in
Good and Evil, Studies of, in.

Hallucinations, 407
Hearing, 667

Heat and Cold Spots, 561
History and Psychology, I, 148

Illusions, 172, 173, 241, 543, 554
Immortality, Human, 424
Inhibition, 202
Instinct, and Reason, 156, 517 ; Moral,

216

Instincts of Solitary Wasps, 219
Instinctive Reactions of Young Chicks,

282
Invention, 336

Joy, Emotion of, 540
Judgment, 440

Kant and Helmholtz, 554
Knowledge, Theory of, 432

Laboratory Studies, Chicago, 32 ; Yale,
196 ; Clark, 333 ; Harvard, 376 ; Iowa,

549

Light-Sense, Professor Muller's The-
ory of the, 70

Logic, Creighton's, 222

Magic, 564

Memory, Motor, 166 ; for Absolute
Pitch, 514

Memories, Individual, 446

Mental, Life, Physiological Basis of,
159 ; Disorders, Topical Basis of,
339; Instability, 451 ; Evolution in
Animals, 568

Method, Psychological, 191 ; Deduc-
tive, 444 "

Mind and Body, Relation of, 232

Mill, J. S., Correspondence of, 440

Modesty, Evolution of/ 134

Moral Instinct, 216

Motion, Voluntary, 153

Motor Impulse or Motor Memory, 166

Movement, and Fatigue, 159 ; Volun-
tary, 275

Muscular, and Mental Activity, 200 ;
Contractions, Reinforcement of, 201

Mystic Knowledge, 426

Mysticism, 292, 408

Nature, Through to God, Fiske, 670
Nervous and Mental Diseases, Church

and Peterson, 659
Neural, Dynamics, 340 ; Unit, 340
Neurology and Pathology, 654
Neuron, Energy, 341 ; Activity of the,

453

676

INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

Neuroses et Idees Fixes, (Janet's) 655

Odors and Tastes, 160
Organic Processes and Consciousness,
32

Pacemaking, 336

Pain, Measurements of, 168

Pathology and Neurology, 654

Perception, Time of, 668

Personality, Human, 310

Philosophy, Problems of, 113

Philosophical, 670

Physiological Basis of Mental Life,

159

Pitch, Memory for, 514

Play, Theories of, 86

Plethysmographic Methods, 195

Psychological, Association, American,
146 ; Proposed Changes in, 237 ;
Classification, 158 ; Method, 191

Psychology of, and History, I, 148 ;
Hindrances to the Progress, in Amer-
ica, 121, 154; Comparative, 157,
262, 282 ; of Color, 162 ; of Speech,
164, 319; and Ethical Scepticism,
170 ; Material versus Dynamic, 180 ;
Postulates of a Structural, 187 ; of
Rhythm, 211 ; of Peoples, 305 ; Con-
temporary, 507, 529 ; of Invention,
336 ; Individual, 113, and Collective,
323, and Life, 410; of Apprehen-
sion, 229, 428 ; and the Teacher,
536, 548, 559 ; Ethological, 563, 649

Psychoses, Dendro-, 332 ; Hydro-, 333

Reaction-time of the Bye, 477

Reactions, Automatic, 3-76

Reason, and Instinct, 156, 517 ; Weir's
Dawn of, 327

Recognition, 167 ; under, Objective Re-
versal, 395

Religion, Theory of, 298 ; Dynamics of
Personal, 484 ; Comparative, 671

Reproduction, Accuracy of, 447

Revenge, 221
Rhythm, 211

Salvation and Citizenship, 312
Schopenhauer and Spinoza, 671
Science, Groundwork of, 107
Sensation, 506

Sensations, Fluctuations of, 326
Sensational Attributes and Sensation,

651
Sense, Epithets, 332 ; Type, Tests for,

174
Sensory Functions of the Motor Cortex

Cerebri, 338

Sentiments, I'dducation des, 443
Smell, 557

Social and Ethical Interpretations, 171
Sociology, 533
Soul-substance, 458, 606
Speech, Psychology of, 164, 319
Spinoza and Schopenhauer, 671
Spiritual Content of Life, 92
Spirituality, 554
Subconscious Homicide and Suicide,

199

Taste, 446 ; and Odors, 160

Teacher and Psychology, 536, 543, 519

Telegraphic Language, 346

Terminology, 444

Tests, Physical and Mental, 174

Time, Sense, 208 ; Causality and Space,

443 ; of Perception, 68
Truth and Error, Powell's, 423

Unconscious, Doctrine of the, 445

Vision, 117, 212, 329, 555
Voluntary Movement, 275 ; Control,
Growth of, 639

Weather and Conduct, 539
Will, and Belief, 150 ; Theory of, 169,
Education of the, 225, 566.

INDEX OF NAMES.

Names of contributors are printed in SMALL CAPITALS, and the page numbers of the con
tributions in Full Face Type. In the case of authors reviewed the page numbers are in Italics
and in case of mention in the notes they are in Roman type.

Adams, B., 239
ALLIN, A., 216, 443, 664
ANGELL, J- R., 32, 195
ARMSTRONG, JR., A. C., 107, 75^, 571,

673

BAILEY, Jr., T. P., 563, 649
BAKEWELL, C. M., 312
BALDWIN, J. M., 172, 568, 572, 673
Bancroft, C. P., 199
BARNITZ, D. P., 451
Baumann, J.,5<5<5
Bethe, A,, 340
Binet, A., 195

BLISS, C. B., 236, 322, 410, 446, 563, 649
Blondeau, C., 228
Bloom, S., 329
Boas, F., 119
Bolton, F. B.,JJJ
Bosanquet, B., 440
Bourdon, B., 795

BREESE, B. B., 202

Bridel, L., 571

BRYAN, W. L., 346

Buch, B., 667

BUCHNER, B. F., 428, 432, 440, 662

CALDWELL, W., 757, 777, 187, 191, 332
CALKINS, M. W., 158, 443, 449, 45*,

506, 651

Cantoni, C., 240

CATTELL, J. McK., 159, 174, 554
Church, H., 659
Cleghorn, A., 201
Colgrove, F. W., 446
COE, G. A., 484
Cordes, G., 5^
Creighton, J. B., 222
Cron, I/., 229
Curtis, H. S., 202

Davenport, C. B., 571

DEARBORN, G. V. N., 153, 167, 199,

338, 395, 453, 540, 555, 568, 651
DA VIES, H., 648
DEXTER, B. G., 539
DODGE, R., 344, 477, 669
Duprat, G. L., 451
Durkheim, B-, 568

Bbhardt, K., ^77
Binthoven, B.,5£?

Blkin, W. B., 673]
BLLIS, H., 134
Bucken, R., 92
Bverett, W. G., 170

Fairchild, B. M. , 326

Ferrari, G. C., 77j

Fiske, J. H., 670

FRANKLIN, C. I/., 70, 117, 173, 212,

329, 448

FRANZ, S. I., 446, 561, 653, 673
Fullerton, G. S., 673

Gamble, B. A. M., 557
GARDINER, H. N., 228, 310, 660
Garten, S., 329
Gerhardt, C. J., 344
GERMANN, G. B., 599
Giddings, F. H.,5jj
GILLETTE, J. M., 420
GILMAN, N. P., 67 1
Goldschmidt, I/., 554
Grasserie, R de la, 671
Greef, R., 212
Griesbach, J7j, 599
GRIFFIN, B. H., 536
Groos, K., 86
Grote, N., 571
Guicciardi, G., 77j
Gutzmann, H., J77

Haeckel, 239
Hall, G. S., 664
Hallion, M. L., 239
Hammond, Wm. A., 169
Hartenberg, P., 660
HARTER, N., 346
HERRICK, C. L,., 180

HlBBIN, J. G., 750, III, 77J, 222, 440

Herdman, W. J., 340
Bering, B., 453
Heymans, G., 232
HYSLOP, J. H., 113, 292, 409
HODGE, C. W., 424
Hodge, F. W., 119
Hogan, L. B-,J/6
Howison, G. H., 777, 673
Hopkins, A. F., 554
Home, P. H., 456
Hylan, J. P., 166

James, W., 424, 536, 572, 673

6y8

INDEX OF NAMES.

Janet, P., 120, 571, 654
Janet, Paul, 673
JONES, B. C., 229
JONES, J. W. L., 556
JUDD, C. H., 172, 208, 241, 348,
669

Keene, A. H., 456

Kemsies, F., 203, 571

KENNEDY, F., 92, 456, 554, 671

Kiesow, F.,446, 567

Kirchoff, 339

KIRKPATRICK, B. A., 104, 153, 275,

327

Kirschmann, A., 673
Kraepelin, 229, 203

LADD, G.T., 121, 134, 173, 639

LEUBA, J. H., 573, 674

L£vy, P. B., 225

LAY, W., 332

Lloyd, A. H., 312

Le Bon, G., 303

lye Conte, J., 777

Letourneau, C., 568

Lipps, T., 543

Lough, J. B., 164

Lovejoy, A. B., 456

MACDOUGAU,, R,, 164, 168, 191, 203,

3J7, 320, 564
McGilvary, B. B., 240
Mackintosh, R., 456
Major, D. R., 673
Marbe, K., 215
Marshall, H. R., 756, 298, 517
Martius, 239
Mendel, 571
Mercier, D., 307
Meyer, A., 120
Mezes, S. B., in
Mill, J. S., 440
MiijyS, W., 757, 262, 412
Mivart, St. G., 707
MILLER, D. S., 154, 232, 423, 456
MONTAGUE, W. P., 458, 572, 606
Moore, G. B-, 441
MOORE, K. C., 316
Morgan, C. L., 559
Morrey, C. B., 668
Muir, B., 55^
Miiller, G. B-, 70
Miiller, R., ^75

MUNSTERBERG, H., I, 148, 159, 292,
408, 410

NEWBOLD, W. R., 225
ORMOND, A. T., 426

Pappenheim, K., 448
Patrick, G. T. W., 549, 160
Patten, W., 555

Paulhan, F., 336
i, B. W.,
Peres, J. , 770

Peckham,

and G. W., 219

Peterson, P., 659
Piat, C., 120, 310
Pflaum, C. D., 668
Pillon, F., 120
Powell, J. W.,^j

Quantz,J. O.,JJ2

Ramon y Cajal, 212
Rand, B., 344
Rappaport, S., 671
Recejac, E., 426
Rehmke, J., 232
Riehl, 239
Royce, J., ///, 239
Robinson, W. B. 55^

Samojloff, A., 451
Sanford, B. C., 572
Schaefer, E. A., 338
Schirmer, O., 117
Schoute, F., 448
Schumann, F., 208
Scripture, E. W., 162, 164, 196
Seailles, 239

SEASHORE, C. E., 336, 667,
Sergi, G., 445
Seyfert, R., 44-7
Shaw, C. G., 673
Sidis, B., 341
SLOSSEN, B. B., 407
SOLOMONS, L- M., 376
Squires, W. H., 673
STANLEY, H. M., 86, 219, 298
STARR, M. A., 654
Stern, L- W., 428
Stout, G. F., 239
STRATTON, G. M., 557, 559
Striimpel, L-, 456
Stumpf, C., 662
Sutherland, A., 216
Swift, J., 44^
Tarde, 119

TAWNEY, G. A., 239, 305, 5*7
Thomas, P. F., 443
Turner, J., 344
THOMPSON, H. B., 32
THORNDIKE, B., 282, 344, 412
Titchener, B- B., 187, 344
TOSTI, G., 529
Triplett, N., 336
TuFTS, J. H., 533
URBAN, W. M., "o, 336

Vailati, G., 444
Van Biervliet, J. J., 562
Van Gieson, I., 341
Vaschide, N., 795, 660
Villa, G., 5^9

INDEX OF NAMES. 679

Wagner, L., 203 Westermarck, B., 221

Ward, J., 239 " Wissler, C., 673

WARREN, H. C., 113, 119, ^74, 444, Witasek, 543

562 WOODWORTH, R. S., 307, 673

WASHBURN, M. F., 173, 449, 653 Worms, R., 322
Weinmann, R., 232

Weir, J., 327 Zehender, W. v., 343 ', 669

Welch, J. C., 200 Ziehen, T., 320, 432

, R. M., 670 Zimmermann, R., 239

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