Volume 1 — PERIODICALS.
Reading edition
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. September, 1890. Vol. III. No. 3.
CONTENTS:
ON THE BRAIN OF LAURA BRIDGMAN. By H. H. Donaldson.
A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF REFLEX ACTION (II). By C. F. Hodge.
ON A CURIOUS VISUAL PHENOMENON. By Joseph Le Conte.
A COUNTING ATTACHMENT FOR THE PENDULUM CHRONOSCOPE. By William Noyes.
PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. The Nervous System—by H. H. Donaldson; Experimental Psychology; Criminology—by Arthur MacDonald; Psychiatry—by William Noyes; Miscellaneous.
The full title of Dr. Donaldson's elaborate article is Anatomical Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the blind Deaf-Mute, Laura Dewey Bridgman. The object had in view in the examination of the brain was "to determine, if possible, whether the peculiar mental existence of Laura Bridgman, which was the result of her defective sense-organs, has left any trace on her brain, or whether such anomalies as may be observed are sufficiently explained when considered as the direct consequences of the initial defect alone." The article is therefore "a special study in the general field of the inter-relation of brain-structure and intelligence." The final results are reserved for a second article, but it appears from the present one that the total area of Laura's brain is somewhat small for its weight, and that it is slightly inferior to two other female brains with which comparison was made, the inferiority depending mainly on the smaller average depth of the sulci, that of the left side being the most manifest. The difference can be explained in part at best, by the failure of certain portions of the brain to develop completely. Dr. Donaldson's article is illustrated by very carefully prepared plates.
In the present part of his sketch of the history of reflex action, Dr. Hodge treats of the law demonstrated by Bell, that the posterior roots of the spinal nerves are sensory, the anterior motor, which forms the beginning of the modern history of the nervous system, and of "the physical versus the psychic theory of reflex action." The mechanical theory of reflex action was first elaborated by Marshall Hall. It was opposed by Volkmann and others, among them Pflügel and Auerbach. On the other hand, Lotze supported the former view, but he advanced "a step beyond the comparatively crude, simple mechanism of Marshall Hall to a mechanism of the utmost delicacy, a mechanism susceptible of the nicest adjustments, capable of education, and of prolonged, independent, and complex activity." Habit is only another name for mechanism.
Under the head of Psychiatry, Dr. William Noyes gives an elaborate sketch of the life of Jean Jacques Rousseau bearing on the question of his insanity, which is exciting considerable interest at the present time. (E. C. Sanford, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.)
MIND. October, 1890. No. LX.
CONTENTS:
THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. By Herbert Spencer.
MENTAL ELABORATION. By James Sully.
VOLKMANN'S PSYCHOLOGY (II). By Thomas Whittaker.
BERKELEY AS A MORAL PHILOSOPHER. By Hugh W. Orange.
MUENSTERBERG ON 'MUSCULAR SENSE' AND 'TIME-SENSE.' By the Editor.
DISCUSSION: 1) Mr. Spencer's Derivation of Space. By Prof. John Watson. 2) Dr. Pikler on the Cognition of Physical Reality. By G. F. Stout.
CRITICAL NOTICES: Lewis's "A Text-Book of Mental Diseases." Mercier's "Sanity and Insanity"; Jones's "Elements of Logic as a Science of Propositions"; Coupland's "The Gain of Life and other Essays."
ON THE UTILITARIAN FORMULA. By James Sutherland.
The Origin of Music. This article is intended as a postscript to Mr. Spencer's essay on "The Origin and Function of Music," included in his Essays, Scientific, Political, and Speculative, of which he is preparing a final edition. It is a reply to Mr. Darwin, who supposes music to have originated from a particular class of vocal noises, the amatory class, instead of, as Mr. Spencer asserts, its being derived from the sounds which the voice emits under excitement, eventually gaining this or that character according to the kind of excitement. After considering various objections by Mr. Edmund Gurney and others, Mr. Spencer concludes: "The origin of music as the developed language of motion seems to be no longer an inference but simply a description of the fact."
Mr. James Sully deals with Differentiation, Assimilation, and Association as the intellectual constituents in the process of Mental Elaboration. Differentiation is considered first as a process of marking off, by means of special adjustments of attention, particular sensations; followed by Discrimination, which involves change of psychical state, the dependence of mental life on which has been formulated as the Law of Relativity. Assimilation, described as a mode of unification or integration, is treated of under the headings, Psychological Nature of Likeness; Automatic Assimilation; Recognition; and Transition to Comparative Assimilation. Association is the "process of psychical combination or integration which binds together presentative elements occurring together or in immediate succession." This supposes Retention or the tendency of a sensation to persist, and Reproduction, or the reappearance "in consciousness" of the impression under a new representative form. The three processes of Differentiation, Assimilation, and Association do not follow each other, but are closely interconnected.