Volume 2 / Part 2 — THE MONIST. (continued 4)

In an appendix to Chapter V, Professor Romanes offers suggestions as to the imperfection of the geological record, and meets various objections against the theory of organic evolution on that ground. But we must now leave this excellent work, which will undoubtedly answer the expectation with which it was prepared, of being “a compendium, or handbook, adapted to the requirements of a general reader or biological student, as distinguished from those of a professed naturalist.”

It is enriched by a very good portrait of Darwin, in whose footsteps the author has sought to tread by “avoiding dogmatism on the one hand, and undue timidity as regards general reasoning on the other.” In his introductory observations he dwells on the remarkable influence exercised by Darwin over the method of investigation of organic nature, by treating the discovery or accumulation of facts, not as an end, but as a means for generalisation, thus bringing natural history into a line with other inductive sciences.

The value of the work is materially increased by the addition of numerous well executed original illustrations, besides various plates derived from Haeckel’s works and other sources, some of them American. It has also a good Index which will add much to its usefulness.

Ω.

Grundriss der Naturlehre für die oberen Classen der Mittelschulen. Von Dr. E. Mach. Ausgabe für Gymnasien. Mit 358 Abbildungen. 315 pp. Vienna and Prague: F. Tempsky. Leipsic: G. Freytag.

The principles that have guided Professor Mach in the preparation of these outlines of Physics, are in the main as follows:

The concepts and notions of physical science should not be set forth dogmatically, but should be presented as much as possible under the influence of the actual natural facts that lead to them. Hypotheses and theories should be employed only when actually necessary. Long mathematical developments and pages of formulæ only impede the scholar’s total view of his subject and afford of themselves no insight. Logical finish should not be sought after in elementary presentations; the method of the inculcation of truths should, so to speak, be psychological: the method of their acquisition.

From the brief statement of these guiding principles, the reader will observe that Professor Mach’s conception of the proper form of an elementary text-book, differs greatly from that usually entertained. The method of presentation is not the dogmatic, the “logical,” which sets forth a science as a ready-made and perfected, mystically created, product; but the genetic, the historical, the natural. We are constantly made aware, in the study of this book, of what knowledge really means and what it does not. We are not treated, in its introductory chapter, as we are in most of the text-books of Physics, to disquisitions on the insolubility of the questions What is Matter, What is Energy, What is Force, and to like professions of metaphysical ignorance, which make us wonder how people can request us to read hundreds of pages about things it is impossible to have knowledge of; but we are presented throughout with a simple statement and description, in terms of facts, of what our fundamental, as well as our derived, notions are, and what their import. It is unnecessary to say that the need of such a book is very great. And it is pleasant, constantly to discover how well its idea has been executed. Concise, unburdened by unnecessary and self-evident developments, it is in our judgment a model of elementary exposition.

With characteristic modesty, Professor Mach disclaims all pretension to having fully realised his conception, and views his performance simply as an attempt. The book was submitted, before publication, to a number of competent educators, whose advice in regard to alterations was frequently acted upon.

μκρκ.

Nouvelles Recherches de Psychiatrie et D’Anthropologie Criminelle. By C. Lombroso. Paris: Félix Alcan. 1892.

Prof. C. Lombroso’s activity reaches a climax that is almost superhuman. He contributed to the Italian Archives of Psychiatry two articles, one of which proves that, at least in Italy, the sense of touch is weaker in women than in men; it is still weaker and more irregular in criminal women than in normal women. (Archiv. di. Psichiatr. Sc. pen. ed. Antrop. Vol. XII, 1891, p. 1-6). The other article (l. c. p. 58-108) is an inquiry concerning thought-transmission, which contains besides a critical review of the usual rubbish of so-called telepathic phenomena two strange observations. The first is the case of a low-bred hysterical lad who does not possess the faculty claimed by him to understand telepathically the intentions of whosoever employs him, but strange enough, if sufficiently charged with whiskey, is able to read any writing through the envelope with closed eyes. The other case is a somnambulistic compositor, who sets type correctly in the state of somnambulism. Blindfolded he draws the figures drawn behind his back upon a slate, and hypnotised he guesses the numbers which the experimenter thinks. Lombroso is one of our greatest psychologists, but these experiments perhaps with the same subjects should be repeated by other psychologists so as to make sure of their correctness. Lombroso concludes that there seems to be some foundation in thought-transmission.

The present little volume of new researches applies Lombroso’s theories concerning morphological abnormalities of the criminal type in the anthropological field. It appears natural that the criminal type should show abnormal features, but sometimes Lombroso’s eagerness to discover abnormal features, even in political criminals such as Charlotte Corday, is exaggerated. At least we must confess that many abnormalities appear very frequently among peaceful and law-abiding citizens. The Corday skull, although a trifle platycephalic, is beautifully rounded and normal. M. Topinard finds no abnormal features but Lombroso maintains that its platycephaly is doubly abnormal and he adds: “The capacity of the skull is 1.360 cubic centimeters while those of Parisian women is 1.337. Must we not conclude that its capacity exceeds the average?” We read on p. 124 and sq.: “The more our women will be forced to enter the economical struggle for existence, the more will they become criminals.... The result (of letting them enter public life) will be to lower the nature of women.”

The booklet is very instructive even to those who disagree with the professor, for it is full of facts and valuable observations.

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Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik. (Exakte Logik.) By Dr. Ernst Schröder. Erster Band mit viel Figuren im Texte. Leipsic: B. G. Teubner. 1890.

Professor Mach says, “The essence of science is economy of thought.” If that is so, there is no discipline more imbued with the spirit of science than algebra. When operating with algebraic symbols we cease to think out the whole calculation at every stage, and we are enabled to keep track of the different factors, and of their mutual relations during the operation from the beginning to the end. In common arithmetic these factors are lost like rivers in an ocean of homogeneous numbers which increase and decrease without betraying the way by which they were reached. Algebraic symbols generalise calculation, and thus we have the advantage of calculating from the resultant formula any particular example with machine-like exactness and without the trouble of going over the whole operation again. The ease with which we can operate with symbols brings it about that we sometimes out-run our thought and the correct result may be obtained by an operator who only partially understands the operation, just as an engineer is able to run a machine the mechanism of which he but partially understands.

Mathematics having gained so great advantages through the introduction of algebraic symbols, the question suggests itself whether the same method might not with some advantage be introduced into the other provinces of formal science, especially in the domain of logic. The first logicians who borrowed signs from algebra and introduced them into logic by generalising their meanings, were two Germans, Gottfried Ploucquet and Johann Heinrich Lambert. Ploucquet wrote “Principia de substantiis et phaenomenis, accedit methodus calculandi in logicis ab ipso inventa, cui praemittitur commentatio de arte characteristica universali,” Frankfort and Leipsic, 1753, ed. II. 1764.⁠[84] Lambert’s investigations on the subject are found in his “Logische Abhandlungen.” Prof. Venn, in his “Symbolic Logic,” p. xxxii, says of Lambert, “He fully recognised that the four algebraic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, have each an analogue in Logic; that they may here be respectively termed aggregation, separation, determination, abstraction, and be symbolised by +, -, ×, :. He also perceived the inverse nature of the second and fourth as compared with the first and third; and no one could state more clearly that we must not confound the mathematical with the logical signification.”

The algebra of logic which through the work of these ingenious men, had received so favorable a start, was very soon neglected; yet it was revived after some time in England by Boole, DeMorgan, and Jevons. It remained for quite a while the almost exclusive property of the English where at the present time Prof. Venn may be considered as the greatest English authority on the subject. Venn’s works were rivalled by an American scholar, Mr. Charles S. Peirce, the same who has contributed several articles to The Monist. The algebra of logic which had been so long neglected in Germany, is now reviving in the country of its first birth. The author of the work, the first volume of which lies now before us for review, is Professor of Mathematics at the Polytechnicum of Karlsruhe in Baden. The second volume is not yet worked out in detail, but its publication may be expected in one or two years. The whole work, when completed, will be the most comprehensive treatise on the algebra of logic that has as yet appeared. The plan and treatment of Professor Schröder’s “Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik” exhibit that uncommon thoroughness and exhaustiveness, for which German scholars are justly famous. The book, in one word, will be the standard work on the algebra of logic for a long time to come.

It would lead us here too far to review or to sketch the main contents of Professor Schröder’s work, which, it seems to us, is difficult to explain without entering into the details and thus going beyond the scope of mere review. But we shall briefly set forth the chief foundations upon which Schröder builds his algebra of logic. Professor Schröder has inscribed two mottos on the title page of his book, but we confess that we suspect at least one of them is intended to be ironical; it certainly seems to have been selected when the author was in a mood of humor. Being conscious of the great value of theoretical speculation, he quotes from Goethe the following Mephistophelian sentiment:

There are two kinds of speculation: first, that which attempts to find out by pure thought a substantial extension of knowledge; and secondly, that which investigates the methods of inquiry. The former is futile, the latter is fruitful. The former is that which Goethe censures. To censure the latter would be a grave mistake. The man who would try to forge bread out of iron must meet with disappointment, but the smith who invented and shaped the plow did more for the production of bread than many thousand farmers taken together, although it may be he did not raise a blade of wheat. Speculation that attempts to find out things by mere brooding is prima facie wrong; but speculation that constructs the methods of investigation is the basis of all progress in science.

The other motto of Schröder’s book is Goethe’s saying: “Man is not born to solve the problem of the world, but to seek for the point where the problem begins and then to keep within the limits of the comprehensible.” It would be well to compare this saying of Goethe’s with another one by the same author which is “Man should hold fast to the belief that that which seems incomprehensible, is comprehensible. Otherwise, he would not investigate.” Schröder follows rather the spirit of the second than that of the first quotation. He says on p. 105 of the recent volume, with reference to some critical remarks made by the late Professor Lotze of Göttingen, who was more brilliant and ingenious than exact in his philosophical views and who showed an undisguised dislike for any severe method that has recourse to numbers, figures, schedules, or classifications, as does the algebra of logic: “If Lotze concludes his logic with the wish that German philosophy should rise to the attempt at comprehending the course of the world instead of merely calculating it, we should answer, Could we first calculate it, then we should certainly comprehend it so far as comprehension on earth is possible.” But how is it possible? Simply by properly limiting and defining the field of investigation; and here we can see that the first saying of Goethe’s should not be construed in such a way as to appear contradictory to the second.

Every thinker starts with certain limits of comprehension, but he extends them so that the stock of knowledge increases in every generation, and there is no probability that we shall ever reach the limits of an absolutely incomprehensible. There is no solid progress to be made by making wild raids in the domain of the unknown, a method which is pursued only by dreamers and metaphysicians. We must start from the boundary of the present stock of knowledge, and let our progress be confined to single well defined and limited problems. How a solution of the world-problem is possible in this sense, is explained by Schröder on p. 103: “The answer is given in the old parable of the bundle of arrows, which resists all attempts at breaking it. As a whole it withstood, but it yielded to him who untied the bundle and broke the arrows singly. The difficulties which present themselves to the progress of knowledge can also only be overcome singly, and in their one-sidedness. In the division of labor thus produced, lies exactly the advantage and the strength of the diverse disciplines,—qui trop embrasse, mal étreint.”

Professor Schröder advertises his book with the following words:

“From the title the reader will observe that here the deductive or formal logic alone is treated. The calculative treatment of the deductive logic, through which this discipline is redeemed from the fetters by which through the power of habit, word-language has bound the human mind, should deserve, more than anything else the name ‘Exact Logic’! This method alone can give to the laws of valid inference, their most pregnant, concise, and clear expression, and is thus enabled to reveal numerous and important gaps,—why not mistakes,—in the older presentations of the subject.”

“Since the appearance of the author’s ‘Operationskreis des Logikkalkuls,’ this method of treatment has made progress of highest importance, especially through the works of the Americans, Mr. Charles S. Peirce and his school. To Mr. Peirce, more than to anybody else, is due the merit of having built a bridge from the older and purely verbal treatment of our discipline to the new calculative method; a bridge which the professional philosophers rightly found lacking and to which lack is well to be ascribed the fact that the new method received only a partial and bewildered attention. Through Mr. Peirce’s works, upon which also the author has had some influence, the theory is now so far developed and perfected that for the first and main part of its whole system, a final presentation and arrangement may be obtained.”

“Endeavoring to offer so far as possible such a final and comprehensive presentation, the author desires to offer at the same time and in a systematic way a handbook of the most valuable materials of the literature of the subject which especially in the English language, is quite considerable.”

The book addresses two kinds of readers which are of a greatly different turn of mind, and it will go far in reconciling the methods of both, the mathematicians and the philosophers.

In the preface Schröder says, “In consideration of the formulæ which appear in the book, it may be wise to state, that no mathematical training or any specific knowledge is presupposed to be known by the reader. We might repeat the words of Dedekind, prefixed to one of his books: ‘Everybody can understand this work who is in possession of what is generally called, common-sense.’ But we may add another saying from another author: ‘The beaux esprits certainly, who are not accustomed to the severe demands of thought, will very soon turn away from it.’”

The introduction is comparatively long, comprising no less than 125 pages. But, considering that it is more than an introduction, that it explains the foundation on which the whole work rests, it is not too long, for it forms an essential and indeed the most important part of the book. Schröder discusses in it the character and the limitation of his problem. He explains induction, deduction, contradiction and valid inference. He considers the nature of signs and names. He says, on p. 38: “Humanity, it appears, does not rise above the absolute zero of civilisation and the level of animal life, until it develops the activity of denotation and symbolising. And there is indeed nothing to which the human mind owes so much for its progress as to the signs of things.

“The sign which speaks in attitude and gesture to emotion, speaks in word and sentence to the intellect. And it possesses, in accordance with the laws of the association of ideas, the power of producing in the person addressed certain ideas.

“While the sign coalesces with the idea, it reacts upon thought itself. Through signs the ideas which otherwise would remain confused and vague, are analysed and they become as separate elements, a permanent possession over which the thinking mind has forthwith free control. Through the sign we distinguish, we fix differences and make them ready for new peculiar combinations. The sign, is as it were, the handle by which we take hold of the objects of thought. Through the sign only, the idea is liberated from the elements of sense, which are attached to it, and is enabled to rise into the sphere of generalisation. Thus thinking is on the one hand liberated, on the other determined by the sign.

“Further, through the sign alone which makes it possible that the same idea the same purpose can live in many, there is one will, one soul, and a community of human aspirations exists upon which is based the life of mankind as a life of individuals in society. And this again is the basis of our morality and civilisation.

“The efficacy of the sign spoken is considerably increased by the invention of writing.”

Professor Schröder discusses those two methods of logic which are known by the names: the Logic of Intension and the Logic of Extension. (Logik des Inhaltes, and Logik des Umfangs.) This leads to a discussion of definition, the categories, and conceptual writing which would find its ideal in a system of pasigraphy, or universal language, for the perfection of which an algebra of logic would be indispensable.

The symbols employed by Schröder are borrowed to a great extent from Peirce, but they are considerably improved and it is probable that Schröder’s innovations will be universally accepted.

We purposely refrain here from discussing the particulars of Schröder’s work, stating only in a general way that his proposition of a new symbol for subsumption, (he proposes to replace the old symbol by to signify “equal to or subsumed under”), his treatment of the symbols 0 and 1, the former representing an absence of certain marks, or as it has been called their “incompossibility,” as being excluded by the presence of other marks; the other the universe of the whole subject under discussion, and all the other problems which he separately treats in his lectures are admirably presented and command almost throughout the reader’s consent. We now conclude our review with the quotation of the last paragraph of Schröder’s introduction on p. 125. Having declared that “logical inquiry should not be judged from the short-sighted or narrow-minded, not to say borné, utilitarian standpoint,” he points out the great practical importance of his science, saying:

“Similarly, as with other sciences, so logic also may be expected to realise and produce undreamed of results, which may incidentally bring about, in a most surprising way, incalculable advantages. Let me only point out one thing. Since the impulse which this science has of late received, there have been already constructed three logical machines which although we grant, scarcely deserve their name, because their efficacy remains still very rudimentary, may be compared to Papin’s pot that in a more advanced state became the steam-engine. Indeed, nobody can presage whether after all a thinking machine might not be constructed, which would be analogous to, but more perfect than the calculating machines. The latter have relieved man of a considerable portion of much fatiguing thought-work, just as the steam-engine has been successful in relieving him from physical labor.

“To be sure we must not expect to reap while we are still sowing, and least so in such a case as this where the harvest is to be expected from trees.”

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The Grammar of Science. By Karl Pearson, M. A. With 25 figures in the text. London: Walter Scott, 24 Warwick Lane. Imported by Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.

We are greatly in sympathy with the methods and principles of Professor Karl Pearson’s “Grammar of Science.” The work is a comparatively popular and also brief exposition of the modern ideal of scientific inquiry. “The goal of science is clear—it is nothing short of the complete interpretation of the universe. But that goal,” adds the author, “is an ideal one—it marks the direction in which we move and strive.”

The best part of the book is in our opinion the introductory chapter which sets forth “the scope and method of science” and shows the need of a “Grammar of Science.” Says the author in the summary of this chapter:

“The scope of science is to ascertain truth in every possible branch of knowledge. There is no sphere of inquiry which lies outside the legitimate field of science. To draw a distinction between the scientific and philosophical methods is obscurantism.”

The present generation is in a state of fermentation. While one man finds a restlessness, a distrust of all authority, a questioning of the basis of all social institutions and long established methods, another pictures for us a golden age in the near future. One teacher propounds what is flatly contradicted by a second. We require some guide in the determination of our actions, and not for our own private but also our public duties. “Every citizen is thrust into an appalling maze of social and educational problems; and if his tribal conscience has any stuff in it, he feels that these problems ought not to be settled, so far as he has the power of settling them, by his own personal interests, by his individual prospects of profit or loss. He is called upon to form a judgment apart from his own feelings and emotions if it possibly may be—a judgment in what he conceives to be the interests of society at large.

“How is such a judgment to be formed?” The answer is by science. Such a judgment can only be based on a clear knowledge of facts, on an appreciation of their sequence and relative significance. The judgment based upon them ought to be independent of the individual mind which examines them, and this frame of mind which is that of the scientist is an essential of good citizenship. Not as if the scientist were eo ipso a good citizen, but society has an interest in the propagation of the methods of modern science. Sound citizenship will be promoted by training the mind to an exact and impartial analysis of facts.

How much a grammar of science is needed can be learned from the confusion that prevails concerning the fundamental concepts of science. Says Pearson:

“Anything more hopelessly illogical than the statements with regard to force and matter current in elementary text-books of science, it is difficult to imagine; and the author, as a result of some ten years’ teaching and examining, has been forced to the conclusion that these works possess little, if any, educational value; they do not encourage the growth of logical clearness or form any exercise in scientific method.

“The views expressed in this Grammar on the fundamental concepts of science, especially on those of force and matter, have formed part of the author’s teaching since he was first called upon to think how the elements of dynamical science could be presented free from metaphysics to young students.”

Professor Pearson calls attention to the danger that arises from two modes of thought, viz. that of the metaphysician and that of the agnostic. He says:

“The poet is a valued member of the community, for he is known to be a poet; his value will increase as he grows to recognise the deeper insight into nature with which modern science provides him. The metaphysician is a poet, often a very great one, but fortunately he is not known to be a poet, because he clothes his poetry in the language of apparent reason, and hence it follows that he is liable to be a dangerous member of the community. The danger at the present time that metaphysical dogmas may check scientific research is, perhaps, not very great.”

Fortunately the danger that arises from metaphysicism is past. “For,” adds Pearson, “The day has gone by when the Hegelian philosophy threatened to strangle infant science in Germany;—that it begins to languish at Oxford is a proof that it is practically dead in the country of its birth. The day has gone by when philosophical or theological dogmas of any kind can throw back, even for generations, the progress of scientific investigation.”

The scientist will, it is true, often have to confess: “There I am ignorant.” But it would be absurd to restrict science to the limited field of thought which it occupies to-day. Professor Pearson continues:

“It is true that this view is not held by several leading scientists, both in this country and Germany. They are not content with saying, ‘We are ignorant,’ but they add, with regard to certain classes of facts, ‘Mankind must always be ignorant.’ Thus in England Professor Huxley has invented the term Agnostic, not so much for those who are ignorant as for those who limit the possibility of knowledge in certain fields. In Germany Professor E. du Bois-Reymond has raised the cry: ‘Ignorabimus’—‘We shall be ignorant,’ and both his brother and he have undertaken the difficult task of demonstrating that with regard to certain problems human knowledge is impossible. We must, however, note that in these cases we are not concerned with the limitation of the scientific method, but with the denial of the possibility that any method whatever can lead to knowledge. Now I venture to think that there is great danger in this cry: ‘We shall be ignorant.’ To cry ‘We are ignorant,’ is safe and healthy, but the attempt to demonstrate an endless futurity of ignorance appears a modesty which approaches despair. Conscious of the past great achievements and the present restless activity of science, may we not do better to accept as our watchword that of Galilei: ‘Who is willing to set limits to the human intellect?’—interpreting it by what evolution has taught us of the continual growth of man’s intellectual powers.”

The introductory chapter presents the general plan of Professor Pearson’s book. The following chapters contain the detailed work of the plan. The headings of these chapters are: II, The Facts of Science; III, The Scientific Law; IV, Cause and Effect—Probability; V, Space and Time; VI, The Geometry of Motion; VII, Matter; VIII, The Laws of Motion; IX, Life; X, The Classification of the Sciences.

Professor Pearson follows Professor Ernst Mach in his expositions (especially in Chap. II) very closely, and especially refers to the latter’s contributions to The Monist. Pearson emphasises with Mach the distinction between the conceptual and perceptual, between ideas or noumena and sensations. He rejects, as does Professor Mach, the assumption of unknowables beyond our groups of sense-impressions, saying: “It is idle to postulate shadowy unknowables behind that real world of sense-impression in which we live” (p. 88), and yet he says in another passage on p. 134: “There is mystery enough in the chaos of sensations and in its capacity for containing those little corners of consciousness which project their own products, of order and law and reason, into an unknown and unknowable world.”

It appears to us that the deeper reason of this apparent inconsistency can be traced to the author’s conception of the import of knowledge. He follows Kirchhoff in the acceptance of the theory that scientific law is a brief description of facts in mental shorthand. But at the same time he follows Clifford and Mach too closely; the former in the respect that we can know the “how” only and not the “why,” and the latter in overlooking the fact that concepts are symbols which stand for something and have a meaning. Pearson says on p. 145, “Science describes how they [motions] take place, but the why remains a mystery.” But should we not, we ask, rather supplant the old and metaphysical conception of the “why” (the sense of it as here implied) by a better and more correct conception? The metaphysical “why” is not so much a mystery as it is the incorporation of an illegitimate problem. The “why” of positive science demands as answer an exhaustive description of those conditions which as the outcome of a definite transformation inevitably produce a certain phenomenon.

But here we must criticise Professor Pearson’s view of “description,” as well also as his view of causation. Cause and effect are to him, as they were to Mill, mere sequences; necessity belongs exclusively to the conceptual realm, and is “illogically transferred to the world of perceptions.”

An exhaustive description will trace the process of causation, and whenever we succeed in this we have answered the question “why” in the only sensible meaning it possesses. Sense-impressions do not, as Professor Pearson expresses it, “shut us in,” so that the beyond remains a mystery to us. Sense-impressions represent the beyond of reality and they represent it in such a way as to enable us to deal with it properly. This representation is knowledge and thus the world is not unknowable. The world is full of mystery, but knowledge itself is not mysterious. Having sense-impressions and interpreting them in our conceptual inferences we know something of the world.

We are not prepared to accept Professor Pearson’s views that “change is perceptual, motion conceptual,” and also that “we are not compelled to postulate a space outside of self for phenomena” (p. 196). We should say that our concepts, the concepts motion and space included, represent certain features of reality. We might give a special name to those features of reality which are represented by the terms motion and space, but we could not deny their objective reality without at the same time denying the validity of the concepts.

Says Professor Pearson, “All things move—but only in conception” (p. 385). “What moves in conception is a geometrical ideal, and it moves because we conceive it to move.” These propositions have no meaning if pronounced from our standpoint. Observe also that Professor Pearson inculcates the conceptuality of motion by unnecessarily repeating the word in the formula on page 341 which begins as follows: “Every corpuscle in the conceptual model of the universe must be conceived as moving....” When we conceive something as moving we mean that not only in the conceptual model, but also in reality there is an action taking place which we represent by the concept motion. To say that we have knowledge only of changes but that we do not know whether those changes which we describe as mechanical are really motions, appears to us idle subtlety. The point is whether this method of describing those events enables us to deal with them properly. If it does it answers the purpose.

In spite of all our disagreements we feel ourselves in close contact with the author of “The Grammar of Science,” for we agree with respect to the principles of science and we certainly can leave the settlement of our differences to a common test on the basis of these principles. Moreover, the attitude of the author seems to us very much like that which we take ourselves. We quote from a former publication of his, the following passage⁠[85]:

“I set out from the standpoint that the mission of Freethought is no longer to batter down old faiths; that has been long ago effectively accomplished, and I, for one, am ready to put a railing round the ruins, that they may be preserved from desecration and serve as a landmark. Indeed I confess to have yawned over a recent vigorous inditement of Christianity, and I promptly disposed of my copy to a young gentleman who was anxious that I should read a work entitled: Natural Law in the Spiritual World, which he told me had given quite a new width to the faith of his childhood.”

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Philosophie der Arithmetik. Psychologische und logische Untersuchungen. By Dr. E. G. Husserl. Erster Band. Halle-Saale: C. E. M. Pfeffer. 1891.

The present volume does not pretend to be a complete system of the philosophy of arithmetic, but it attempts to prepare, in a series of psychological and logical investigations, the scientific foundation for a future construction of this discipline, which would be of equal value to the mathematician and philosopher. The first volume which is now before us analyses in its first part the ideas plurality, unity, and number, so far as they are directly given us and not in their indirect symbolisation. The second part considers the symbolical representations of plurality and number, and the author attempts to show that the fact of our being almost throughout limited to symbolical ideas of number determines the meaning and the purpose of that view which the author calls “Anzahlenarithmetik.”

The author criticises several theories which in different ways explain the origin of plurality and unity. There is one theory which explains the origin of the unit from the unity of consciousness; there is another one which explains the origin of number from a succession in time. F. A. Lange bases his theory of number upon space-conception and Bauman declares there is something mathematical in the external world which corresponds to the mathematical in us. The theory of difference held by Jevons, Schuppe, and Sigwart, is declared to be superior to all others, but even that is rejected by the author. Jevons says, “Number is but another name for diversity. Exact identity is unity, and with difference rises plurality.... Abstract number then, is the empty form of difference.” Dr. Husserl objects: if numbers are all empty forms of difference, what makes the difference between two, three, four, etc.? The contents of these numbers are very different. The inability of defining this difference shows the imperfection of the theory of difference. Dr. Husserl proposes what he calls “collection” as a special method of combination by which unities are formed.

Although the book contains many valuable suggestions, it is very hard reading. The author’s views are not at all clearly set forth. Neither is the table of contents so systematically arranged as to give us a clue to the plan of the book, nor is there any index that might give us assistance in finding out the most characteristic passages. The reader is supposed to read the book right through, in order to understand detached chapters or even sentences. And even then we are not sure whether or not we have understood the author’s propositions the consistency of which is not as apparent as it might be expected. For, after having criticised so many attempts at explaining and analysing the ideas, plurality, unity and number, and after having proposed definitions, explanations, and analyses of his own, we find on p. 130 a passage where these ideas are incidentally declared to be incapable of definition. Speaking of Frege’s theory, Dr. Husserl says, “As soon as we come down to elementary concepts, all definition has an end. Such concepts as quality, intensity, place, time, etc., cannot be defined. The same is true of elementary relations, and of those concepts upon which they are founded. Equality, similarity, gradation, whole and part, plurality and unity, etc., are concepts which are utterly incapable of a formal-logical definition. All we can do in such cases is to produce the concrete phenomena from which they have been abstracted, and to explain the method of this process of abstraction. One can, where it is necessary, exactly fence in (umgrenzen) by diverse circumscriptions, the concepts in question, and thus prevent confusion with kindred concepts.” We must confess that we do not understand the author’s idea; what is an act of defining if not an “umgrenzen,” a fencing in of the concept? The book contains many similar passages, which, it seems to us, are not properly thought out by the author. But the subject is a difficult one, and, as the author says in the preface, “A work of this kind should, with regard to the difficulties of the problem it treats, be judged with leniency.”

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Christianity and Infallibility. Both or Neither. By the Rev. Daniel Lyons. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1891. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co.

This little book of Dr. Lyons’s is got up in a much more substantial and prepossessing form than the majority of the works that come from Catholic quarters. It contains 284 pages and is supplied with the Nihil obstat of a Catholic “censor deputatus” and with the Imprimatur of the Bishop of Denver. In this book, therefore, the reader may be sure that he possesses a correct exposition of Catholic doctrine.

The purpose of Dr. Lyons is to establish the thesis,—a thesis always insisted upon by the Catholic church,—“that Christianity, to maintain its rightful hold on the reason and conscience of men, needs a living, infallible Witness to its truths and principles; a living, infallible Guardian of its purity and integrity, and a living, infallible Interpreter of its meaning.” By Christianity Dr. Lyons means “that body of sacred truths which the Almighty revealed through the ministry of Christ and His Apostles.”

We italicise the word “ministry,” for on this word hinges in our judgment the main and unmistakable argument of Dr. Lyons’s advocacy. If the results of modern Biblical criticism are at all true, the “Church,” so-called, must have existed before the New Testament. And in establishing the authority of the church, the Catholic theologians regard and use the Bible merely as an “historical narrative, whose trustworthiness (at least in the parts quoted) can be proved in the same way as that of any other history, sacred or profane.” They take their argument “for the institution, mission, and authority of the Church from the Bible as a mere human record of the sayings and doings of our Divine Lord and His Apostles.” What is the mission of the church? “And he said unto them. Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.” These are awful powers, and awful are the sanctions placed by the same Divine letter-patent in the hands of the institution that dispenses them. And in the face of the great complexity and peculiar nature of the Holy writings, in view of their recognised liability to manifold and multifarious interpretation, does not such a great and fearful commission of power as this necessarily and logically imply a concession of Infallibility—of infallibility, let us add, as technically understood. “Who can suppose that God would formally commission anybody to teach in his name and command all to hear and accept His teaching under the severest of penalties, and at the same time not secure that teacher against the possibility of teaching error for truth? Suppose the Church thus commissioned by God did actually teach error, even then would not all (there is no exception made), by reason of the divine command, be bound to believe? And in that case would not God Himself be accountable for the erroneous belief? I conclude, therefore, that the formal commission to teach the Gospel in God’s name, and by His authority, joined to the express command to believe carries with it a pledge of the divine assistance of Infallibility as a guarantee to all men that in yielding the obedience of faith, they are perfectly secure against all danger of error.” This inference is incorporated in a dogma, a “Catholic dogma,” of infallibility, which is this: “that the Pope, by virtue of a special supernatural assistance of the Holy Spirit of Truth promised to him, in and through St. Peter, is exempt from all liability to err when, in the discharge of his Apostolic Office of Supreme Teacher of the Universal Church, he defines or declares, in matters of or appertaining to Christian faith or morals, what is to be believed and held, or what is to be rejected and condemned by the faithful throughout the world. This definition substantially embodies the whole Catholic teaching on the subject of Infallibility.”

Dr. Lyons’s arguments are well put and well reasoned out. He sees clearly where the vulnerable point of the present condition of the Christian churches lies,—which the majority of Protestant theologians do not see. He sees clearly, though he does not say it, that the rococo superstructure of neo-Christian dogmatism was long and long ago undermined by science and that it is now toppling in the minds of the unscientific generally; and he justly advises all who have set their hearts on the preservation of the subtle and irrelevant externalities of religion, to forsake their ancient dwelling-place and seek a safe and easy abode in the grandly simple and grandly spacious, Roman temple of Papal infallibility. That edifice is safe against the artillery of science. It has by one simple act placed itself beyond the reach of all scientific attacks. For science, or rather the method of science, directly owes its origin to the consciousness of our individual liability to error and the consequent aspiration of man to establish an objective criterion of truth. If it attempted to demolish doctrines of infallibility of any kind, it would simply seek to justify its own foundations, which it has long ago done. In so far as the doctrine of infallibility is the only logical outcome of a dilemma in which the Christian church has, discreetly or indiscreetly, implicated itself, science has no objection to it; or for that matter to any other conclusion that logically results from premisses it does not grant. The question really most worthy of the attention of the “thoughtful,” “truth-seeking,” and “religious” mind, as Dr. Lyons styles it, is not the doctrine of infallibility, but the questions, What is religion, What is God, etc., etc.; and such questions the truth-seeking mind will find it impossible to answer arbitrarily: it must, perforce, answer them in conformity with that objective criterion of truth called science. And such subjects are as much the object of science as are motion and matter.

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Der Satz vom Grunde als Prinzip des Schliessens. By Dr. Franz Erhardt. Halle a. S.: C. E. M. Pfeffer. 1891.

This little pamphlet of fifty-six pages, written and published to acquire for the author the venia legendi at the philosophical faculty of the University of Jena, treats the several figures of the syllogism from the standpoint that the middle term of the premisses is, logically considered, the consequence (Folge) of the subject and the reason (Grund) of the predicate in the conclusion. A few remarks are added on induction and analogy, without, however, entering into the problem as to the rôle which the method of induction plays in the evolution of the method of deduction.

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Agnosticisme. Essai sur quelques Théories pessimistes de la Connaissance. By E. de Roberty. Paris: Félix Alcan.

By the publication of this little book M. de Roberty redeems a promise made in his larger work, on the philosophy of the present century, already reviewed in The Monist (January, 1892). The pessimist theories of knowledge of which he treats are the three systems, those of Criticism, Positivism, and Evolutionism, to which he reduces contemporaneous philosophy. As these systems are regarded as parallel manifestations of a common stock of beliefs and general hypotheses, they must equally adopt the doctrine of Agnosticism. It is the aim of the present work to point out the several forms assumed by this doctrine and to show its falsity by an examination of the principles on which it is based. The author properly insists on the importance of distinguishing between the affirmation of the unknown and that of the unknowable. The recognition of the former is essential to all progress in knowledge, but the latter is “the direct negation of all possibility whatever of utilising the deficiencies of knowledge,” and leads infallibly to the worship of ignorance. The best definition of the mental phenomenon of agnosticism, says M. de Roberty is the pessimism of the theory of knowledge, and it is not for nothing therefore that Kant preceded Schopenhauer in the development of idealism.

Modern agnosticism is based on the old notion of the separation of the phenomenon from the noumenon, and it was Kant who cleared it from its early theological and metaphysical conceptions. He affirmed the reality of the “thing in itself” as a fundamental postulate, and then declared that we can know nothing of things considered in themselves. Among the conceptions formed by the human mind through the exercise of its imaginative faculty are three which exhaust the entire content of the Unknowable. Thus it may be reduced to the idea of a reality other than that of which we are sensible; to the idea of a subject which perceives in a different manner from the real subject; and finally to the idea that our cerebral organisation reveals the world to us under delusive colors, all of which M. de Roberty declares to be simple fiction. His own ideas on the subject will appear later on.

Positivism stands towards materialism in the same relation as criticism stands towards idealism, whose noumenon becomes the unknowable thing in itself; as the simple matter of materialism becomes the unknown existence about which positivism says we can neither affirm nor deny anything. Modern agnosticism may be regarded thus as representing the long sought synthesis of the purest materialism and the most transcendent spiritualism, and it offers a striking demonstration of the fundamental equivalence of the hypotheses hitherto formulated as to the origin and essence of things. It proves also, says M. de Roberty, that the great law of the identity of contraries is applicable directly to all our very general conceptions. Contradictory as they seem to be, universal postulates must, by virtue of that law, be fundamentally identical. This introduces a discussion of the antinomies, developed but not invented by modern criticism, which found in them ample justification for its conclusion of the reality of the unknowable.

The double antinomy of time and space is regarded by the author as always presenting itself under the aspect of a long chain of contradictions which are manifestly merely verbal. The opposition between finite and infinite may be resolved into the distinction between concrete and abstract, between particular and general, if infinity is taken as synonymous with, or the perfect substitute for, general and abstract quantity, the universal attribute of things isolated from the things themselves. As to the problems connected with the ideas of a vacuum, matter, force and motion, M. de Roberty supposes them to have a purely psychological solution. Such ideas go beyond the “conceptive” capacity of mechanics and belong to psychology considered, not as a branch of philosophy, or as philosophy itself, but as a science of abstract concepts.

The philosophy of evolution, although monistic in the sense that it recognises the law of the identity of opposites, shows itself not to be so in reality by its doctrine of the unknowable. In this monism and agnosticism contradict each other, as it is contrary to reason “to affirm at the same time the identity of every phenomenon and their unknowability. The first marks the supreme term of the second. Identity in general serves to define knowableness. So that, if we remain on the elevated summits of pure abstraction too long, we run the danger anticipated by the law of identity of contraries. We fall directly into the error of taking the apparent negation of identity or of pure knowledge, the unknowable, for something really distinct, really separated from the knowable.” This is the illusion of Spencer and of all the philosophers who have undertaken the difficult task of applying monism as a corrective of agnosticism.

M. de Roberty concludes the present work with a discussion of the relation between idea and reality, the thought and the object thought of, in which he gives us his opinion on that disputed point. He says that what philosophy calls “the object” is composed essentially of external nature, in which is included our own organism. Very complicated systems of motions are transmitted to the grey nuclei or opto-striated bodies of the central regions of the brain. Here these motions determine new motions of which the totality is described in psycho-physics by the term “unconscious ideation.” But this internal motion, continually tending to become again an initial or external motion, gives rise to unconscious reflex activity. The motion passes by the white nerve-fibres to the cortical periphery of the brain which becomes “the seat of a phenomenon, an excitation, a motion which prolongs or repeats the immediately preceding phenomenon, excitation, or motion, while giving it a shorter and more steady action.” The sensations and the reflex-actions derived from them traverse the opto-striated nuclei without retardation and without giving rise to any system of ideas; while consciousness resides in the systemisation or union of the same sensations and reflex-actions. The notion of the ego results from the union or memory of certain ideas, sensations, and actions, which before their union and preservation by the cerebral cortex were unconscious. But before becoming unconscious ideas, those “intellectual virtualities” were in every other part of the organism, and in all the media which surround it, as, “manifestations of energy or of motion, it may be objective phenomena.” Thus, says M. de Roberty, if the universe is composed of two parts, the ego and the non-ego, it can be affirmed that they form an uninterrupted circuit. He supposes that when the cosmical energy has produced the phenomena of unconscious mentality in the brain-centres, it is divided into two currents, one of which returns to its source and becomes directly cosmic energy again, and this will be the fate of the other current also when the life of the organism ceases.

This view the author supports by a consideration of the morphological and functional difference supposed to exist between the facts which constitute the notion of the “ego” and the primordial facts of unconsciousness comprised under the generic denomination of the “non-ego.” He regards conscious ideas as the telegraphic alphabet, the stenographic writing of the cosmos. Consciousness serves to coördinate the incoherent crowd of events which at each instant invades the normal brain. In these we may see effects of the cause called “universe,” and therefore its representatives and substitutes, which they could not be unless there was identity between the two. Thus the “ego” could be defined as the final synthesis of the “symbolic abridgments,” of the micrographical abbreviations, of the “non-ego.” Thus the ego serves only for the purpose of concentrating or condensing, so to say the non-ego, which it represents in a manner more or less durable and efficient.

This monistic theory gets rid of the unknowable and therefore is a great improvement on that of the materialist or of the idealist. Nevertheless it requires further elaboration. There is no difficulty in understanding that cosmic motion may become transformed within the organism into a feeling. This still, however, leaves unaccounted for the existence of the organism itself. A true monism will, therefore, require that the organism must be in some way identifiable with the cosmos. This is the true problem that has to be solved, and its solution will be greatly aided by the overthrow of agnosticism, against which M. de Roberty has made so vigorous and successful an attack in the present volume.

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FOOTNOTES:

PERIODICALS.

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. III. Nos. 2 and 3.

Ueber die Empfindlichkeit des grünblinden und des normalen Auges gegen Farbenänderung im Spektrum. By E. Brodhun.

Kürzeste Linien im Farbensystem. By H. v. Helmholtz.

Die Raumanschauungen und die Augenbewegungen. By Th. Lipps.

Eine Beobachtung über das indirekte Sehen. By Th. Wertheim.

Ueber einige Eigentümlichkeiten des Tastsinns. By G. Sergi.

Beiträge zur vergleichenden Psychologie. I. Das Verhalten wirbelloser Tiere auf der Drehscheibe. By K. L. Schaefer.

Gegenantwort auf die Erwiderung von O. Flügel. By J. Rehmke.

Litteraturbericht.

The value of the first article on the sensitiveness of the green-blind and the normal eye in perceiving color-variations in the spectrum consists mainly in the three diagrams that exhibit the results obtained in the author’s experiments.

Professor H. v. Helmholtz published in a former number his attempt at propounding “a formula which should play the same part in the province of color-sensations as the formula of the length of the linear element plays in geometry.”... As geometry begins with the concept of a shortest line between two points, so our fundamental formula in this subject shall enable us to find that series of transitions between two given colors for which the sum of the perceptible differences is a minimum. Helmholtz proposes to call them “shortest color-lines” and comes to the conclusion that the whole domain of these apparently irregular phenomena are easily subsumed under a generalised formulation of Fechner’s law.

Professor Th. Lipps criticises Wundt with regard to the latter’s theory of measuring the visual field by ocular motion. Wundt’s theory, he declares, is in need of several auxiliary hypotheses, such as the assumption that certain ocular motions are supposed to be more difficult than others: the visual field is said to possess the form of a spherical surface, etc. The author maintains that ocular motions do contribute to the construction of our space-conception, but in a different way than Wundt assumes. The most interesting part of the article appears to be the discussion of the genesis of the third dimension which is not given in the data of sensation but added to them as a judgment concerning these data. It is an interpretation of the data. There are still psychologists who regard the third dimension as immediately given. Professor Lipps refers as an instance to Prof. William James’s article “The Perception of Space” in (Mind, Vol. XII), where the latter declares that “no arguments in the world can prove a feeling which actually exists, to be impossible.” While Wundt says that to the resting eye the form of the visual field is spherical because the sky appears to us as spherical; Lipps declares that we might just as well say that the visual field of the resting eye is a plane, because the earth appears to us as a level surface. We attribute to the visual field the form which certain reasons prompt us to. Certain convergences of the eyes induce us to place certain points at certain distances. We read, as it were, the distances out of the convergences of the ocular axes. Accordingly, when we cease to feel any difference in our feeling of convergency we cannot help attributing the same “depth” throughout to all the things with respect to which such feeling is wanting, and we place all objects beyond a certain range upon a spherical surface. Thus Lipps interprets the spherical form of the firmament as the result of our using both eyes, which use from habit has become the form of monocular vision also, and not as Wundt does from the spherical form of each visual field, which by habit has been transferred to binocular vision. There is a strange fact that distances on the left side are overestimated in comparison with those on the right side; and this fact is also claimed by Professor Lipps to be incompatible with Professor Wundt’s theory, but in favor of his own views.

Th. Wertheim has made an observation which tends to prove that positive as well as negative fluctuations of light-intensity, cause the disappearance of objects indirectly seen.

G. Sergi publishes the results of his investigations concerning the sense of touch made in the Institute for Anthropology and Experimental Psychology at the University of Rome.

Karl L. Schaefer’s results of experiments with invertebrate animals upon the rotatory table show that in the beginning a counter-rotation takes place, but not in all animals. It does not take place in some caterpillars; it does take place in black beetles, ants, flies, earwigs, provided they are at the time in actual motion. There is no after-affect from the rotation and thus they are not subject to vertigo as are the vertebrates. (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)

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VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XVI. No. 2.

Beiträge zur Logik. (Zweiter Artikel. Schluss.) By A. Riehl.

Ernst Platner’s Wissenschaftliche Stellung zu Kant in Erkenntnisstheorie und Moralphilosophie. (Zweiter Artikel. Schluss.) By B. Seligkowitz.

Ueber Begriff und Gegenstand. By G. Frege.

Bemerkungen zu Richard Avenarius’s “Kritik der reinen Erfahrung.” By R. Willy.

A. Riehl discusses in the second instalment of his “Contributions to Logic” the forms of judgment and the different kinds of conclusion. B. Seligkowitz concludes his article on Ernst Platner’s relation to Kant, setting forth the former’s criticism of the latter’s views of synthetic judgments a priori, his moral theology, his psychological ideas, and moral philosophy. G. Frege explains his view of “concept and object” with reference to the idea of Benno Kerry, who does not recognise between the two any absolute difference. (Leipsic: Reisland.)

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PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 3 and 4.

CONTENTS: April, 1892. No. 3.

Die Wirklichkeit als Phänomen des Geistes. By A. Rosinski.

Recensionen.

Litteraturbericht.

CONTENTS: May, 1892. No. 4.

Ueber das absolute Gehör. By J. v. Kries.

Die zweiten Purkinjeschen Bilder im schematischen und im wirklichen Auge. By L. Matthiessen.

Besprechungen.

Litteraturbericht.

Adolf Rosinski describes reality as a phenomenon of the mind and, following Quäbicker, he regards “the real as belonging to that complex which is given us in appearance. Being (Wesen) is not behind or beyond appearance; Being, being that which exists, existence is appearance. Appearance shows nothing but that which is in Being, and there is in Being nothing which is not manifested.” (Berlin: Dr. R. Salinger.)

There are but few musicians who are able to recognise directly and without reference to another note, the pitch of a sound. This ability is called by musicians “absolutes Gehör.” Professor Kries investigates in a long article, the conditions of this absolute musical ear so called, exhibiting the difficulties of an explanation without arriving at a definite result, which, however, may be expected from further investigations of the subject. Mr. Matthiessen’s article on the second Perkinje-pictures, in the ideal and the real eye, consists exclusively of measurements and calculations of the curvature of the lens. The same number contains an appreciative and long (37 pp.) review of Prof. W. James’s “Principles of Psychology.” (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. April, 1892. Vol. IV. No. 3.

On Certain Peculiarities of the Knee-Jerk in Sleep in a Case of Terminal Dementia. By William Noyes, M. D.

The Growth of Memory in School Children. By T. L. Bolton, A. B.

Studies from the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology of the University of Wisconsin. By Prof. Joseph Jastrow, Ph. D.

The Psychological Foundation of Realism. By Alexander Fraser, A. B.

Psychological Literature: I. Nervous System. By Prof. H. H. Donaldson, Clark University; II. Association, Reaction. By Prof. J. McK. Cattell, Columbia College; III. Hypnotism and Suggestion. By Prof. Joseph Jastrow, University of Wisconsin; IV. Sight.

Letters and Notes.

Dr. Noyes’s investigations seem to corroborate the theory that not only the lower but also “the higher activities of the brain are also subject to a rhythmic rise and fall synchronous with vascular dilatation and contraction.” Mr. Bolton publishes the results of his examination of the span of memory in the Grammar Schools of Worcester, Mass. The memory span measuring the power of concentrated and prolonged attention, increases with age rather than with the growth of intelligence. The girls have better memories than the boys. Memory can be increased by practice. The tests made before and after school do not show that the pupils suffer fatigue from the day’s work. Memory-images before they are completely lost first suffer a confusion of order, then a loss of certain of its elements which are often replaced by similar elements. Previous ideas being one of the factors of confusion. Professor Jastrow’s article presents a description of a series of experiments made in his psychological laboratory. He reproduces the Zöllner figures, briefly summarising their different interpretations by Zöllner, Hering, Aubert, Classen, Lipps, Hoppe, Wundt, Pisco, and Helmholtz. He further presents a study of involuntary movements of the hand on the glass plate apparatus, and describes the experiments of time measurement in classifying ideas, and in finding a given object within a given field. Mr. Fraser defends the Natural Realism of the Scotch school, making the tactumotor sense the ultimate test of reality. (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University.)

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REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.

CONTENTS: April, 1892. No. 196.

Les processus nerveux dans l’attention et la volition. By Charlton Bastian.

La responsabilité. By F. Paulhan.

Revue générale: Le spiritisme contemporain. By Janet (Pierre).

Analyses et comptes rendus: Der Positivismus vom Tode August Comte’s bis auf unsere Tage. By H. Gruber. Die Psychologie der Suggestion. By H. Schmidkunz.

Travaux du laboratoire de psychologie physiologique: Etude expérimentale sur deux cas d’audition colorée. By Beaunis and Binet. Etude sur un nouveau cas d’audition colorée. By Binet and Philippe.

CONTENTS: May, 1892. No. 197.

Du sens de l’inégalité. By G. Mauret.

La responsabilité (concluded). By F. Paulhan.

Le problème de la vie (third and last article). By Dunan.

Analyses et comptes rendus: Leçons cliniques sur l’hystérie et l’hypnotisme By Pitres. Corps et âme. Essais sur la philosophie de St. Thomas. By J. Gardair. Agnosticisme. By E. de Roberty. La physique de Straton de Lampsaque. By Rodier. Das Wahrnehmungsproblem vom Standpunkte des Physikers, des Physiologen und des Philosophen. By H. Schwarz.

Revue des périodiques étrangers: Vierteljahrsschrift für wissenschaftliche Philosophie.

Correspondance et informations.

The processes of attention and volition lie at the basis of all our mental and physical activities. Mr. Charlton Bastian discusses their nervous condition and comes to the conclusion Voluntas et intellectus unum et idem sunt. M. Paulhan treats the problem of responsibility under healthy and morbid conditions, in two consecutive articles. M. Mouret, whose former articles on relations will be reviewed in a future number by Mr. F. C. Russell, treats in a long article of the sense of inequality. M. Ch. Dunan concludes his essay on the problem of life, viewing the subject from a rather metaphysical standpoint. M. Pierre Janet presents us with a very accurate review of the importance of the contemporary spiritism and spiritualism. He calls attention to the fact that modern psychology owes to the researches of the spiritualists, many new, startling, and interesting facts. He does not share their standpoint, yet his review is kind and sympathetic. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)

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VOPROSUI FILOSOFII I PSICHOLOGII.⁠[86] Vol. III. No. 12. March, 1892.

Positive Philosophy and the Unity of Science. (Continuation). By B. N. Tchitcherin. Article crowned by the Psychological Society of Moscow.

How does the Ministration to the General Good of All Relate to the Care for the Salvation of Our Own Soul? A letter to the Editor. By the Archimandrite Antonii.

Huxley as Representative of the Modern Scientific Theory of the World.

Telepathy. (Concluded.) By Petrovo-Solovo.

The Basis of Ethical Obligation. By N. Grote.

Special Department. About Ethical Fragments from Democritus. By J. Radloff. One of the Possible Cosmic Theories. A Study. By A. Wilkins.

Criticism and Bibliography. I. Review of Periodicals. II. Review of Recent Publications. Transactions of the Moscow Psychological Society. (Moscow, 1892.)

MIND. New Series. No. 2. April, 1892.

Pleasure and Pain. By A. Bain.

The Changes of Method in Hegel’s Dialectic. II. By J. Ellis McTaggart.

The Leipsic School of Experimental Psychology. By E. Bradford Titchener.

The Logical Calculus. II. By W. E. Johnson.

Discussions: Dr. Münsterberg and his Critics. By S. Alexander.

Critical Notices.

Prof. A. Bain criticises Mr. H. R. Marshall’s theory of pleasure and pain as being determined by the relation between the energy given out and the energy received, saying that it leaves a very large region untouched and inexplicable. J. Ellis McTaggart defends the Hegelian dialectic system which, he declares, “is not so wonderful or mystic as it has been represented to be. It makes no attempt,” he says, “to deduce existence from essence; it does not even attempt to eliminate the element of immediacy, in experience, and to produce a self-sufficient and self-mediating thought.” E. Bradford Titchener gives a general survey of the researches carried out in Wundt’s Institute, and of the other psychological contents of the Philosophische Studien, from the date of Professor Cattell’s paper on “The Psychological Laboratory at Leipsic” to the present time. W. E. Johnson, in his paper on “The Logical Calculus,” brings out some of the underlying principles and assumptions which belong equally to the ordinary Formal Logic, to Symbolic Logic, and to the so-called Logic of Relatives. Prof. S. Alexander takes issue with Mr. Titchener’s criticism of Professor Münsterberg’s psychological investigations. Mr. Titchener’s article which appeared in the October number of Mind, 1891, leaves the impression that the whole of the work under review is valueless. “Many of his objections,” however, says Professor Alexander, “refer to unimportant points, and the graver theoretical ones are really groundless,” and thus the critic “has contrived to give a one-sided judgment by neglecting the other considerations which give Dr. Münsterberg’s work its value and significance.” (London: Williams & Norgate.)

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THREE AMERICAN MAGAZINES.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. April, 1892. Vol. II. No. 3.

Economic Reform Short of Socialism. By E. Benj. Andrews.

Pleasure and Pain in Education. By Miss M. S. Gilliland, London.

The Essentials of Buddhist Doctrine and Ethics. By Prof. Maurice Bloomfield.

The Three Religions. (Concluded.) By J. S. Mackenzie, M. A.

Discussions and Reviews.

The School of Applied Ethics.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. Vol. I. No. 3. May, 1892.

Herbert Spencer’s Animal Ethics. By Prof. Henry Calderwood.

The Ultimate Ground of Authority. By Prof. J. Macbride Sterrett.

What is Reality? By David G. Ritchie.

Natural Science and the Philosophy of Nature. By Dr. B. C. Burt.

A Mathematical View of Free Will. By Prof. J. E. Oliver.

Discussions: Professor Ladd’s Criticism of James’s Psychology. By Prof. J. P. Gordy.

Reviews of Books and Summaries of Articles.

THE NEW WORLD. Vol. I. No. 1. March, 1892.

The Evolution of Christianity. By Lyman Abbott.

The Historic and the Ideal Christ. By Charles Carroll Everett.

The Future of Liberal Religion in America. By J. G. Schurmann.

The Common, the Commonplace and the Romantic. By William Rounseville Alger.

Abraham Kuenen. By Crawford Howell Toy.

The Theistic Evolution of Buddhism. By J. Estlin Carpenter.

“Between the Testaments.” By Thomas R. Slicer.

The New Orthodoxy. By Edward H. Hall.

Theological Aspects of the Philosophy of Thomas Hill Green. By Charles B. Upton.

Introductory Note.

Book Reviews.

There have sprung up within the last two years not less than four American magazines of progressive thought, which now compete in the proposition of their religious and philosophical conceptions to the world. These four magazines are, in the chronological order in which they were founded, The Monist, The International Journal of Ethics, The Philosophical Review, and The New World. The Monist represents that world-conception which takes its stand upon facts and systematises facts into a unitary view. Thus it recognises the methods of science as the methods of all knowledge, to the exclusion of supernatural revelation, or intuitionalism, or any kind of mysticism. But The Monist does not rest satisfied with this. The Monist preaches a religion; and the prophets of this religion are not only the great ethical teachers of mankind, but everybody who reveals truth, Kant and Comte, Kepler, Copernicus, Darwin, and all living representatives of scientific inquiry. Thus The Monist is a magazine that points out the religious import of science and philosophy.

The International Journal of Ethics follows in the same line in so far only as it has nothing to say to the old orthodox conceptions of religion. It tries to teach a higher morality, but in establishing ethics it pursues quite another course. It is the organ of the Ethical Societies and the leaders of the Ethical Societies are confident that they can have ethics not only without theology but also without religion, science, or philosophy. They consider the world-conception of a man as something indifferent, or unessential, in ethics, and by proposing a non-committal policy with respect to religious and philosophical views, they expect to be the better fitted to preach good conduct. (Philadelphia: International Journal of Ethics, 118 S. Twelfth Street.)

The Philosophical Review represents a philosophical conception which has still a strong hold upon the Universities on this side of the Atlantic. Transcendentalism, metaphysicism, and that theological philosophy which still operates with supernatural quantities, or at least has not discarded the dualistic features of supernaturalism, are represented in its columns. Certainly they are well represented and by their best upholders of the present time, and authors of more modern and positivistic views are not excluded. Exactly so in The Monist, the representatives of metaphysicism and those who still believe in the dual existence of man, in his self, or ego, and his transcendental existence are welcome; but there is nevertheless a fundamental difference in the world-conception of the two magazines. (Boston, New York, Chicago: Ginn & Co.)

The New World is the latest new-comer in the field of magazine literature, and we welcome its appearance most cordially. There are strongly marked differences between The New World and The Monist, for the former is a theological magazine that deepens religion with the assistance of philosophy while the latter, rather the reverse, is a philosophical magazine that widens philosophy and applies it to practical life so as to become a religion. But for that very reason The New World seems to meet The Monist half way. The New World is an offshoot of modern theology. Its contributors come largely from the ranks of the maturest unitarian thinkers. They practically accept the principles of criticism and scientific inquiry and thus they are approaching rapidly that common goal of human thought, which The Monist propounds as the leading maxim of philosophy and religion, namely, to regard nature as the only revelation and experience as our guide in life; to base religion upon and to derive ethics from a critically-sifted statement of facts. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.)

κρς.

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