of philosophy and common sense, although it is incidental to his main
purpose, which is the discussion of the best way of dealing with
ambiguity, that is, of using rough distinctions. The improvement
suggested is the substitution of “reasoned discrimination” for “haphazard
tact,” and it is based on the doctrine that “the validity of all
distinctions is relative to the purpose for which they are used at the
time.” This cannot mean that distinction is merely relative, as it is
said that there is no distinction which is quite safe against being
broken down. The implication is that a safe distinction is possible,
although difficult to find, and consistently with that view, the doctrine
has the double aim of repressing excessive belief in distinctions
which are, at least for the moment, invalid, and, on the other hand,
of “enabling us to justify for a passing purpose, distinctions which
are faulty on the whole.” The justification here arises from the use,
and not from the distinctions themselves, although it is evident there
must be some basis for them, or they would be invalid. The element of
truth is derived from the continuity of nature, with which philosophy is
concerned, and hence the improvement in the method of common sense is to
be effected through its regulation by the method of philosophy.
The justice of this view may be tested by its consequences, which are
stated by the author in reviewing the chief incidental aims of his
book, as being those which have to do with controversy, the faults of
language, and the conflict between the rival ideals, faith and doubt.
“Philosophy,” we are told, “is doubt, just as science is knowledge,” (a
description which like many other things in this book we cannot endorse,)
and the true centre of philosophical interest in regard to rival ideals
is “to harmonise the dispute by seeking how to limit each ideal by its
opposite.” This is the aim of all real philosophy, which recognises that
every ideal has an element of truth. Philosophy is thus explanation,
and Mr. Sidgwick avers one of the great dividing forces in philosophy
has always been “the rivalry between two opposite methods of general
explanation—that which explains small things by great ones, the part by
the whole, the many by the one (e. g. all earthly facts as related to
their one cause and substance); and that which explains great things by
small ones, the whole by its parts, the one by the many (e. g. the system
of nature as a ‘concourse of atoms’).” Thus regarded, the distinction
between philosophy and common sense is simply one of method; and it may
be said to consist in the use by the former of rational doubt based on
scientific knowledge, as distinguished from the belief founded on popular
wisdom which distinguishes the latter. Both alike, however, are the fruit
of observation, pushed further, nevertheless, in the one case than in the
other, which is practically the view expressed by the author.
In considering the nature of philosophy, we have given the gist of Mr.
Sidgwick’s reflections on controversy, which is treated as the opposition
of ideals. This conflict is kept alive chiefly by doubt as to how
abstract notions should be applied in concrete cases, and largely owing
to “the absence of that kind of sharp distinction which is applicable,
not only to the notions themselves, but to the actual facts to which they
pretend to refer.” This view is ably enforced, as well as the necessity
of applying to the conflict between ideals the rule laid down as to the
purposive validity of distinctions. The operation of this rule would be
attended with concession instead of assumption, there being, however, the
admission, which is equivalent to an assumption, that neither side of
any ideal dispute is devoid of some truth as well as some error. This is
really required, if not by the continuity of nature, yet by continuity in
our interpretation of nature. This is continuity in thought, and hence
arises the difficulties connected with language which it is one of the
author’s incidental aims to point out. He supposes that language acts as
a drag on the progress of knowledge, owing to the _clumsiness_ of words
arising from the fact that “things spoken of are always more full of
change and movement than the words we can use in speaking of them.”
Mr. Sidgwick insists upon continuity, yet change itself may be evidence
of at least partial discontinuity. Our author remarks, in an appendix
note on the continuity of nature, that every change, as such, is a
_saltus_, however small it may be, and that the same is true of any gap
between the two extremes of nature and the intermediate region. That such
an intermediate region exists, is required by the continuity of nature,
which again is evidence of change, on the principle that every chain
is made up of a series of links. But as in the chain there is no real
gap between the links, so there is no actual discontinuity consequent
on change in nature. The two extremes may be regarded as prolongations
of the intermediate region, and the changes to which such prolongation
is due may so occur that there may be discontinuity between certain
parts, as between the fibres of which a hempen rope is made, and yet
there be a perfectly continuous whole. We have an example of such a
discontinuous _continuum_ in a beam of ordinary light, which presents not
the slightest gap, and which yet is made up of numberless undulations
in different ratios representing the six spectrum colors, each of which
is, moreover, spread throughout the whole of the beam. Here we see that
continuity is quite consistent with distinction. The latter may be
regarded as discrimination of the various phases of the former, and the
distinction remains valid or otherwise according to the accuracy of the
discrimination or not. But constant change of distinction is required by
progress in knowledge which may be regarded as a thought representation,
by discontinuous steps, of the continuity of nature.
As to the conflict between faith and doubt, the author considers the
function of scepticism as the search for grounds of belief, and thus
doubt is said to be “rather a friend than an enemy to those who remember
that there is still some truth, on any subject, for fallible men to
learn,” as well as to those who are more interested in the discovery of
truth than in supporting their own beliefs.
Ω.
VORLESUNGEN ÜBER GEOMETRIE, unter besonderer Benutzung der Vorträge von
Alfred Clebsch. By _Dr. Ferdinand Lindemann_. Leipsic: B. G. Teubner.
1891.
This first part of the second volume of Alfred Clebsch’s Lectures has
been arranged and treated by Professor Lindemann in the same way as
the first, except perhaps that the editor has extended his independent
investigations rather further than before, owing mainly to the fact that
he had in addition to his own notes when attending Professor Clebsch’s
lectures in 1871-1872, only five folio pages of the late master’s
manuscript at his disposal. The present volume is divided into three
parts. I. The Point, Plane, and Straight Line. II. Surfaces of the Second
Order and of the Second Class. III. Fundamental Conceptions of Projective
and Metrical Geometry. Historical notices and references are added in
foot-notes. Considering the prominence of the editor as a mathematician,
it would be a presumption on our part to praise his work.
κρς.
AN INTRODUCTION TO GENERAL LOGIC. By _E. E. Constance Jones_. London:
Longmans, Green, & Co. 1892.
This work is another witness of the great interest now being taken in all
that pertains to the methods of knowledge.
Miss Jones, the author, is lecturer on logic at Girton College,
Cambridge. During an experience of several years in teaching, certain
difficulties have very forcibly pressed themselves upon her attention.
She hopes by her book to aid in removing these difficulties.
It is certainly a good augury for women when their intellectual
representatives begin to show the disposition to turn towards the “dry
light.” Logic and mathematics are “dry” to be sure; that is, they are
very apt to be _found_ dry, very dry, by beginners, and always by those
who lack that real intellectual robustness which is alone fit to meddle
with fundamental problems. Hence these sober and severe disciplines find
little favor among those who seek merely for “showy” attainments, those
to whom whatever is “uninteresting” is intolerable, and those who regard
obscurity as inseparable from profundity. When then we find scholarly
women manifesting a real relish for this “dry light,” it gives promise of
a coming day when the intellectual appetite will rise above the level of
mere entertainment, the level of the playhouse and the circus, and take
kindly, and perhaps zealously, to real edification.
Miss Jones makes but very modest claims on behalf of her treatise. She
has not undertaken to innovate to any great extent upon the regular
scheme. If in her changes there is that which might especially provoke
criticism, it is perhaps in the nomenclature which she adopts. The
traditional logic forms a system which has its own proper merits and
defects. It is of great historical interest, and its regular terminology
is almost indispensable for the proper illustration of its doctrines.
We think also that the author fails to state the case in all its
amplitude, when, she lays it down as one of the most absolute and
ultimate of all logical principles that the self-evident ought to be
believed. The truth is, as we conceive it, that the self-evident is sure
to be believed, and that in the face of any proposition that truly bears
its own justification along with it, any doctrine of logic is either
useless or impertinent.
ρσλ.
HYPNOTISMUS UND SUGGESTION. By _W. Wundt_. Leipsic: Wilhelm Engelmann.
1892.
A Greek student translates κλεινός ‘small’; “You are thinking of the
German _klein_,” says the teacher quickly. Another renders ἡμείς γὰρ
ἁγνοί, ‘we are lambs,’ misled by a chance cross association with the
Latin _agni_. Every careful self-observer knows that there is no
combination of memories, images, and resultant incipient acts too absurd
for some moments of confusion and mental fatigue. We account for such
confusions of thought by citing parallel cases and adding generally
that normal associations are liable to disintegration and abnormal
recombination in fatigued or excited conditions of the brain. If we
seek a causal scientific explanation, two methods are open to us: (1)
we may attempt to map out in detail and describe for all similar cases
the pathways of association, or (2) we may endeavor to define their
physiological conditions and accompaniments in the nervous system. The
first leads us at once into the metaphysics of the unconscious. The
second method, when we attempt to pass from a general to a specific
correspondence, leads to a hypothetical restatement of the observed
psychological facts in terms of the latest cerebral anatomy and
physiology Now all serious scientific thinkers are fast coming to the
conclusion (on which Wundt’s book is based) that the phenomena of dreams
and of hypnotism are to be explained by the general laws of association
as revealed especially in the confused and obstructed associations of the
normal state. The critical and destructive part of Wundt’s sensible and
timely work has two aims: (1) to discriminate the attested phenomena of
hypnotism from the alleged phenomena of thought-transference, telepathy,
and “possession” on which no serious student will waste his words; and
(2) to point out the confusions of thought in current explanations of
hypnotic phenomena, which either confine themselves to restatements of
the observed facts in terms of a hypothetical anatomy, or at any rate
in Wundt’s opinion base their physiological hypotheses on an inadequate
psychological analysis. His own constructive work is an attempt to
supply the missing analysis and accompany it with the most plausible
physiological theory that our imperfect science allows. Dreams and the
illusions of the hypnotic subject are doubtless explicable generally
as derangements of the associative machinery. But they are specific
forms of abnormal association, the special characteristics of which we
wish to define. Suggestion, Wundt says (with James), is association
accompanied by a “limitation of consciousness to the images aroused by
the association.” The scientific problem is: _Wie entsteht die Einengung
des Bewusstseins?_ This narrowing of consciousness manifests itself in
a diminished sensibility to all impressions outside of the suggestions.
Dreams show the same features, accidental impressions of sense or changes
in the nutritive processes here taking the place of direct suggestions
from without. But in sleep and dreams the limitation of consciousness is
conditioned by general fatigue of the nervous system. In the hypnotic
state it results not from fatigue, but from neuro-dynamic and vaso-motor
changes in the distribution of tensions in the brain. Hence the superior
intensity and vividness of the presentations that are allowed to develop
themselves. This altered equilibrium of the forces of the brain is
brought about by the suggestions of the operator, which are generally
guided by him to a more or less definite end. The resulting derangements
of normal associations are consequently less lawless than is the case in
dreams. On these principles Wundt explains the chief facts of hypnotism
as follows: Automatic obedience to the commands of the operator results
simply from the fact that every idea tends to realise itself in action,
is an incipient act; and in the narrowed consciousness of the hypnotic
subject the idea suggested by the operator finds no competitors in the
struggle for existence as a reality. This explanation (which is really as
old as Spinoza) accounts also for positive hallucinations—there are no
reductors, as Taine would say. Negative hallucinations (the non-existence
of an existing door) may be explained sometimes by a contradictory
positive hallucination (as of a curtain covering the door) more often
in the same way as hypnotic analgesia by the familiar analogy of our
insensibility to the toothache when the attention is elsewhere strongly
engaged. This is favored by the generally diminished sensibility of the
hypnotic subject. Post-hypnotic suggestions are associations depending
on partial memories, such as we have in the normal state when we merely
recall an image or an object without time-and-circumstance localisation.
The subject who is to execute a post-hypnotic suggestion at 7 o’clock
is reminded by the striking of the clock of an image of a thing to be
done which the original command of the operator associated with the
stroke of seven. All else is forgotten. When the time limit is not thus
definitely marked, the process must be analogous to that whereby some
persons are able to waken at a predetermined hour in the morning. A
latent association is aroused into full activity by naturally recurring
conditions of internal physiological processes or external surroundings.
Courtesy or prudence are perhaps all that prevent the best explanation of
certain extreme cases being the old one: “the boy lied.” Wundt rejects
the claim that suggestion is the experimental method in psychology
_par excellence_, for the very sufficient reason that the phenomena
experimented with are only very partially in the control of the operator
and are furthermore mainly pathological. He is far from disputing the
practical efficacy of hypnotic therapeutics in functional disorders,
but he regards the hypnotic sleep as a dangerous remedy, the employment
of which should be limited to trained practitioners. The subjection
of the hypnotic subject to the will of the hypnotiser is _a priori_
an immoral relation to obtain between man and man unless justified by
superior medical necessities, but, quite apart from _a priori_ ethics,
indiscriminate hypnotisation is to be discouraged as a direct cause of
nervous degeneration. The book closes as it began With a dignified but
severe reprobation of those thinkers who in the interests of occultism
magnify the psychological significance of hypnotism and disseminate
superstition in the name of science.
PAUL SHOREY.
DER HYPNOTISMUS IN GEMEINFASSLICHER DARSTELLUNG. By _Dr. Hans
Schmidkunz_. Stuttgart: A. Zimmer (E. Mohrmann). 1892.
This book (266 pp.) is a popular compendium of hypnotism. The author,
beginning (I) with the hypnosis of common life, goes over the whole field
as follows: (II) the phenomena of hypnosis, (III) its application, (IV)
the “beyond” of hypnotism, (V) the conceptions of hypnotism, and (VI) its
dangers. The seventh and last chapter is a short history of the subject.
Dr. Schmidkunz, Docent of philosophy at the University of Munich, is one
of the few who believe that there is a “beyond” in hypnotism. He says
on p. 65: “A hypnotised person was led through a room while sleeping.
The experimenter made a few passes over his head and then violently
whirled his arm around in a vertical direction before his subject. When
the subject approached the marked place, he recoiled from it crying with
pain.” Our author asks, “what is this magnetic wall to be regarded as? As
a charm, as an obstacle of occult power, from which the body recoils as
from a wall of stone? If not, was it the subject’s soul that recoiled?
Was it the hypnotised person’s belief which created the wall?” etc.
The two interpretations, the one attributing the effect to a magnetic
power, the other to suggestion are typical. The former is bolder: he goes
“beyond” hypnotism.
Our author is one of those who go beyond hypnotism, and is not satisfied
with the theory that suggestion explains all. We may add that he regards
telepathy as a sufficiently established fact. Telepathy finds little
support among scientists in Germany, and Dr. Schmidkunz complains, in
a circular letter to “Professor Wundt’s and other Savants’ Critical
Saltomortales” of the cool and depreciative treatment which his book
_Psychologie der Suggestion_ received at the hands of men of science.
κρς.
L’HYPNOTISME DEVANT LES CHAMBRES LEGISLATIVES BELGES. Par _J. Delbœuf_.
Paris: Félix Alcan. Pp. 80.
In a recent number of _The Monist_ Prof. J. Delbœuf gave the reasons
which have induced him to come to the conclusion that “persons in an
hypnotic condition preserve at least a sufficient portion of their
intelligence, their reason, together with freedom of action, to prevent
them from committing deeds that neither their conscience nor their habits
approve of.” This opinion is entertained by many other hypnotists, but
the more general opinion is that “suggestion” may be made use of for
criminal purposes: Such is the case especially in France and in Belgium;
and acting on that supposition the medical faculty of the latter country
promoted in the legislative Chamber a law interdicting public hypnotic
séances, and reserving the practice of hypnotism as a therapeutic measure
exclusively to medical men, as well as the treatment of insane persons
and those under twenty-one years of age. Professor Delbœuf, who is not a
medical man, naturally objects when those who but a few years ago would
have classed him and his fellow hypnotists as charlatans, seek without
reason to reserve for themselves the promising field of labor opened up
by the researches of others. He maintains that men are born hypnotisers
as they are born artists, and therefore to exclude all but medical men
from the application of the hypnotic power will often prevent its use
for curative purposes. Moreover it is a serious question for those who
possess this natural gift. They might perform the most praiseworthy
actions and yet be subjected to a legal penalty. Professor Delbœuf states
that by hypnotism he cured a youth eighteen years of age of a mania for
stealing (_la manie du vol_), and thus saved him from unmerited dishonor.
On another occasion he had charge of a young wife who was possessed with
the idea of murdering her children, and after all other means had failed
he was able to remove the idea by suggestion extending over a period of
eight days. He properly asks whether the performance of such actions
ought to be treated as criminal.
The real question to be considered, however, is whether the practice
of hypnotism is likely to be made use of for criminal purposes if it
is permitted to every one. We much doubt whether any actual case of
such an abuse has been legally established, or whether suggestion
could lead to the perpetration of a criminal act unless there was a
predisposition in that direction. Professor Delbœuf makes use, however,
of an apparent paradox which would seem to render abortive any such law
of prevention as that above referred to. It is that there is in reality
no such thing as hypnotism. M. Bernheim writes in a letter given in the
present work, “for my part, in the thousands of hypnotisations I have
practised, I have never seen the least inconvenience result. Undoubtedly
very impressionable subjects can, under the emotional influence of
auto-suggestion, present certain nervous troubles; but these a prudent
operator can always calm by suggestion.” Professor Delbœuf relates
several cases of this kind within his own experience, which shows that
severe nervous pain can be removed by simple assertion that it does not
exist. He affirms that “the so-called hypnotic sleep is only a sign
of suggestibility, and that it is not at all necessary to suggestive
therapeutics.”
We may conclude this notice of a very interesting contribution to the
discussion as to the true nature and operation of hypnotism, by quoting
the conclusions arrived at by the author as to the proper mode of
regulating its practice. He suggests that representations of hypnotism
should be permitted subject to the measures which regulate public
spectacles; that any one should be allowed to become a hypnotiser, as he
can become a shampooer or a truss-maker; that the hypnotist who gives
remedies should be punishable, since he exercises the art of curing
without a diploma; that he should not be allowed to hypnotise minors
without the consent of the family; and that he should be forbidden to
treat a sick person without the written authorisation of a medical
man and under his direction. This rule Professor Delbœuf, although he
disapproves of the law which forbids the practice of medicine to those
who have not a diploma, has always acted on. He thinks that if medical
men then studied hypnotism and practised it themselves, hypnotisers who
had no diplomas would soon have nothing to do. This spirited defence
by Professor Delbœuf of his views will be widely read. Not the least
interesting portion of it is the criticism, with which it ends, of “the
affair of the brothers Vandevoir,” where we read that he is designated by
his opponent M. Masoin “_doux et bon vieillard_” and “_l’homme cheveu_”!
Ω.
UEBER DEN HAUTSINN. By _Dr. phil. et med. Max Dessoir_, Privatdocenten
an der Universität zu Berlin. Separat-Abzug aus Archiv für Anatomie und
Physiologie. Physiologische Abtheilung. 1892.
This pamphlet, a reprint from the _Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie_
of 1892, is an elaborate and careful investigation into the _modus
operandi_ of skin sensations. The first part is a discussion of the
theory of sensation in general containing (1) an analysis of the ideas
_Gefühl_, _Empfindung_, and _Wahrnehmung_, (2) a critique of Johannes
Müller’s doctrine of specific energies, (3) an exposition of the
objectification of sensations. Feeling (_Empfindung_), according to
the author, is, no magnitude, its main feature is intensity, quality
becomes important only in sensation (_Wahrnehmung_). For the psychology
of skin-sensations, we have to note the great influence of accompanying
feelings (_Mitempfindungen_). The second part is devoted to the author’s
investigations of the sense of temperature. Dr. Dessoir rejects Blix’s
point theory; he regards the idea of two different end-apparatuses for
warm and cold sensations as an unfounded assumption, and claims that the
temperature sense is one mode of sensation possessing two qualities. The
intensity of temperature sensations depends not only upon the _vis viva_
of the heat in the stimulus; but also upon five other factors (1) the
size of the surface affected, (2) the duration of the affect, (3) the
thickness of the epidermis, (4) its conductibility, and (5), last not
least, its temperature.
κρς.
RECHERCHES D’OPTIQUE PHYSIOLOGIQUE ET PHYSIQUE. By _Clémence Royer_.
Brussels Imprimerie Veuve Monnom. 1892.