PSYCHOLOGY IN DAILY LIFE. By Carl Emil Seashore. 1914, XVIII plus 226 pp.,
N. Y., D. Appleton & Co.
This is the first volume of the "Conduct of Mind" series, the purpose of
which, as stated by its editor, Professor Joseph Jastrow, in his
introduction to the series, is "to provide readily intelligible surveys of
selected aspects of the study of mind and its applications." The present
work contains seven chapters, which were originally prepared as
"semi-popular addresses." As a consequence, the book lacks somewhat in
coherence, but, except in a few places, the emphasis is practical
throughout. It is perhaps not surprising that the most subtle and modern
part of the discussion, viz. the chapter on "Mental Law" should be the
least practical in its bearing.
In the first chapter is discussed the practical importance of "Play," not
only in offering the opportunity for sensory, central, and motor development
in the child, but for releasing the broader life energies of the adult whose
mind is confined by specializing work. It is shown that the fundamental
motives of the play life are to be found in religion.
The next three chapters, on "Serviceable Memory," "Mental Efficiency," and
"Mental Health," are full of sound practical advice. The first contains a
clear and attractive presentation of the principles of remembering, so
arranged as to exemplify the rules which it inculcates. The second
emphasizes the importance of the wave form of attention in all mental work,
the superiority of efferent to afferent response as an educational process,
and the acquirement of mastery by a transfer of control from higher to lower
mental levels. There is also good counsel with regard to the best time and
manner in which to rest, although the author's deductions from the
physiological "curve of sleep" appear somewhat hasty. "Mental Health" is
defined in terms of our mental "members" in the classical way, and the "Ten
Maxims of Wise Living," which are given, are selected from the history of
moral philosophy rather than from current psychotherapeutic results.
The chapter on "Mental Law" is the most interesting one for the theoretical
psychologist, and discusses in a general but illuminating manner, principles
of perception and of perseveration which are of interest to the
psychological psychiatrist. The chapter on "Law in Illusion" seems
disproportionately long, but gives an interesting description and analysis
of three different types of illusions: those based on "units of direction,"
the over-estimation of "cylinder height," and upon the "size-weight" error.
In connection with the second, the results of original investigations in the
author's laboratory are presented. It is shown that a knowledge of the
complex but definite principles underlying illusions can be made practically
serviceable, for example, in tests of mental normality.
The final chapter deals with a specific illustrative problem in "Mental
Measurement," viz. the determination of a subject's fitness for a musical
career. A detailed analysis of the problem is offered, and it is shown that
the elemental questions involved can be answered by the methods of the
psychological laboratory, but that these answers require expert
interpretation before they can be made practically applicable.
The author's style is engaging and clear. LEONARD THOMPSON TROLAND.
AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOBIOLOGY. By Knight Dunlap, Associate Professor of
Psychology in the Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins
Press, 1914. Pp. 121, octavo; illustrated.
This volume even though brief will be highly appreciated by very many
students of normal and of abnormal psychology because it is the first book
to afford them just what, in an elementary way, they need concerning the
nervous system, the essential musculatures, and the epithelia, whose
manifold activities are in some certain mode concomitant to the succession
of compound mental events. Surely, and widely, those who a few years ago
"came to scoff" at the ever-rising scientific stream of mind-protoplasm
relationship will "remain to pray" to the rising and satisfying goddess of
the new philosophy. The body with its unimagined intricacies and beauties of
still unguessed adaptation and its marvels of Someone's ingenuity is surely
now at length coming into its own. And when, after the years, it has come
into its own in a reasonable measure, "the continuity of mind-and-energy"
and "the dynamic-spiritualism of the Cosmos" when they are mentioned will no
longer draw that quasi-withering smile of toleration to the face of the
orthodox psychologist with which some of us are familiar.
This volume, happily devised by Professor Dunlap to meet this real need, at
first in his own pupils and later in a wider public, will materially help
this progress, for it has within it in fairly up-to-date and simple form
much of the structure and function, always of surpassing interest when
understood, of the human action-system. Seventy-seven excellently clear and
well-chosen illustrations make the well-printed text still more informing.
There is a good index; and short lists of books at the ends of the chapters.
The present reviewer notes only one omission of substantial importance from
the neurologic part of the book, and that is the very recent, howbeit
important, matter of the functional opposition between the sympathetic
proper and the other, the cranio-sacral, portion of "the autonomic." The
work lacks also, in this first edition, a statement and discussion of the
important all-or-none principle which is now applicable to voluntary muscle,
probably, and to the neurones. And it is to be hoped too that the author
will take the bull by the horns and, in the next edition, show the nature of
protoplasm in general in an homologous way, as the basis, through its
uniquely complex kineticism, of the onward rush of the mental process. With
this addition the essential nature of irritability too might be set forth in
this already valuable (and inexpensive) treatise. GEORGE V. N. DEARBORN.
Sargent Normal School.
PSYCHOLOGY, GENERAL AND APPLIED. Hugo Munsterberg New York and London: D.
Appleton and Co., 1914; Pp. xiv X487 1.75.
In this volume, designed to serve the needs both of the general reader and
of the college student, Professor Munsterberg has represented in most
readable form the essentials of the entire range of his contributions to
psychology. The well-known differentiation of the "two psychologies" is the
core of the book; herewith is reintroduced the psychology of the soul, not
merely as being on a level with, but ultimately even superordinate to, the
descriptive psychology which had banished from so many systems all mention
of the soul or even of the self. For we are shown how all description and
explanation, whether of material objects or of conscious processes, is after
all but construction in the service of purposes, to apprehend, understand,
and realize which is the primary business, of life.
This exposition of purposive psychology, surely the most novel feature of
the book, is what interests us most, and we discover with disappointment
that though theoretically every conscious state is subject-matter for either
type of psychology, i.e. may be either described in its causal relationships
or immediately grasped as an act of will, still Professor Munsterberg fills
five times as many pages with the usual descriptive psychology as with this
newer departure. We willingly conceded the importance of tradition in
textbook writing, but would urge upon Professor Munsterberg the impatience
with which we await more extended treatment of this topic.
A second deviation for a book of this type,--if Professor Munsterberg may
rightly be said ever to write books typical of anything but his own
uniqueness,--is the inclusion of a section on social psychology. This too,
we are inclined to regard as in nature of a promise, representing the
germination of lines of thought which we are assured elsewhere[*] are later
to receive more elaborate formulation.
[*] Munsterburg, H. "Grundzuge der Psychotechnik." Leipzig, 1914. Vorwort,
S. VIII.
Thirdly, one of the main divisions of the book is devoted to applied
psychology, the presentation here being essentially an abstract of the
author's previous publications in the field of his acknowledged preeminence,
psychotechnics.
Throughout the book discussion of general principles, whether of philosophy
or biology, takes precedence over the presentation of concrete facts; the
text contains no explicit references, though a brief bibliography of works
in English is appended. The consequent gain in readability is only one of
the many factors which insure this volume a very wide reading. R. M.
ELLIOTT. Harvard University.