given in Tables of Simple Reaction Times and of Complex Reaction Times.
One of the most important points considered is "the overlapping of
mental processes," as to which Cattell made a special study. From the
fact that the time needed for the performance of complete operations,
as multiplying numbers and reciting a verse or two at the same time, is
shorter than the sum of the times required to do each separately, it
is inferred that the mind should be likened not "to a point at which
but a single object can impinge at one time, but rather to a surface
of variable extension." Moreover, "the performance of a complex and
extended mental task is not the same thing as the separate performance
of the several elements into which that task may be analysed." The
addition of a classified Bibliography adds much to the value of
Professor Jastrow's interesting little work.
Ω.
ON SAMENESS AND IDENTITY. By _George Stuart Fullerton_. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Mr. Fullerton's psychological study is the first of a series of
contributions to Philosophy to be issued by the University of
Pennsylvania. It is truly entitled a "contribution to the foundations
of a Theory of Knowledge," and is an attempt to arrive at an accurate
conclusion as to the several senses in which the word _same_ is
used; with an historical and critical statement of the use of the
word in a wrong sense. Mr. Fullerton finds that _same_ has seven
different meanings according to the mode in which it is applied. In
the first case it has the sense of _identity_, and in the second that
of _similarity_. Thirdly, the "external" bundle of qualities may be
regarded as being the same at two different times, while in a fourth
sense, two "external" things, or "external" qualities, existing at one
time, may be called the same to mark similarity. Again, an "external"
thing or an "external" quality may be called the _same_ with its
external representative, as the identification of a thing with its
reflection in a mirror. This is the fifth sense; the sixth is where
the _same_ "external" object is said to be perceived by different
persons. Finally, an "external" thing may be said to be the same "with
its representative in consciousness or with the substance or noumenon
assumed to underlie it."
On searching for the reason why such various experiences are expressed
by the use of one word, Mr. Fullerton discovers that the common notion
which unites them is the idea of similarity. But how can we speak of
similarity when strictly only one thing is in question? The answer
given is that we have "a series of experiences, beginning with one in
which two objects are recognised as similar and yet are very clearly
distinguished as two objects, continued in others in which the sense
of duality falls more and more into the background, and ending in one
in which there is no consciousness of duality at all." The last of
these experiences is not wholly different from the others. It differs
from them "not in the element which has led us to declare two objects
similar—the element which they have in common—but in that which has
led us to declare them two and different. It is by adding to this last
experience, so to speak, that we get the others. They contain it and
more." The experience in which two things are not distinguished, is
at the bottom of all our experiences of similarity. The use of the
expression "X is X," then, emphasises the fact that one is not to
pass from X to any Y or Z, and it, moreover, puts a period to one's
thinking, and fixes the thought upon X alone. When the words "identity"
and "sameness" are intended to be used with some degree of precision,
the former word indicates "sameness in which there is no consciousness
of duality, or in which the consciousness of duality has fallen into
the background and may easily be overlooked."
More than half of Mr. Fullerton's work is occupied by an historical and
critical consideration of the use of the word _same_ in a wrong sense,
beginning with Heraclitus and coming down to Prof. W. K. Clifford.
The examples he has given of that confusion of thought justifies the
assertion of "the need of much greater care and exactitude than one
commonly finds in metaphysical reasonings," and at the same time the
hair-splitting for which Mr. Fullerton needlessly considers himself
called on to plead guilty.
Ω.
INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION. WITH OTHER ESSAYS. By _Constance C. W. Naden_.
Edited by R. Lewins, M. D. London: Bickers & Son.
The chief of the essays comprised in this volume is an "historical and
critical sketch of successive philosophical conceptions respecting the
relations between inductive and deductive thought." It was awarded
the Heslop Gold Medal as the best dissertation by a student of Mason
College, Birmingham (England), in 1887, and Miss Naden was also
rewarded for it by being made an Associate of the College, an honor she
well deserved. The dissertation displays a wide knowledge of scientific
facts with a rare capacity for dealing with them in a philosophical
spirit, and a power of acute reasoning such as few other women have
ever possessed. Whether her opinions are always correct is another
question. It is a profound remark that we are obliged to regard nature
as a system, "because we can consider its multiplicity only in relation
to one thinking subject." But we must challenge her statement that we
have no certainty for assuming that the laws of nature will always
remain unchanged. A change in the laws of nature would be the replacing
of it by a different nature of which man could not take cognisance, and
which therefore we cannot reasonably conceive to be possible. There
might be a change of conditions which would introduce other laws, but
these must be in conformity with, and not in opposition to, the present
laws of nature, as otherwise they could not exist for us, seeing that
"experience is possible in virtue of the original constitution of the
mind," and therefore, according to the views of which Miss Naden is an
exponent, they could not exist at all.
The most interesting of her essays are those which explain the system
to which her editor Dr. Robert Lewins gives the name of Hylo-Idealism.
This is described as the "brain theory of mind and matter," and it is
so described because it asserts that every man is the maker of his
own cosmos, all his perceptions having merely a subjective existence
and being generated by the brain, "which focuses converging rays of
sense from all parts of the body, and unites them into the white light
of consciousness." It would be a mistake, however, to think that,
according to this theory there is nothing outside of the percipient
subject, that is, beyond man himself. The real existence of matter is
not denied and, indeed, "so far from being a nonentity, matter is the
_fons et origo_ of all entities." Hylo-Idealism deals only with the
relative, "ignoring the absolute as utterly beyond human _gnosis_."
While asserting that "the only cosmos known to man, or in any way
concerning him, is manufactured in his own brain-cells," it affirms the
existence of another cosmos, the external universe of other systems.
The mind does not however passively apprehend external objects, but
actively constructs them. "We make the mountains, and the sea, and the
sun himself; for sunshine is nothing if not visible, and if there were
no eye and no brain, there could be no sunshine." The defect of this
reasoning is that it makes man the only measure of all things. Because
our senses are necessary to us to distinguish certain phenomena, it
does not follow that the same phenomena cannot be distinguished under
other conditions. The protozoa which have no organs of special sense
are affected by the vibrations of light, sound, and probably smell,
which would not be possible if those phenomena are "constructed" by the
human mind.
The utmost that can be said with any show of reason is that the
imaging in our consciousness of external objects does not give an
actual representation of them. This is required by the theory of
Hylo-Idealism, which goes still further, however, and declares that
the universe does not exist as we know it. It seems to us that this
view is not consistent with even the principles of Hylo-Idealism. Dr.
Lewins specially points out that this system "in no sense denies the
objective, but only contends for _identity_ of object and subject,
proved as it is by natural Realism itself, from the doctrine of
_molecular metamorphosis_, which shows the Ego continually undergoing
transubstantiation with the 'Non-Ego,' and _vice versâ_, so far as
to form _one_ indivisible organism." He compares the Ego and the
Non-Ego, that is, subject and object, or our bodies and the "external
universe," to a porous vessel of ice, filled with water, immersed in
an infinite ocean. "What is within and without, and the septum that
seems to divide the two, are all three consubstantial or identical."
If they are identical, however, they must perfectly respond to each
other, which would not be the case if the object in the mind did not
give a true representation of the objects in external nature. Otherwise
the identity of subject and object can be predicated, on the condition
only of abolishing the "external universe," and affirming of it, as
Dr. Lewins affirms of the stars, "What you see is a vision, or organic
function, of your own _sensifacient_ organism."
We have not space to critically consider Miss Naden's essay on
"Evolutionary Ethics," which is a valuable study in Sociology. She
gives logical form to Mr. Herbert Spencer's quasi-utilitarian system
in the words, "the _inclination_ is always in the direction most
pleasurable or least painful; the _results_ of the action, if it
be a moral one, are such as in the long run and on a large scale,
must increase happiness; but the _object_ of the action need not be
connected in the mind of the actor with any thought of happiness,
personal or general." The practical objection to this view of moral
conduct is the reference to _personal_ happiness. This should be
excluded altogether as an actual motive of such conduct where self is
the chief object concerned. Here duty or virtue should be the guiding
principle, as it should be ultimately in all moral conduct. This
indeed is really admitted when it is said that rational utilitarianism
"aims, not straight at happiness, but at the essential conditions
of happiness." The weak point in Mr. Spencer's system of ethics is
the origin it assigns for the altruistic sentiment. This is based in
sympathy, the germ of which, says our author, is to be found in the
fact that the ideal or "representative" world possesses an emotional
aspect and therefore "the thought of a fellow creature carries with it
the thought of his feelings." This thought is not necessarily, however,
accompanied with an active feeling of sympathy. It requires some other
influence to give it external expression, and this must be sought in
the activity of the sexual instinct. Traced to this source we can
understand how the altruistic sentiment may become instinctive, giving
rise through parental and fraternal affection, to the higher love of
country and of race, which in time will also become instinctive.
In taking leave of Miss Naden's work, we must say that, much as we
disagree with its Hylo-Idealistic views, it deserves to be read by all
who are interested in the search for the key to the great problem of
nature. Its examination of the logical system of Kant is slight, and
it is not surprising, therefore, that the name of the great German
philosopher is omitted from among the precursors of Darwin. Miss Naden
is in error, too, in describing Haeckel as a pronounced Materialist. He
is no more so than was Darwin himself. Such mistakes were probably due
to the bent of the mind of our authoress, whose too early death is a
loss to the cause of truth and to humanity itself.
Ω.
EMBLEMATIC MOUNDS AND ANIMAL EFFIGIES. By _Stephen D. Peet_. Chicago:
American Antiquarian office.
The author of this work is well known, not only as the editor of
the _American Antiquarian_, but as a careful explorer of aboriginal
monuments in the Northwest. His attention has not been limited,
however, to the results of personal observation; he has utilised the
researches of other explorers, and is thus able to present to his
readers an amazing amount of information, which is rendered doubly
valuable by the profuse use of maps and illustrations. The points which
Mr. Peet has sought to bring out in his book are, that (1) the works
described as effigies were imitations of the wild animals which were
once common in the region where they are found, which is chiefly in
Wisconsin and Ohio, and were also totemic in their character; (2) the
effigies were used for practical purposes, such as screens for hunters,
guards for villages, foundations for houses, heaps on which sentinels
were stationed; (3) they embodied "certain superstitions and customs
which are rarely found, but which are suggestive of the religious
system prevalent in prehistoric times."
The consideration of the first and second of these points does not
come within our province, but it will be interesting to see what
light the curious monuments described throw on the religious ideas
of the aborigines. Mr. Peet states that the location of the effigies
gives the idea of the prevalence among their builders of a kind of
nature-worship. They are closely associated with the natural features
of the earth, "the streams and lakes, hills and valleys, woods and
prairies," being overshadowed by them. The animals represented were
divinities to the people, and the effigies were intended to be symbols
of such divinities, associated for particular reasons with special
localities. In support of this view, Mr. Peet refers to the fact that
the "myths which fix upon scenes in nature are those which remind one
of the animal divinities which were worshipped. The figure of the
moose and the turtle and other animals have been recognised in certain
strange and contorted figures in the rocks and mountains, and myths
have been connected with them, the myth having evidently been made to
account for the resemblances." The most remarkable example of this kind
is the great serpent mound of Adams County, Ohio. Serpent mounds are
found in various other localities, and usually they correspond with the
natural features of the ground on which they are placed.
But if the effigies are to be regarded as symbols of a totemic
animal-worship, it may be thought that they cannot be taken as evidence
of the existence of nature-worship. Mr. Peet remarks, however, that
the symbolism of Ohio was that of sun-worship, and the existence of
this phase of nature-worship among the American aborigines is an
important fact. It connects their religious ideas with those which
were at one time almost universally prevalent in the Old World. The
Sun as the source of life and energy was from an early date the object
round which centered the religious ideas of the ancient world, and the
serpent occupied a chief place as symbolical of the most important of
those ideas. The veneration for deceased ancestors represented similar
ideas with those embodied in sun-worship, and the animal totemism of
which the effigy mounds are symbolic was connected with the latter
superstition through ancestral worship, the mythical ancestor being
identified with the totem. If this is so, the study of the mythology
of the aboriginal inhabitants of this country may be expected to throw
light on the origin of Old World superstitions, and Mr. Peet may be
congratulated on having done so much to make known the symbolical
and other works which will soon be the only relics of an ancient and
wide-spread race.
Ω.
LIFE. By _M. J. Savage_. Boston: Geo. H. Ellis.
In this volume of sermons we have a most interesting series of studies
on a subject which is probably attracting at the present time more
intelligent interest than at any past epoch. The views entertained
by Mr. Savage are so well known that it is not necessary to give any
elaborate review of the present work. Among other themes he treats of
the Nature and Origin of Life, Goodness and Moral Evil, Life's Meaning,
Nationalism and other social dreams, Morality and Religion. Everywhere
we find much material for thought, and, although from the very nature
of the case many of Mr. Savage's conclusions will not be generally
accepted, his words will be read with more than a passing interest.
His statement that right and wrong "are to be understood by studying
the progress, the development, of the race, just as we find out
any other truth," cannot well be contested by the advocate of any
ethical theory. When he affirms this life "to be only manifestations
as the years go by, out-blossomings everywhere of that life which is
God,—the mystery and yet the explanation of all things," he expresses
an opinion that most men who have given the subject serious thought
will accept—subject only to the reservation that they are allowed to
understand "God" in their own way.
The answer given by Mr. Savage, in his concluding discourse, to the
question "What is it all for?" will meet with less acceptance. He
remarks that all the theories which can be found as to the outcome
of things are only variations of three chief theories: (1) that of
a future life of rewards and punishments, the theory of Milton's
"Paradise Lost"; (2) that of M. Comte, which is well named the religion
of humanity; (3) that which regards _spirit_ as having the pre-eminence
over matter. As to the first theory, Mr. Savage declares it to be
condemned by the intellect, the heart, and the conscience of men. He
affirms that the second theory ends in _nothing_, and he endorses the
statement of Mr. John Fiske, that "considered intellectually, such a
theory puts the world to permanent intellectual confusion." Mr. Savage,
therefore, accepts the third theory which "makes immortality a wholly
rational thought." He sees the proof of it in the existence of the
brain, the conscience, the heart of man, which "are prophecies, since
they are the expression of the nature of things, and since they demand
the perfect thought, and love, and right."
Ω.
PROTOPLASM AND LIFE. By _Charles F. Cox_, M. A. New York: N. D. C.
Hodges.
The first part of Mr. Cox's contribution to the study of what may be
termed the literature of the interesting subject he discusses, treats
of the Cell doctrine. He traces clearly the changes that have taken
place in the protoplasm theory, to which that doctrine belongs, with
particular reference to Doctor Beale's _germinal matter_ and Prof.
Huxley's _physical basis of life_. In his summary of conclusions,
Mr. Cox shows that the original idea of the cell, as propounded by
Schleiden and Schwann, has gradually faded away. As he states, the
attention of the defenders of the cell doctrine has been forced from
one position to another until it is fixed on a germinal point. The same
fate has befallen Dr. Beale's ideal living matter, which if an actually
visible thing is reduced to "a mere skeleton of his original bioplasm,"
an attenuated reticulum; while Huxley's physical basis of life, like
his _Bathybius_, is relegated to the realm of the imagination. Thus
there is "no one visible and tangible substance to which the name
protoplasm is rigidly and exclusively applied." Mr. Cox's conclusion as
to the nature of the _basal life-stuff_ is that "the only admissible
alternative is matter plus vitality or matter minus vitality." This
brings us to "the impassable gulf between the not-living and the
living"; which we would observe, however, might cease to be impassable
if we could properly define the terms "matter" and "vitality."
The second part of Mr. Cox's _brochure_ is devoted to a consideration
of the spontaneous generation theory, and its relation to the general
theory of evolution. Mr. Cox's personal conclusion is, that, to the
better part of the scientific authorities, "the spontaneous generation
theory is a necessary part of the general theory of evolution, but
that no experimental evidence has as yet been produced in support of
the belief in the occurrence of abiogenesis, and that therefore the
evolution theory hangs upon a link of pure faith." Mr. Cox finds in the
gap between lifeless substances and living forms the veritable "Missing
Link."
Ω.
NOUVEAUX APERÇUS SUR LA PHYLOGENIE DE L'HOMME. By _Madame Clémence
Royer_. Extracted from the Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie
for 1890.
Madame Royer, in this admirable memoir, taking for a text the fact
that an Australian lizard was seen by M. de Vis walking on its hind
feet, criticises severely Haeckel's genealogy of man, whose line of
descent she declares to be distinct from that of the apes. The first
terrestrial ancestors of man and of other anthropomorphous animals
issued from pelagic forms of distinct origins, whose evolution had
been parallel, but the human ancestors acquired the upright position
in a phase of amphibious ichthyophagy, while the ape ancestors adapted
themselves directly to an oblique position. This original difference of
attitude adapted men from the first to an entirely pedestrian motion,
and the apes to a life more or less arboreal, but neither men nor apes
have had any terrestrial ancestor adapted to the horizontal position.
Ω.
LE MONDE COMME VOLONTÉ ET COMME REPRESENTATION. Par _Arthur
Schopenhauer_. Traduit en Français par _A. Burdeau_. Tome
troisième. Paris: Félix Alcan.
M. Burdeau's translation of the chief work of the renowned philosopher
of pessimism is the only perfect translation into the French language.
It is made with a scrupulous exactness, and its style is said to be as
clear as that of Schopenhauer himself, "by which he is distinguished
from all other German philosophers and is recognised as a disciple
of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Chamfort." The present volume contains
important appendices in which Schopenhauer recapitulated and developed
various points treated of in the first edition of his work. We may
refer particularly to the chapters on Instinct, Genius, Insanity, the
Metaphysic of Music, and the Metaphysic of Love.
DIE HYPNOSE UND DIE DAMIT VERWANDTEN NORMALEN ZUSTAENDE. Vorlesungen
gehalten an der Universität Kopenhagen im Herbste 1889. By _Alfred
Lehmann_, Ph. D. Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.
This little book will in one respect be of special interest to
psychologists. The author confesses in the preface that when he
commenced his hypnotic investigations, he attempted to explain the
facts under consideration by the Cartesian theory which hitherto, he
says, had proved perfectly sufficient to explain the data of normal
soul-life. What the author understands by the Cartesian theory appears
from the following passage:
"The popular conception of the relation between soul and body is, that
the soul is a being distinct from the body and endowed with certain
faculties. This conception is still defended by a certain, not very
numerous school of philosophers whom we may briefly call Cartesians
from the fact that their theory can be traced back to Descartes,
although in the lapse of time it has been considerably modified."
In a word the Cartesian theory is the theory that still accepts the
existence of a mythical or metaphysical soul-unity called the ego. Dr.
Lehmann says:
"It was argued since 'I' in spite of a constant change of my
consciousness, am in possession of the certainty that it is the same
identical 'I' that has all these states, sensations, feelings, this
'I' or the soul must be a unity. And this unity must stand in a causal
connection with the outside world, with the domain of nature in the
widest sense of the word," etc.