Observations on the Brain and Several Sense-Organs of the blind
Deaf-Mute, Laura Dewey Bridgman_. The object had in view in the
examination of the brain was "to determine, if possible, whether the
peculiar mental existence of Laura Bridgman, which was the result of
her defective sense-organs, has left any trace on her brain, or whether
such anomalies as may be observed are sufficiently explained when
considered as the direct consequences of the initial defect alone."
The article is therefore "a special study in the general field of the
inter-relation of brain-structure and intelligence." The final results
are reserved for a second article, but it appears from the present
one that the total area of Laura's brain is somewhat small for its
weight, and that it is slightly inferior to two other female brains
with which comparison was made, the inferiority depending mainly on the
smaller average depth of the sulci, that of the left side being the
most manifest. The difference can be explained in part at best, by the
failure of certain portions of the brain to develop completely. Dr.
Donaldson's article is illustrated by very carefully prepared plates.
In the present part of his sketch of the history of reflex action, Dr.
Hodge treats of the law demonstrated by Bell, that the _posterior roots
of the spinal nerves are sensory, the anterior motor_, which forms the
beginning of the modern history of the nervous system, and of "the
physical versus the psychic theory of reflex action." The mechanical
theory of reflex action was first elaborated by Marshall Hall. It was
opposed by Volkmann and others, among them Pflügel and Auerbach. On the
other hand, Lotze supported the former view, but he advanced "a step
beyond the comparatively crude, simple mechanism of Marshall Hall to a
mechanism of the utmost delicacy, a mechanism susceptible of the nicest
adjustments, capable of education, and of prolonged, independent, and
complex activity." Habit is only another name for mechanism.
Under the head of Psychiatry, Dr. William Noyes gives an elaborate
sketch of the life of Jean Jacques Rousseau bearing on the question of
his insanity, which is exciting considerable interest at the present
time. (E. C. Sanford, Clark University, Worcester, Mass.)
MIND. October, 1890. No. LX.
CONTENTS:
THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. By _Herbert Spencer_.
MENTAL ELABORATION. By _James Sully_.
VOLKMANN'S PSYCHOLOGY (II). By _Thomas Whittaker_.
BERKELEY AS A MORAL PHILOSOPHER. By _Hugh W. Orange_.
MUENSTERBERG ON 'MUSCULAR SENSE' AND 'TIME-SENSE.' By the
_Editor_.
DISCUSSION: 1) Mr. Spencer's Derivation of Space. By _Prof. John
Watson_.
2) Dr. Pikler on the Cognition of Physical Reality. By _G. F.
Stout_.
CRITICAL NOTICES: Lewis's "A Text-Book of Mental Diseases."
Mercier's "Sanity and Insanity"; Jones's "Elements of Logic as
a Science of Propositions"; Coupland's "The Gain of Life and
other Essays."
ON THE UTILITARIAN FORMULA. By _James Sutherland_.
_The Origin of Music._ This article is intended as a postscript to Mr.
Spencer's essay on "The Origin and Function of Music," included in
his _Essays, Scientific, Political, and Speculative_, of which he is
preparing a final edition. It is a reply to Mr. Darwin, who supposes
music to have originated from a particular class of vocal noises, the
amatory class, instead of, as Mr. Spencer asserts, its being derived
from the sounds which the voice emits under excitement, eventually
gaining this or that character according to the kind of excitement.
After considering various objections by Mr. Edmund Gurney and others,
Mr. Spencer concludes: "The origin of music as the developed language
of motion seems to be no longer an inference but simply a description
of the fact."
Mr. James Sully deals with Differentiation, Assimilation, and
Association as the intellectual constituents in the process of Mental
Elaboration. Differentiation is considered first as a process of
marking off, by means of special adjustments of attention, particular
sensations; followed by Discrimination, which involves change of
psychical state, the dependence of mental life on which has been
formulated as the Law of Relativity. Assimilation, described as a
mode of unification or integration, is treated of under the headings,
_Psychological Nature of Likeness_; _Automatic Assimilation_;
_Recognition_; and _Transition to Comparative Assimilation_.
Association is the "process of psychical combination or integration
which binds together presentative elements occurring together or in
immediate succession." This supposes _Retention_ or the tendency of
a sensation to persist, and _Reproduction_, or the reappearance "in
consciousness" of the impression under a new representative form. The
three processes of Differentiation, Assimilation, and Association do
not follow each other, but are closely interconnected.
Part II. of _Volkmann's Psychology_ deals with the problem of Time and
Space, and with the subjects of Space of Time (_Zeitraum_), Motion,
Number, and Intuition. "Out of sensations intuitions are evolved in
consequence of the properties immanent in the sensations." While
their localisation progresses in the region of the more strongly
toned sensations, projection, or the "assignment of sensations to the
external world," goes on simultaneously in the region of toneless
sensations. By the addition of "consciousness of dependence in having
the sensation," there is the completion of the presentation of the
External Thing as _thing_. Illusions are divided into two classes;
namely, 'illusions of internal perception' and 'illusions of sense.'
The Ego is purely a psychical result of the soul "becoming conscious of
an interaction between one of its presentations and the most ramified
of its presentation-masses." Self-consciousness is defined as "internal
perception within the Ego." The mind is then dealt with as thinking,
feeling, desiring, and willing. Ethical feeling is a kind of æsthetic
feeling, distinguished from others by the peculiarity of its objective
basis, which is the actual will of the subject. Moral freedom is to
have the will determined by reason. Psychological freedom permanently
extended over the whole of volition is Character; its opposite is
Passion.
Mr. Orange furnishes a different explanation of Berkeley's ethical
system from that given by Professor Fraser, in a note to the third
dialogue of _Alciphron_ (ii. 107), and points out its agreement with
Berkeley's _Principles of Human Knowledge_. "Moral laws are laws of
nature; but there is no value or force in them as laws, save in so far
as they are the orderly expression of God's ideas." Man's ideas are
true or good, when the human spirit is at one with the divine. Both in
natural and moral philosophy the laws of nature are to be attained by
the use of reason.
Prof. Robertson draws attention to the concessions involved in
Münsterberg's idea of 'Muscular Sense.' To the term 'muscle-sensation'
no exception can be taken, "provided it is meant for no more than
mere external designation, as when we speak of 'eye-sensation,'
'skin-sensation,' or the like," and is not called 'sensation of
movement.' Münsterberg finds that a whole class of factors have
been overlooked, or hardly regarded, by previous inquirers into
'Time-Sense.' These are sensations (or representations) of muscular
tension, by synthesis of which with sense-elements (sounds by
preference) time-apprehension is explicable. He is struck particularly
with the part played in his experiments by the breath-rhythm, and
"it seems impossible to doubt that breathing has a prerogative
position among the sense-factors concerned in the estimation of short
time-intervals." The name 'Time-Sense' has through Münsterberg's
investigations "more justification than it ever got from its
inventors, for whom it has marked only the apparent immediacy of
time-apprehension."
In his criticism of Mr. Spencer's theory of the derivation of
space Prof. John Watson lays down as the fundamental position of
Transcendentalism, or Idealism, as he prefers to call it, "that the
universe is intelligible, and that man in virtue of his intelligence is
capable of grasping it in its essential nature. It therefore rejects
as unmeaning the doctrine of Mr. Spencer, that we know reality to be
unknowable." While recognising that Mr. Spencer and others have done
good service in drawing attention to certain outward aspects of the
evolution of mind, Professor Watson "concludes that no psychology
can be adequate which does not recognise that perception is not the
mere occurrence of transient feelings, but the first step in that
recognition of the true nature of reality which culminates in the
comprehension of the world as a single organic unity of which the
source and explanation is intelligence."
Mr. Stout points out, in reply to Dr. Pikler (_Mind_, No. 59), that the
sole aim of his article on "The Genesis of the Cognition of Physical
Reality" (_Mind_, No. 57) was to trace "the genesis of the presentation
of physical reality as it appears to the ordinary consciousness: not as
it may be modified, and perhaps rectified, by the reflective criticism
of this or that philosopher," and that what he urged against Mill was
simply that "he has confounded his own philosophical view of physical
reality with the view which men ordinarily take when they are not in a
philosophical mood."
It is shown by Mr. Sutherland that in the utilitarian ultimate
conception there is, in addition to "the greatest happiness, _plus_ an
arithmetical truth," the element of absolute justice, the existence of
which requires that "all subsidiary rights as means to greatest general
happiness should at utmost be classed under relative justice." (London:
Williams & Norgate.)
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. October, 1890. Vol. I. No. I.
CONTENTS:
THE MORALITY OF STRIFE. By _Professor Henry Sidgwick_.
THE FREEDOM OF ETHICAL FELLOWSHIP. By _Felix Adler_, Ph. D.
THE LAW OF RELATIVITY IN ETHICS. By _Professor Harald Höffding_.
THE ETHICS OF LAND TENURE. By _Professor J. B. Clark_.
THE COMMUNICATION OF MORAL IDEAS AS A FUNCTION OF AN ETHICAL
SOCIETY By _Bernard Bosanquet_, M. A.
DR. ABBOT'S "WAY OUT OF AGNOSTICISM." By _Professor Josiah Royce_.
A SERVICE OF ETHICS TO PHILOSOPHY. By _Wm. H. Salter_.
This is the first number of the _International Journal of Ethics_,
which is intended to take the place of the _Ethical Record_. In
the opening article, Professor Sidgwick affirms that the idea of a
universal and complete harmony of the earthly interests of all human
beings is "an optimistic illusion as to human relations, which in the
present age of the world has nearly faded away." Nevertheless, "a very
substantial gain would result if we could remove from men's minds
all errors of judgment as to right and wrong, good and evil, even if
we left other causes of bad conduct unchanged." What is practically
wanted is improvement in moral insight, and the aim of the paper is to
aid in the solution of certain intellectual difficulties which arise
when we try to get a clear idea of duty. Warfare among modern nations
"is normally not a mere conflict of interests, but also a conflict
of opposing views of right and justice." Disputants may therefore be
brought into harmony if they can be really and completely enlightened
as to their true rights, as distinguished from their interests. The
international law administered by arbitrators may be most useful "in
removing minor occasions of controversy and in minimising the mischief
resulting from graver conflicts," but it will not provide a settlement
of all occasions of strife. Where the sphere of arbitration ends
that of the moral method of attaining international peace begins;
"if we must be judges in our own cause, we must endeavor to be just
judges." The impartiality required is difficult, but "the judicial
function—which, in a modern state under popular government, has
become, in some degree, the business of every man"—might be performed
with success, "if national consciences could be roused to feel the
nobility and grapple practically and persistently with the difficulties
of the task."
Professor Adler's article is devoted to an account of the Ethical
Societies, which are described as being "consecrated to the knowledge
of the Good, but not to any special theory of the Good." To adopt
a philosophical formula as the basis of union would be to become a
philosophical sect, which he declares is "the most contemptible of
all sects, because the sectarian bias is most repugnant to the spirit
of genuine philosophy." The accepted norms of moral behavior form the
starting points of Ethical Societies and their basis of union. They
build on the common stock of moral judgment, which may be called the
common conscience. Ethics is both a science and an art. As a science
it has to explain the facts of the moral life, and it is necessary to
begin with the facts and to test theories by their fitness to account
for them. It is "the prime duty of every one in his individual capacity
to rise to the ever clearer apprehension of first principles," but for
this very reason Ethical Societies in their collective capacity abstain
from laying down any set of first principles as binding.
It is not quite clear how Professor Adler can declare that the Ethical
Societies are consecrated to the knowledge of the good, and yet make
so strong an opposition to their stating such knowledge in the exact
terms of a philosophical formula. Philosophy is nothing but knowledge
of the world systematised into a world-conception. It will hardly be
sufficient to make the "common conscience" the corner stone of any
society devoted to the elevation of morality. Not only would it be
difficult to ascertain what that "common conscience" at present is,
but, in addition, we can be assured that the "common conscience" is
constantly changing.
Ethics as a science means philosophical ethics; and Professor Adler's
ethics is, in fact, the expression of a philosophy. Yet in spite of the
advanced position of the Ethical Societies, which have discarded all
religious views and ceremonial practices, we find that their leader
still stands upon the ground of a dualistic extra-naturalism. Professor
Adler says:
"There is a reality other than that of the senses, and the ultimate
reality in things is, in a sense, transcending our comprehension, akin
to the moral nature of men. But how shall we acquaint ourselves with
this Supersensible. The ladder of science does not reach so far."
It is true that there are realities other than that of the senses;
take as a most simple instance mathematical points and lines. But
there is no reality which theoretically considered can not become
an object of science. The statement that there are facts to which
the ladder of science does not reach, is tantamount to a declaration
of supernaturalism and dualism. Professor Adler has discarded the
terminology of the old dogmatism, but he has not discarded its basic
error. Instead of developing the old faith into a monistic religion, he
throws away religion as a basis of ethics, but preserves carefully that
element in it which is hostile to science and philosophy.
The _Law of Relativity_ is a very important contribution by Professor
Höffding to the Science of Ethics. After stating that the moral law, if
it is to be truly universal, must "only judge the general direction of
the _tendency_ of the will," he affirms that the individual relativity
of ethics, or its personal equation, is a factor which enters into
the ethical question, "when different individuals with like ethical
principles and in like circumstances, but with different dispositions
and capacities have to be considered." The individual is always a part
of society, and the life of society is no other than that contained
in its members, the ideal being "reached only when the individual's
efforts in the cause of society also serve the free and harmonious
development of his own faculties and impulses." In an ideal State only
that would be demanded of each individual which lay within his range
and power. Self-control, as a negative virtue, is a psychological
impossibility. It is necessary to take note whether there is room for
other inclinations that could absorb the store of energy. The struggle
of self-control lasts until the new application of energy gains
complete ascendancy. The happiest man is where morality has become
organic and "there is an agreement between the task arising from the
general principles and the particular circumstances, and the capacities
and desires of the individual." Professor Höffding objects to the views
of the Italian _criminal-psychological_ school that atavism is a sign
of social imperfection, that it "does not justify placing society and
the criminal over against each other as absolute right and absolute
wrong." He concludes that it is at least an open question whether there
are any human beings "in whom no sympathy for the moral law can be
awakened, however much the law may be individualised."
The arguments of Professor Clark on _The Ethics of Land Tenure_ are
summed up in the following passage: "If a state originally owned its
land, in the fullest sense of the term, it had the right of voluntary
alienation which is inherent in such ownership. Increments of value,
present and future, are its property; in alienating them it gives
away its own. If the attainment of its ends requires that they be
transferred to others, the title of the grantees is valid. To deny to
the state the privilege of alienation is to essentially abridge its
natural rights; it is to make its ownership of the land incomplete."
In relation to what is incorrectly termed "unearned increments," it is
remarked, "if the essence of property is regarded, and not its form,
the increments of value attaching to land are not unearned by their
proprietors. In an active market land has its fair price, and this is
based partly on the future increments themselves." The loss arising
from a confiscation of land-value would fall "not merely on millions
who have titles in fee simple, but on all who have made loans on land
as security.... To every one it would come in the shape of a seizure
by the state of property invested in accordance with its own positive
invitation."
_The communication of moral ideas_, and not ideas about morality, which
are the abstract or scientific renderings of moral ideas, is considered
by Mr. Bosanquet as the proper function of an Ethical Society. The
fault of the present time is distraction, and "one great cause of this
distraction is the notion of a general duty to do good, or something
other than and apart from doing one's work well and intelligently."
The only certain way of communicating moral ideas is contagion, and
the most useful teacher of morality is "not so much a man of abstract
theory as a man of reasonable experience."
Ethics may be of service to philosophy, says Mr. Salter, in opening
up the realm of "what ought to be," beyond the realm of "what is and
happens." Moral ideas belong to the realm of unverifiable ideas, which
are believed in because of "their own intrinsic attractiveness and
authority." Ethics tells us of the law according to which men should
act, the law of justice and brotherhood; we may conclude "that whatever
may be the actual forces in the world at any time, justice and love
are rightfully supreme over them all, and that these are so interwoven
with the order of things that nothing out of harmony with them can
long stand." It is "the imperishable glory of transcendentalism in our
country that in the decay and disintegration of the ancient creed," it
sounded the high-note "that the soul can in some sense know the object
of its worship; that it need not feed on hearsay, and tradition, and
arguments, but can have vision." (Philadelphia: _International Journal
of Ethics_, 1602 Chestnut St.)
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. September, 1890. No. 177.
CONTENTS:
REMARQUES SUR LE PRINCIPE DE CAUSALITE. By _A. Lalande_.
PHILOSOPHES ESPAGNOLS.—J. HUARTE. By _J. M. Guardia_.
LES ORIGINES DE LA TECHNOLOGIE (_fin_). By _A. Espinas_.
UN DOCUMENT INEDIT SUR LES MANUSCRITS DE DESCARTES. By _V. Egger_.
NOTICES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES.
REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.
The principle of causality belongs only to the world of sense, that
of children and of the commonality of mankind who neither reflect nor
analyse their knowledge. It represents confusedly the continuity and
inertia which are proper to the scientific stage, as colors represent
imperfectly the undulations of the ether, and sound the vibrations
of ponderable matter. To make of causality a scientific property of
things, a law of the phenomenal and mechanical world, is to affirm that
bodies preserve their color in the absence of an eye to perceive it, or
their sonorousness when no one hears them. Moreover, from a scientific
standpoint, the words sound and color lose all proper meaning; while
the principle of causality retains a sense, but then expresses a false
proposition, and one which leads us incessantly into error. Several
consequences flow from M. Lalande's conception of causality. The first
is that this law is not a rational principle, but is an _empirical_
formula, in the mathematical sense of that word. The second is that
we are thereby led to see in the idea of _efficiency_ an artificial
concept, and, as would be said by philologists, a disease of language,
instead of a mysterious "power" that emanates from one phenomenon
in order to create its effect. A third consequence is the great
simplification it leads to in the problem of induction, which requires
us merely to believe in the stability of the laws of nature, which are
only mathematical laws proved by experience. The true foundation of
induction is the universal value of mathematics, which rests finally
on the principle of identity. The degree of perfection of a science
can be measured by the quantity of mathematics it employs; and it is
this preconceived idea which has given birth to all the psycho-physical
measures that have been recently introduced into psychology.
M. Guardia's paper gives a sketch of the philosophical system laid
down in the work of the Spanish writer J. Huarte, _The Trial of the
Spirits_, with an introductory account of the author and his book,
which first appeared in 1575. Huarte is described as unique among
Spanish thinkers, and as a leading figure among natural philosophers on
account of the daring novelty of his original views and the excellence
of his method, which is that of the inductive philosophy. His doctrine
is founded on that of Galen, and he proclaims the principle that the
physical determines the moral. All his metaphysics reduce themselves
to the recognition of the action of exterior causes, which are of
inorganic nature, and of the organism which reacts to them. He thus
explains all the manifestations of life, heredity intervening as a
factor in its evolution. Huarte was less concerned, however, with
physiology and psychology, than with the amelioration of the social
state. He worked for the future by creating of psychology an organic
science of observation and experience, founded on the knowledge of
human nature, and by basing on it the art of education.
In concluding his valuable study of the _Origin of Technology_, M.
Espinas, after giving numerous examples drawn from ancient Greek
life, says: "All the technical arts of this epoch have the same
characters. They are religious, traditional, local. The myths referred
to are at first the faithful as well as the symbolic expression of
them." This mythological symbolism is "the product of a psychological
and sociological projection, that is to say, the things of art are
conceived as benevolent or angered feelings, as intelligent inventions
or combinations that are attributed to fictitious idealised men, as
exchanges that are made with them, as gifts or precepts that are
received from them, or as orders imposed by their will. They are thus
psychical operations or social products drawn from human consciousness
unknown to it which, personified, find themselves invoked by it in
order to explain to itself its own creations."
The unpublished matter referring to the manuscripts of Descartes is
contained in a copy of the 1659 edition of the _Principes_ of the
French philosopher, and consists of numerous notes in the handwriting
of its former owner Joseph de Beaumont. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. No. 178. October, 1890.
CONTENTS:
LE DELIT POLITIQUE. By _G. Tarde_.
UNE NOUVELLE THÉORIE DE LA LIBERTÉ. By _A. Belot_.
NOTE SUR LA PHYSIOLOGIE DE L'ATTENTION. By _Ch. Féré_.
LES BASES EXPÉRIMENTALES DE LA GEOMETRIE. By _Jules Andrade_.
NOTE SUR LE PRINCIPE DE LA CAUSALITE. By _J.-J. Gourd_.
ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.
REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.