of measurement derived from sensations. He thus became the founder of
a new conception in Optics which in many respects promises to give
more correct and better explanations not only of the physiology of
sight but also of the theory of colors; his views collide however in
some important points with the views of the old school, the leader
of which is Professor Helmholtz of Berlin. The first article of the
present number of this magazine treats of one of these problems,
and the author, Professor Helmholtz, believes that the results of
his experiments do not show a gradation of the perceptibility of
differences which would justify Professor Hering's theory of colors.
Professor Helmholtz applies Fechner's law concerning the measurement
of perceptible differences to color-sensations. For the experiments
he has made, a wheel was employed (after the method of Maxwell) into
which slips of colored paper of various breadth could be inserted. He
found by this "photometrical" method that "the effect of an additional
color upon the luminosity is effectually weakened by the amount of
the same color present in the whole mixture.... Equal small amounts
of the quantity of light produce the smaller effects the larger the
quantities of the same light are in the whole field." We pass by other
results of Professor Helmholtz's experiments, for it takes a specialist
to go over his calculations and tables; and the investigation has by
no means been brought to a final conclusion. "If the strong deviation
is not based upon an error," Professor Helmholtz says, "quite another
and a different hypothesis would come into question, viz, whether it
may not always be the clearest sensation which has effect and that
which remains below the threshold does not come into consideration."
The revision of his "Handbuch der physiologischen Optik" has been the
occasion for these experiments of Professor Helmholtz.
Professor Gaule of Zurich propounds a most interesting theory about
the development of the trophic functions and the chemical actions of
the nervous system. He starts with the idea that the processes of
the nervous system are in accord with the law of the conservation of
energy. Du Bois Reymond's remark that love and hatred, pleasure and
pain would remain unexplained even if all the changes that take place
in the arrangement of atoms in our nerves were known and mathematically
computable, has made a deep impression because it expresses the
disparity of our definitions of atoms on the one side and feelings
on the other. Yet our atomistic theory is not final; it is only an
auxiliary conception which will simplify thought so long as the
present method of considering phenomena from a chemical or physical
and geometrical standpoint is retained. As soon as we create a common
auxiliary conception to comprise all these sciences, we shall have to
broaden our definitions. Taking this position as his philosophical
basis, Professor Gaule attempts to consider nervous processes as
reflex actions, the latter being clearly conceivable as subject to the
law of the conservation of energy. Living beings appear as complexes
of forces developed from the chemical actions taking place in their
organisms. Through a saturation of the affinities of their carbon and
hydrogen atoms with oxygen their potential energy is changed into
kinetic energy. The latter is used in many various ways, partly for
building up more complex molecules, partly for again storing potential
energy, and partly,—and this is a predominant process in animal
organisms,—for setting forces free which will serve as a source of
their activity. It is such a source of activity which the impressions
of the outside world affect. The impression is called _Reiz_ or
irritation, and the irritation has often been compared to the fuse or
the spark igniting a powder-mine. We must however bear in mind that
the organism is unlike the powder-mine, not at rest but in constant
action and the irritation does not properly speaking evoke a reflex
but it only modifies the action taking place. All this is generally
conceded by the physiologist. Professor Gaule then proceeds to explain
his idea of the nervous development. The cells of the epithelium in the
skin perform a peculiar process, called in German _Verhornung_; they
turn into horn (keratine) by the protoplasm's losing its albuminoids.
The process does not take place in one cell but in several layers of
cells and represents like all actions a play of forces, raising the
more keratinised strata from the basal membrane to the surface. The
keratinising however is, according to Gaule, only the less important
surface-phenomenon of another peculiar process which is directed
toward the interior of the organism. An excretion takes place forming
extremely fine threads around the cells which pass through the pores
of the basal membrane (a fact proved by Caninis and Fraenkel) where
they form a plexus. Out of the net-like meshes of these plexuses grow
increasingly strong filaments which form the trunks of the nerves.
These views agree very well with the observations of Professor His on
the fœtal development of the nerves. Professor His has indubitably
proved that the olfactory nerve for instance does not grow out of
but into the hemispheres. The direction of the nervous growth is the
same as the direction of their function. Many of the sensory nerves
have been proven to, and it is probable that all of them do grow
from the periphery into the central organ. Hensen in opposition to
this has proposed the theory of an original connection between the
peripheral root of the nerve and the central organ; yet whatever side
of the controversy may be found in the end to be correct, the result
does not much affect Professor Gaule's theory, that the ends of the
nerves represent the roots from which they grow and every special
irritation must specially affect the secretion which forms the nerve.
Having been rather explicit in the basal ideas of Professor Gaule's
proposition we can now be brief. The axis-cylinder of the nervous fibre
corresponds to the secretion of the nervous root; around it is found
the marrow-sheath, a tube of absorbing cells containing, also as proved
by Ruehne, a net of neuro-keratine; this neuro-keratine again absorbs
the axis-cylinder. To the question Why does not the axis-cylinder
disappear? Professor Gaule answers, Because it is constantly renewed.
Thus we have a constant flow in the nervous substance, an exchange of
materials, an absorption, a secretion, and re-absorption; and in this
way it can be, a progress of chemical action conditioning the vertical
direction of the nerves upon their plexuses and also the form of the
marrow-sheath which appears like craters, one inserted within the other
and filed upon the axis-cylinder. Professor Gaule proposes no definite
opinion as to the development of the motor nerves; he makes some
suggestions which need however further explanation and demonstration.
He has apparently not yet finished his investigations and we may expect
to hear again from him.
E. Raehlmann, Professor Of Ophthalmology at Dorpat, presents a résumé
of his experiences as to the visual development of persons blind from
birth to whom by a successful operation sight had been restored. We
confine ourselves to a few quotations. "Four weeks after the operation
of the right eye and a fortnight after that of the left, on April 28th,
the first experiments were made on Johann Rubens. April 30th, patient
moved his head more than his eyes. He declared he saw perfectly; yet he
was unable to recognise any object except his drinking mug, which on
the previous day he had felt with his fingers. Also his shoe was not
recognised until he had touched it. May 4th, patient could see that a
wooden ball differed from a wooden cube, both being of the same color,
but was unable to tell that one was round, the other square. Nor could
he distinguish the ball from a disc. After much handling the objects
he learned to recognise by sight the roundness of the ball and the
squareness of the cube, but he remained unable to distinguish the ball
from the disc. He learned quickly to grasp objects in the median line
of his eyes but had great difficulty in finding them with his hand
when placed at an angle before him.
"May 23d, a glass is again presented to the patient; he sees his
picture; noticing the frame, he declares the glass to be a picture.
(A picture had been presented to him repeatedly.) Now a second face
is shown to him in the glass by the side of his own. Patient becomes
greatly bewildered, declaring the picture to be familiar to him. Being
asked whether it is that of the Professor, he denies the fact, because
the Professor stood beside him. Looking over his shoulder he notices
the Professor, and seeing him twice he is confounded.... Patient is
left alone and remains almost half an hour before the glass. He moves
his arm constantly up and down, observing with a smile how the picture
in the glass makes the same movements. Requested to touch his nose,
he first grasps into the glass, then behind the glass, repeating this
several times. His hand then is put on his nose. Now he laughs and
touches the several parts of his face, constantly observing the motions
of his hand in the glass."
Most instructive cases of diseases of mind are those in which patients
cannot help having and obeying certain ideas which are not, however,
hallucinations. Dr. Hack Tuke in the fourth article of this number
says: "I was consulted once in the case of a lady, the most important
symptom of whose disease was that she had to count up to a certain
number before doing the most trivial thing; when she turned at night
in bed from one side to the other, or when she took out her watch, or
in the morning before she rose; when she went downstairs to breakfast,
she would suddenly stop on one of the steps and count; at the breakfast
table when about to take the tea-pot before touching its handle";
etc. (Arithmomania). Another case. "A young law-student who had
distinguished himself at school, one day read the English sentence 'it
was not compatible' and shortly after that he found the sentence, 'I
like it not' in German. It struck him that the negative in the one case
was placed before and in the other after the word negatived, and he
commenced to ponder on negations in general. It became an all-important
and all-absorbing problem to him. It kept him from work. For some time
he proposed questions to himself like: Why do we not have cold blood
like some other animals? etc. He is at present in great danger of
becoming undecisive and wavering in his actions, for his passion of
ruminating on his problem of negatives weakens his will and threatens
to destroy his energy." (Folie du doute.) Esquirol calls cases of
_Zwangsvorstellungen_, in which a patient otherwise healthy is forced
to pursue a certain trivial thought, "monomanie raisonnante"; Professor
Ball, "intellectual impulses." Although hereditary influences most
likely play an important part in this disease they seem to originate
in emotions, and Régis for this reason calls them "délire émotif,"
stating that their ultimate cause must be sought in a diseased state
of the ganglionic system of the intestines. Dr. Tuke favors Charcot's
term "onomatomanie." The disease is a _Wortbesessenheit_, a word-mania.
Certain expressions or phrases are pressing heavily upon the patient's
consciousness so as to force him irresistibly to think them or to
pronounce them again and again. Not all cases can be classified
under word-mania, but such cases as doubt-mania (_Zweifelsucht_) or
arithmomania are akin to it. Dr. Tuke's advice is not to fight the
disease but to teach the patient to ignore it, to treat it as trivial,
for the diseased ideas derive new strength from the opposition made to
them.
Professor E. Mach explains Weber's discovery that "if a tuning fork
is placed upon the head of a person, one ear being shut, the sound is
heard and located in the shut ear," in the following way: The sound
passes through the bones of the cranium to the labyrinth of the
ear and thence out of the ear into the air, thus taking the inverse
direction of other sounds we hear. If the flow in one ear be stopped,
the sound-waves are reflected and the drum vibrates stronger. Hence the
tone will be heard more plainly in the shut ear and will be located
there. Professor Schaefer in the last article of this number describes
an experiment in the same line, which in another way—the transmission
of sound through air waves being excluded—proves the intercranial
conductibility of very weak sounds from ear to ear. (Hamburg and
Leipsic: L. Voss.)
SCHRIFTEN DER GESELLSCHAFT FUER PSYCHOLOGISCHE FORSCHUNG. No. 1.
CONTENTS:
DIE BEDEUTUNG NARCOTISCHER MITTEL FUER DEN HYPNOTISMUS. By _Dr.
Freiherrn von Schrenck-Notzing_.
EIN GUTACHTEN UEBER EINEN FALL VON SPONTANEM SOMNAMBULISMUS. By
_Prof. Dr. August Forel_.
The psychological societies of Munich and Berlin have started under
the above title a periodical the first number of which is very
promising. Dr. von Schrenck-Notzing makes some critical remarks
on Prof. Bernheim's view to consider hypnosis as an increase of
suggestibility produced by suggestion. There are observations which
do not justify this definition. He then investigates the substitution
of narcotics as a means for producing hypnosis and their "suggestive"
effects. In the second part of his essay Dr. Schrenck-Notzing speaks
about the "suggestive" effects of Indian hemp which in a special
preparation under the name of hashish is used in the Orient as a means
of intoxication. Reference is made to the Ismaelite secret society
"Megalis et Hiemit" (the house of wisdom) consisting of missionaries
(_Daïs_), adepts (_Fedaïs_) and laymen (_Refiks_), all of which are
bound blindly to obey their grand master (_Dai-al-Doal_). Hassan, an
adept of this society, was obliged to flee, 1090, on account of some
quarrels. He founded a similar sect at the head of which stood the old
man of the mountains (_Shaik-al-Djabal_). Their members, especially
the lower classes, the _hashishin_, made themselves formidable in the
times of the crusades by their reckless obedience in executing murder
and other crimes. The order consisted of 60,000 members and their blind
obedience was effected through suggestibility in the state of hashish
intoxication. The word assassin is derived from their name. In the year
1255 a Mongolian governor ordered 12,000 hashishin to be executed on
account of the dangerous character of their sect. The secret of their
formidable obedience appears to have been the method of intoxicating
the neophyte before his admission to the order with hashish in some
grand mountain scenery and suggesting to him all the pleasures of
paradise which he would find in blind faith and unreserved obedience to
the old man of the mountain. Contempt of death, insensibility under the
severest tortures, and an unspeakable joy in the fulfilment of their
leader's command were the result. It can readily be perceived what a
dangerous drug hashish is; nevertheless it is said that the cultivation
of Indian hemp, especially among some negro tribes of Africa according
to the reports of Wissmann, exercises in several respects a good
influence. Some of the barbarians of darkest Africa have given up
cannibalism and accustom themselves to more civilised habits. The
psychical effects of hashish are described as: (1) a feeling of
comfort; (2) dissociation of ideas and a lack of their control;
(3) illusion concerning space and time; (4) an increased sense of
hearing; (5) fixed ideas and delirium; (6) a disturbance of affective
states, e. g. suspicion; (7) irresistible impulses; (8) illusions and
hallucinations. Dr. v. Schrenck-Notzing freely quotes from Moreau,
_Du Hashish et de l'aliénation mentale, Etude psychologique_ (Paris:
Masson, 1845), and adds several experiments of his own.
Mrs. Fay, a somnambule accused of imposition and fraud, was delivered
by the County Court of Zurich to Professor Forel for observation who
kept her for several days in his institute. The professor's report
to the County Court is very interesting in so far as Mrs. Fay, a
woman without education, must be considered as a genuine somnambule
exhibiting all the symptoms observed in other cases. She had been
a servant girl in Basel and since her fifteenth year fell twice a
day in an hypnotic sleep. She married and had several children, her
youngest child was born while she was in her hypnotic sleep. She made
a living by curing patients who consulted her when asleep, and was
punished before on that account for imposition. During one of her
hypnotic states patients were introduced to her in the presence of
Professor Forel and she made her statements in vague terms as almost
all somnambules do. The experiment showed that her diagnosis consisted
of random guesses which in exceptional cases happened to be correct;
sometimes they were not wholly incorrect, but mostly erroneous.
She believes herself to be possessed by a spirit whom she calls
"Ernst." Professor Forel without considering the woman as a model of
truthfulness, believes in her sincerity. He cured her of her hypnotic
sleep on her own request. She stated that the money she earned by
curing patients did not make up for the loss she endured by not being
able to earn a living by work. Professor Forel succeeded with his cure,
but he states in a postscript that the woman having returned to her
former surroundings, has since suffered from relapses. (Leipsic: Ambr.
Abel.)
PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 3 and 4.
CONTENTS:
QUANTITAET UND QUALITAET IN BEGRIFF, URTHEIL UND
GEGENSTAENDLICHER ERKENNTNISS. Ein Kapitel der transcendentalen
Logik. (Concluded.) By _P. Natorp_.
RECENSIONEN.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE. By Prof. Dr. _F. Ascherson_.
The conclusion of Prof. P. Natorp's article on _Quantity and Quality
in Concept, Judgment, and Objective Cognition_ appears to be the most
important part of the essay. Professor Natorp is a transcendentalist.
He understands Kant in a dualistic sense where the latter says
that "the unity of apperception (Einheit der Apperception) is the
radical faculty of all our cognition" (Radical-Vermögen aller unserer
Erkentniss). Cognition is defined as "limitation of that which is _per
se_ infinite." It is natural that for a transcendentalist the greatest
difficulty arises when he attempts to let his _a priori_ face the
facts of reality. Professor Natorp shows great skill and ingenuity in
this respect. It is but consistent with his premisses to arrive at an
"invincible dualism," yet he adapts his transcendentalism sufficiently
to fulfil the demands of experience. Thus he does not come to a real
solution but to a _modus vivendi_, which is after all the purpose of
philosophy.
Professor Natorp considers the synthetic unity not as given, but as
to be realised; a concept is created through definition. The data of
experience on the other hand are not the defined, but the definable.
They are to be defined by the forms of the concepts, and their
fundamental forms are quantity and quality. He says: "The definition
as this and as that (as something identical) is a function of the
concept, but the concept presupposes sensation as the material to be
defined. To consider sensation as given in this its absolute identity
which is demanded by the concept, is after all an illusion. Therefore
positivism and not idealism confounds the demands of cognition with
the given reality, thus adjusting facts to our wants of knowledge.
Sensation conceived as a datum and not as a postulate is and remains
the infinitely definable and never absolutely defined.... It appears
easy thus to reduce the dualism of form and matter, concept and
sensation, the defined and the definable to one ultimate unity. In one
respect positivism succeeds, attributing full definedness, and not mere
definableness, to the data; and then, it finds no difficulty in letting
the defining function of the concept in its peculiarity disappear by
reducing it to a quality of the data."
We do not know to what kind of positivism Professor Natorp refers; yet
it seems that it cannot be applied either to Comte's or to Littré's
views. Nor does it dispose of the positivism editorially set forth in
_The Monist_. Positivism, according to Professor Natorp, is at fault
in dropping the definite function of the concept. But he endeavors to
avoid the opposite mistake also, viz. "to entirely drop the definable,
which might be supposed to be a mere _X_, scarcely representable in
clear concepts, or to deduce it from the defining function. This other
exaggeration is that of idealism which has found its purest expression
in Fichte's philosophy." Professor Natorp by keeping aloof from both
errors declares dualism to be insuperable; "dualism," he says, "'is a
hard fact'—_eine starre Thatsache_."
The trouble with transcendentalists, it seems to us, originates in
their method of starting with cognition, with the synthetic unity of
apperception, with the forms of concepts. Experience means to them the
sense-element of sensation, the contents of concepts without their
form. They start with a dualism. When they have completed their system
of transcendental forms, they find it hard to explain how to change
their rigid laws into the constant flux of reality as presented to
us by experience. Should the philosopher not rather start from the
function of cognising, which in itself is a unity? He will find that
cognition, concept, the synthetic unity of apperception, and all the
complex laws of transcendental thought are products of the cognising
function. If these laws are rigid, we have made them so. We have made
them stable, we have fixed them for a certain purpose. Their rigidity
is a legitimate fiction for that purpose, but beyond it it finds no
application. Pure logic draws distinctions which do not exist in
reality; pure mathematics operates with lines which considered as real
things are mere nonentities. The dualism between concept and sensation,
between the _a priori_ and the _a posteriori_, between thought and
thing, between form and matter, is not given in experience, for in
experience the formal and the material are one inseparable whole; it
is the product of cognition. The cognising function differentiates
the data of experience into formal and material aspects; the formal
being always of a general character serves as a help for systematising
and classifying the material. This appears to us the only way of
realising a monistic positivism, and no philosophy can be considered
as satisfactory until it represents the data of experience or positive
facts in a unitary view, i. e. a harmonious conception free of
contradictions.
Professor Natorp has still to battle with the Eleatic question. He
begins the conclusion of his article with the following words: "Let
us consider only the most important results of our deduction. An
explanation of 'becoming,' of 'change' has in this way become possible;
the solution of the Eleatic problem how 'change' can _be_ at all,
since _being_ means unchangeable definedness; or, how becoming can
be, since it includes not-being, for being means the transition from
not-being into being, or from being into not-being. How can we think
this combination of position and negation without contradiction, a
combination of position and negation being a contradiction"? This is
rather a late flower of Hegelian thought: but, being presented so
vigorously and unequivocally, it illustrates clearly the mistake of
transcendentalism in starting from abstract concepts or pure thought,
thence coming down to the facts of reality. There transcendentalists
have to fit their ideas about being and not-being to experience, and
finding insuperable difficulties must consistently become dualists.
Professor Natorp's solution of the Eleatic question is "to find a
method of thought which overcomes the absolute contradiction of
position and negation.... This is done by the comprehensive unity,
which means identity and at the same time difference, viz. that one
is the same as the other and yet not the same."
We should say that the Eleatic question will best be understood by a
clear comprehension of the function, the purpose, and the products of
cognition.