considering the characteristic differences between industry and art,
from the point of view of the desires of consumption and production
proper to them, deals with the distinctive characters of the work of
art considered in itself and the reason of its being. The attribute of
the work of art is to be interesting. Art is a game, but a serious and
profound game, like love, and it is born of leisure and pleasure. The
unity of the work of art consists simply in the coupling of a question
and an answer, a problem and a solution, a combat and a victory. Every
phrase, musical or spoken, is a wave which rises and descends, and in
every art whatever all is phrases and waves, and their combination is
itself a complex wave, a period. In the undulating mirror of art we
see again social life in action; since esthetics reflect the dynamic,
and not the static, social logic. M. Tarde criticises the theory of
Spencer that all the arts are derived from architecture, and shows that
the first art was speech and that from speech, spoken or written, all
art is derived. Narrative poetry, the epic poem, is the complex germ
of all artistic development; and as art began in narration, it ends in
the drama, because man is above all social. Art, or reflection of man,
borrows by turns its dominant inspiration from the passions of life or
the inspirations of society.
M. Richet sums up his description of General Physiology in the formula:
Life is a chemical function. His most important conclusions are that
the general laws of life are chemical laws, and respond to the chemical
conditions of hydratation, temperature, electricity and pressure; force
is condensed in living beings under the form of chemical energy, and
manifests itself outwardly, by movement, by electricity, by light, by
heat, or by thought. (We consider this juxtaposition of "electricity,
light, heat and thought" as extremely misleading, and so is the
definition of life as "a chemical function." It appears, then, that M.
Richet considers thought also a chemical process. That physiological
actions are processes which have their own conditions and are different
from chemical and physical processes, has been explained in _The
Monist_, No. 3. p. 413-414.) M. Richet continues: Living beings are
cellular aggregates, but in animals the nervous system forms a centre
of unity, from whence proceed motor excitations and where sensible
excitations terminate; cellules and beings are organised to live: they
are adapted to the ambient medium, and to all the causes of destruction
which can reach them. Thus their acts, although often automatic and
deprived of all intelligence, appear to us admirably intelligent; the
sensations and consciousness of intelligent beings are in agreement
with the needs of the organism, and tend to strengthen the automatic
mechanisms by means of which beings resist death, whether it be the
death of the individual or that of the species.
M. Brochard takes exception to M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire's opinion of
Bacon as a philosopher, and endorses the views expressed by M. Charles
Adam in his Memoir crowned by the Academy. Bacon not only saw what
scientific induction should be, but indicated with perfect precision
the conditions that it ought to fulfil. Added to the theory of method
is the theory of forms, which is the culminating point of Bacon's
philosophy. M. Adam shows that the word _form_ is used by Bacon to
express the true difference, or that by which a thing is defined; the
essence or the thing in its intimate constitution; and a law of pure
act, (_lex actus puri_). M. Brochard adopts M. Adam's explanation, that
by this law is to be understood a disposition in space, an arrangement
of material parts, in other terms, a mechanical or mathematical
relation—and he justifies M. Adam's assertion, and shows that Bacon
resembled Galileo and Descartes in divining that physics rested on
mathematics, and that the pure act was produced whenever certain
arrangements of material molecules are formed according to mechanical
conditions. Bacon superposes, in some sort, a philosophy of quality
on a philosophy of quantity, and achieves the passage from movement
to quality so embarrassing for every doctrine which gives a place to
mechanism.
M. Janet concludes his study of the curious case of aboulism presented
by Marcelle, giving details of her experiences under the influence of
hypnotism and suggestion, which greatly ameliorated her condition,
temporarily at least. The nature of her disease approaches much the
mental feebleness described elsewhere by M. Janet under the name
of "psychological disaggregation with contracting of the field of
consciousness," but differs from it in several particulars. It consists
essentially in a weakening of the faculty of synthesis which ought,
at every moment of life, to co-ordinate afresh our sensations and our
images. The study of this enfeeblement shows the importance of the
novelty of acts in connection with the will, the rôle of the will in
apparently the most simple perceptions, the necessity of voluntary
synthesis for originating habits and recollections, the connection
between doubt and defective perception, and the development of various
hallucinations.
Before answering the question why we die, M. Delbœuf considers the
origin of life. He makes a distinction between dead matter and living
matter. On this subject he has published a book entitled "_La matière
brute et la matière vivante_." He affirms that life in the universe
began with living, sensible atoms, endowed with will and liberty,
and having a knowledge of their own movement. This life gradually
concentrated itself in germs having the faculty of perpetuating
themselves. They remained naked and some of those germs still continue
composed almost entirely of reproductive, that is essentially living,
substance. The others have gradually become clothed with a body, a kind
of protective envelope. The life of this envelope is not inherent; it
has been communicated by the germs that it protects, and at the end
of a period of a greater or less duration it becomes useless, fades
and dies. Life is sustained by nutrition but the assimilating faculty
diminishes by degrees, until it ceases, and at last, the reparation of
our organs not being equal to their wear, they are not able to fulfil
their mission. The decay of living matter is due to the operation of
physical and chemical laws. Assimilation is at the base of life, and it
is exhibited in inorganic nature as well as in living beings. Living
bodies must have some permanent centres of assimilation around which
the nutritive elements group. The earliest of these centres was the
germ, in which is the supreme or immortal life, and which immortalises
that part of the nutriment which becomes incorporated with it.
Although the organs of nutrition deteriorate and die, the reproductive
organs remain eternally young, in power at least. Nutrition itself is
manifested either as alimentation, or as conjugation or fecundation,
and is a phenomenon analogous to copulation. M. Delbœuf then proceeds
to show the uniformity in the modes of propagation, and gives reasons
for believing, contrary to the views of Van Beneden, that the
cellule-egg, and not the spermatozoid, is hermaphrodite. The ovary is
the true depository of the immortal propagative substance. Woman is the
inexhaustible source of life. (Paris: Felix Alcan.)
ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. II.
No. 3.
CONTENTS:
ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER SPRACHE. By _Robert Sommer_.
ZUR THEORIE DES RAEUMLICHEN VORSTELLENS MIT RUECKSICHT AUF EINE
NACHBILDLOKALISATION. By _C. S. Cornelius_.
DIE SEELENFRAGE. By _J. Rehmke_.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
Professor Grashey, now of Munich, formerly of Würzburg, has published
in the _Archiv für Psychiatrie_ (Vol. XVI, p. 654 ff.) an interesting
case of a peculiar kind of aphasia. A man whose name is Voit, 32
years old, engaged for menial service in the brewing business,
received an injury on the head. He was treated at the psychiatric
clinic of Würzburg by Professor Grashey and dismissed as cured,
yet five years after the accident he was again submitted to the
professor's investigations and it was found that he was suffering from
"amnestic aphasia." He could not remember the name of anything for
a few seconds. Professor Grashey drew the following conclusion from
Voit's case: "There is an aphasia which is based neither upon the
functionary inability of certain centres nor upon the interruption
of commissural connections, but exclusively upon a diminution of the
sense-impressions, which causes a disturbance of apprehension and
association." Voit was unable to name any object shown him unless he
could spell it with the assistance of his hands, legs, or even his
tongue. By writing only could he find the names of objects. Dr. Sommer
objects to Professor Grashey's interpretation of the case and shows
convincingly from the symptoms, as represented in the _Archiv für
Psychiatrie_ by Grashey himself, that whenever Voit was prevented from
making writing gestures (which was done by holding his hands and legs
immovable and by ordering him to show his tongue so that he could not
employ it for writing on the roof of his mouth) he could never find the
name of any object. Accordingly it is no case of amnesia; Voit actually
has only one way left for finding words, that is by spelling them. Now
it is generally supposed, that we first see an object, and recognise it
at the centre of vision. The nervous irritation is thence transmitted
to the centre of language; the sight of a knife evokes in the centre of
speech the word knife and we suppose that the spoken or heard word will
in the centre of writing awaken the motor stimuli of spelling the word.
The present case proves that if this be the rule there are exceptions
to it and Dr. Sommer proposes the question, How can we explain the
case? It is strange that the man is not deprived of concepts; so long
as he is prevented from writing he is only deprived of naming things
or concepts. He never failed to recognise similar things as belonging
to the same class, but so long as he was tied at tongue and limb, he
could never find their common name. For instance a guitar and a trumpet
were shown him while he was bound, as it was called. When asked, Do
they belong together? he nodded emphatically. (He had to answer by
nods because he had to show his tongue.) When asked, Do you know their
names? he shook his head and could never find their names until he was
allowed to make writing gestures with either one of his limbs or his
tongue. In this way he recognised and classified things correctly,
but he never named them except by spelling the names. Such things or
pictures of things shown him were the following:
Guitar—trumpet—: musical instruments.
Gun—canon—: arms.
Sickle—watering-pot—: utensils.
Lantern—lamp—: lights.
Palace—barn—: buildings, etc.
Dr. Sommer says: "Suppose that those parts of the brain the loss of
which according to modern experiments and pathological observations
cause a loss of memory-pictures, are thought of as motor apparatuses,
the destruction of which has a similar effect as in the present case,
the binding which prevented Voit from spelling: in this case amnesia
might find an explanation without the crude materialistic assumption
that they are localised in the injured cells." Dr. Sommer only throws
out the hint without finding space to explain himself. Yet it appears
to us that whether amnesia is produced by the destruction of the
centres or of their supposed motor apparatuses that the one is not
less and not more crude materialism than the other. The problem it
appears has nothing to do with materialism, but with the mechanism
of the brain. The fibres of association seem to work in Voit's brain
in the opposite direction to what we should expect. The normal path
is apparently interrupted. The sight of an object does not evoke its
name. Yet are there not innumerable fibres of association which may
reach the desired end—in this case the pronunciation of the name—in
a roundabout way? There must be, for the facts prove it. One thing in
the case of Voit is patent. When Voit finds the names by writing them,
he apparently knows the written word, he cannot pronounce it, because
he does not know the spoken word, the centre of spoken words being the
seat of the injury. He has a concept of the thing, he could write it,
but he cannot pronounce it. The roundabout way leads through a province
not directly accessible to consciousness. The written word is not in
the same immediate contact with consciousness as the spoken word. That
this is so we know from actual and daily experience. Who has not tried
to assure himself of the correct spelling of a word by writing it down
and thus leaving the test to the unconscious memory of the motions of
our hand?
C. S. Cornelius discusses the theory of spatial conception with special
reference to a localisation of after-images. He takes the position
that we are in relation to the outer world through sensation only,
rejecting all assumptions of innate ideas, of a special space sense,
etc. "Sensation," he says, "is an intensive state. The conception of
space-relations can originate only by a multiplicity of sensations
which through the qualitative contrasts affect each other and arrange
themselves in a certain order beside each other. The vertical and
horizontal conception height and breadth, are easily explained, but
depth, the third dimension of space affords some difficulty." Th.
Lipps denies the existence of an apprehension of depth, yet Cornelius
maintains that it actually exists. He explains it in the same way as
the vertical and horizontal space-conceptions as originating from
muscle sensation.
It cannot be denied that upon the whole space-sense is the product and
the interpretation of motion experiences mainly due to the activity
of the muscles of the eye. But it appears that the conception of the
third dimension of sight is not due alone, as says Cornelius, to
muscle activity. The investigations of Wundt and of Mach, which are
not taken into consideration by Cornelius, prove that the perspective
and the distribution of light and shade are essential elements in
our perception of the third dimension in space. Our eyes have become
accustomed by the information received through other channels,
especially the sense of touch, to interpret perspective in combination
with certain shadings as depth so that _even the one-eyed_ man sees
things not as two dimensional pictures but as three dimensional
corporeal forms.
A subject of extraordinary interest is discussed by J. Rehmke, who
criticises O. Flügel's position and contrasts it with his own. O.
Flügel has published a book, entitled _Die Seelenfrage_, treating
the subject from the narrow standpoint of Herbart's school. It is
unnecessary to state that Herbart has great merits in the evolution
of our psychological views. He attempted to introduce mathematical
methods in order to define exactly the dynamics and statics of the
soul. Herbart failed, although he gave new impulses to psychological
investigations which have proved valuable in many ways. Many of his
disciples are now busy perpetuating his mistakes. Flügel is one among
them. Flügel emphasises the immateriality of the soul, but being like
his master an advocate of atomism he postulates soul atoms which are
mathematical points. "Atomism," Flügel declares, "must reject actio
in distans" because it is (1) inconceivable, (2) nonsensical and
contradictory, and (3) because force is an accidens of matter, matter
being the substance. The accidens can have no effects, it cannot
exist, where the substance is not. Flügel also lays much stress on
the disparity of feeling and motion, and of thought and motion. Soul
and body are to him two distinct things and their interaction is
explained through the contact of the point-like, immaterial soul atom
and the brain atoms. Rehmke points out that this view in spite of its
professed hostility toward materialism is extremely materialistic,
but the view which he proposes himself suffers from similar errors.
Flügel has preserved the unity and the immortality of the soul which is
an indestructible immaterial mathematical point, moving about in our
brain. Rehmke also preserves the unity and immortality of the soul: he
believes in a "subjectum," in an ego which is the essence having the
states of consciousness as attributes. The soul according to Rehmke is
not space-given, it is an immaterial something which has sensations. We
should accordingly make a distinction between the ego as the subject
and the ego as our bodily existence; moreover we should distinguish
between the state of consciousness and the object of consciousness.
Rehmke takes the word contents of consciousness in the sense of
signifying that which the "ego" possesses. The state of consciousness
is always the same, it has no evolution, no growth, no development.
The object of consciousness however constantly changes. The subject
of consciousness is the soul. The interconnection between soul and
body is not denied, but there can be no thought of a contact between
the immaterial and the material. The soul is, but it is not in space,
it is nowhere, and its co-operation with the body is described as "an
exemplary together"—an expression to which, we are sorry to say, we
cannot attach any meaning.
J. Rehmke objects also to the theory that feeling and motion, soul and
body, the spiritual and the material are two sides of one and the same
thing. If this two sides theory were correct, he says, the soul would
be an abstract and so would be the body. But, he adds, all abstracts
are immutable, unchangeable and the object of psychology is something
that is observed to possess evolution. Now it is true that some
abstracts represent immutable concepts; matter is such an abstract.
Matter is that which all matters have in common and the abstract matter
is everywhere the same; we cannot speak of the evolution of matter as
such. But other abstracts are not so rigid. Take for instance life.
Life is an abstract, but it would be a strange proposition to say that
there can be no evolution of life because life is an abstract, all
abstracts being unchangeable, immutable, invariable.
We cannot agree with Flügel, but J. Rehmke's psychological views are
still less acceptable. (Hamburg and Leipsic: L. Voss.)
κρς.
VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XV. Nos. 1
and 2.
CONTENTS:
DER SOGENANNTE NAIVE REALISMUS. By _R. Seydel_.
DAS PROBLEM DER AUSSENWELT. By _S. Hansen_.
EXPERIMENTELLE PATHO-PSYCHOLOGIE. (Erster Artikel.) By _M.
Dessoir_.
UEBER ANSCHAUUNG UND IHRE PSYCHISCHE VERARBEITUNG. By _B. Kerry_.
DER FOLGERUNGSCALCUL UND DIE INHALTSLOGIK. By _E. G. Husserl_.
EXPERIMENTELLE PATHO-PSYCHOLOGIE. (Zweiter Artikel.) By _M.
Dessoir_.
R. Seydel regards sight alone as space-sense and the other senses
as time-senses. This, he says, is the reason why there is no "naïve
realism" for any other sense but sight.
S. Hansen, taking our concepts and sensations as the data from which we
have to start, discusses the problem of the reality of the outer world.
He arrives at the conclusion, that "if there is a thing in itself, the
phenomenon is only one side of it, viz, that side which it reveals.
The thing in itself is the real world in which we live and of which we
speak in daily life, although we know it only through phenomena, i. e.
our concepts."
Max Dessoir presents a review of Experimental Patho-psychology as it
has developed in the last decades through the extraordinary attention
bestowed upon the phenomena of hypnotism and kindred subjects. He
discusses experimental patho-psychology with special reference to the
great problems of (1) consciousness, (2) the relation between feeling
and motion, (3) memory, and (4) personality. The two former points are
discussed in the first article, the two latter in the conclusion. Max
Dessoir emphasises in this essay again his theory of the double ego
which he proposed in his pamphlet, _Das Doppel-Ich_.
B. Kerry's article is the conclusion of a series of essays on intuition
(i. e. apprehension or sensation) and its psychical transformation.
The author distinguishes between subjective concepts and objective
concepts. If I think for instance of all the grapes that will grow
this year in Italy, I do not know in my subjective conception their
definite number. It is a definite number nevertheless. This concept is
the objective concept. He devotes much space to a discussion of the
rigidity of Kant's aprioristic judgment 7+5=12. The most important
point is ultimately _how_ this judgment possesses necessity. The author
observes that the theorems of arithmetic possess necessity while we
cannot attribute necessity to the results of calculation. Our faculty
of calculation, B. Kerry says, should be considered as aprioristic,
or more correctly, it is a complex of primitive faculties, and these
are: "our faculty to apprehend in some contents of our apprehension
something else which is designated afterwards as a concept derived
from that contents; that is our faculty of forming abstracts. Further
our faculty of comparison and at last our faculty of combining and
separating. These faculties are aprioristic in the psychological
sense of the word, which to-day is not recognised, in the sense of
being innate." The whole article is written in a heavy style and
in extra-Teutonic constructions with innumerable dashes containing
parenthetical sentences and other bewildering explanations. We have
after all not been able to discover how the judgment 7+5=12 possesses
necessity.
E. G. Husserl criticises the position of several modern logicians,
Boole, Venn, Peirce, and especially E. Schroeder, who published in the
_Göttinger Gelehrten Anzeigen_ an article on the Logical Calculus.
Husserl says that "the logic of the logical calculus is in a wretched
condition still. Its advocates have attained to clearness neither
concerning the limits of this discipline nor its relation to deductive
logic and to arithmetic. The logical considerations upon which the
technique is built, are as a rule of such a kind that they cannot
bear the most superficial criticism. And this calculus pretends to be
a thoroughly reformed and the truly exact logic. It is natural that
among the logicians the more scientific upon the whole keep aloof here.
However the logical foundation of arithmetic is just as weak, yet this
does not suffice to discard it. I believe that logical algebra in spite
of its limited practical applicability should not be underrated, and
that it should be of high interest to the logician for the sake of its
actual merits." In the struggle between the logic of circumference
and the logic of contents, Husserl maintains that a calculus of pure
deductions can be constructed upon the basis of operations which are
strictly without any contents. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)
Κ.
PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVII. Nos. 5 and 6.
CONTENTS:
WILHELM WUNDT'S "SYSTEM DER PHILOSOPHIE." By _Johannes Volkelt_.
DIE DAENISCHE PHILOSOPHIE DES LETZTEN JAHRZEHNTS. By _Knud Ipsen_.
RECENSIONEN.
LITTERATURBERICHT.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE. By Prof. Dr. _F. Ascherson_.