HANDBOOK OF PSYCHOLOGY. In two volumes; Senses and Intellect, and,
Feeling and Will. By _James Mark Baldwin_, M. A., Ph. D., Professor in
the University of Toronto. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1891.
These are two books diligently worked out, the former of 343, the latter
of 397 pp. They cover almost the entire field of psychology excluding
however the treatment of such abnormal states as are Mental Pathology
and Hypnotism. The author is a disciple of Dr. McCosh, and is strongly
influenced by Wundt, of Leipzig, and Rabier, of Paris; yet he has
developed an independent view of the nature of the soul which perhaps
comes nearest to that of Prof. William James, of Harvard. The two books
are actually two parts of one work, the one complementing the other. The
former however is not, as the name suggests, an exposition of the nature
of the senses in their relation to or as the basis of the intellect; it
is an inquisition into consciousness, sensation, perception, association,
imagination, rational thought, and kindred subjects. The latter, after
an introduction of 50 pp., characterising the mechanism of the nervous
system, treats of feeling as sensation, as pleasure and pain, as interest
and belief, as emotion, and passes over to the subject of a motor
consciousness, or will, ending in a chapter on volition.
Professor Baldwin states that “after we enter consciousness we find a
principle of apperception to which there is no analogy in physiological
integration,” adding in a foot-note: “Since the section of the ‘Unity
of Composition’ theory was written, Professor James has published an
acute criticism in substantial agreement with it, and the passage quoted
makes reference to the sixth chapter of Professor James’s Psychology
in which he rejects the so-called ‘mind-stuff,’ theory, declaring a
self-compounding of mental facts to be inadmissible and proposes at last
what he calls ‘soul-theory.’” Professor James in this chapter commits the
mistake indicated in the editorial of the last number of _The Monist_ (p.
248) that he considers things as things in themselves and then looks for
a relation producing principle. He says:
“In the parallelogram of forces, the ‘forces’ themselves do not combine
into the diagonal resultant; a _body_ is needed on which they may
impinge, to exhibit their resultant effect.”
“Take a sentence of a dozen words, and take twelve men and tell to each
one word. Then stand the men in a row or jam them in a bunch, and let
each think of his word as intently as he will; nowhere will there be a
consciousness of the whole sentence.”
Thus Professor W. James is in need of what he calls a “medium.” He says:
“_All the ‘combinations’ which we actually know are EFFECTS, wrought by
the units said to be ‘combined,’ UPON SOME ENTITY OTHER THAN THEMSELVES._
Without this feature of a medium or vehicle, the notion of combination
has no sense.”
We observe that feelings which originate through the impressions of
the outer world upon some sentient organism, enter into relations to
each other, as naturally as things are in relations, or under certain
circumstances will enter more closely into relations with each other.
The “soul” accordingly is postulated by Professor James as a medium to
combine the effects of the manifold brain processes in order to “escape
the absurdity of supposing feelings which exist separately and then ‘fuse
together’ by themselves. The separateness is in the brain-world, on
this theory, and the unity in the soul world, and the only trouble that
remains to haunt us is the metaphysical one of understanding how one sort
of world or existent thing can affect or influence another at all.” This
is dualism and we suppose that Professor James is conscious of it.
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UNTERSUCHUNGEN ZUR PHYSIOLOGISCHEN MORPHOLOGIE DER THIERE. II.
ORGANBILDUNG UND WACHSTHUM. By Dr. _Jacques Loeb_. Mit 2 Tafeln in
Lithographie und 9 Figuren im Text. Würzburg: Georg Hertz. 1892.
Dr. Jacques Loeb formerly of Zürich and lately returned from the
Zoological station at Naples has been appointed Professor at Bryn Mawr
College, Pennsylvania. Former publications of his were reviewed in _The
Monist_ I, No. 2, p. 300. The present pamphlet is a continuance of his
investigations in physiological morphology. Some of his experiments are
made with _Antennularia antennina_ (a hydroid polyp) and the author
describes how without mutilation, simply by giving the creature a fixed
position he succeeded in making it develop certain organs in certain
places, thus proving gravitation to be an important factor in determining
the growth of certain limbs. Dr. Loeb adds a few articles on the
dependence of the longitudinal growth and also of the regeneration of
Tubularia upon the concentration of the salt-water. His experiments with
_Ciona intestinalis_ (a solitary ascidia) prove that (1) a section in the
side of the oral orifice as well as of the anus will cause the formation
of ocelli on the margin of the section, (2) after an extirpation of the
central nervous system the reflexes continue although with a higher
threshold of the stimulus, and (3) the ciona is capable of developing the
central nervous system again.
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DAS DASEIN ALS LUST, LEID, UND LIEBE. Die altindische Weltanschauung in
neuzeitlicher Darstellung. Ein Beitrag zum Darwinismus. Mit 2 Tondrucken,
24 Zeichnungen und 10 Tabellen. By Dr. _Hübbe-Schleiden_. Braunschweig:
C. A. Schwetschke & Sohn, 1891.
The author of this book is Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden, editor of _The Sphinx_,
a monthly magazine published in Germany which professes to “lay down
historically and experimentally the supersensible World-Conception upon
a monistic basis.” Love of Mysticism is the main feature of _The Sphinx_
as well as Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden’s book. _The Sphinx_ contains reports
of cases of telepathy and is quite serious in investigating the spook
of a haunted house. The present book contains the author’s confession
of faith. The symbols by which he depicts his world-conception reveal
a cabalistic taste, and we believe that the illustrations will be
rather repugnant to the man of science, as they give the impression of
fantasticism. The main idea of the book is to modernise the old Hindoo
view that “Kama” desire or _Lust_ is the ground of all being, as is said
in the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad (IV, 4, 5): “Man consists entirely of
desire (_Kama_); as is his desire, so is his will (_Kratu_); as is his
will, so is his life (_Karma_, i. e., activity); as is his life, so is
his fate.”
Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden rejects the Hindoo view of a migration of soul in
so far as it suggests the idea of something personal; he prefers to
speak of a transformation of soul. This, he says, has been and it may be
called “metaphysical Darwinism”, and we must confess that the nucleus
of the idea touches the most vital point of all the problems of life.
We cannot explain ethics and the ethical instinct of man without taking
into consideration that man lives and aspires for something that will
outlast his individual existence. The author says: “Why do you strive
for something higher, for perfection, for completion or whatever your
aim may be called? Why all that, if you imagine that your individuality
has only this one life upon earth and you can realise only a very small
part of what you strive for? Why all your trouble, if the main thing is
in vain?” We agree with the author that our moral instinct, our ideals
and aspirations which are most powerful realities in life point to a life
beyond the grave, they indicate that death is no finality and evolution
teaches us that our souls actually continue to exist. Our souls in their
individual features are parts only of the whole evolution of our race and
these very individual features of our souls can be and will be preserved
in the future generations.
Dr. Hübbe-Schleiden’s book is characteristic of a strange tendency of
our time to combine the results of modern science with the old notions
of occultism. There is in it a psychological and ethical truth overgrown
with a fanciful imagination.
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MAX MÜLLER AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE. A Criticism. By _William Dwight
Whitney_, Professor in Yale University. New York: D. Appleton and
Company. 1892.
The Professors W. D. Whitney and F. Max Müller are not on good terms.
They do not only disagree on several fundamental and many minor points,
concerning the science of language, but their warfare, as is well known,
is at the same time of a personal nature. The present little volume is a
criticism of the new edition of Max Müller’s “Science of Language.” The
great Yale philologist recognising that this work of his antagonistic
Oxford colleague “is still the principal and most authoritative text-book
of that study,” and noting that “its author has gained no new light from
the criticisms that have been made upon his work,” feels called upon to
warn the reader that “it may not be trusted where it is untrustworthy and
so do harm to the science which it was intended to help.” The title of
the book, according to Professor Whitney, ought to be “Facts and Fancies
in Regard to Language and Other Related Subjects.”
Schleicher says: “Languages are natural organisms which, without
being determinable by the will of man, grew and developed themselves
in accordance with fixed laws.... Its method is on the whole and in
general the same with that of the other natural sciences.” Professor
Whitney censures Max Müller for calling the first part of Schleicher’s
proposition “sheer mythology,” and then adopting the inference made
therefrom considering the science of language as a physical science. Now
it is true that the expression “organism” must not be taken literally;
languages are not animals or plants, but they have some quality that is
comparable to animals and plants. Their life and the development of their
life is in many respects analogous to the life of organisms. Professor
Whitney regards language as “a body of conventional signs for ideas” and
protests against Prof. Max Müller’s usage of the word “conventional” as
if it implied “a convention of people gathered to discuss and decide
on the words and forms by which conceptions should be represented.” In
contradistinction to Max Müller who holds that philology is a physical
science, Professor Whitney regards it as an historical science. “Physical
science,” says Max Müller, “deals with the works of God, historical
science with the works of man.” Thus optics is a physical science,
painting an historical science. Whitney declares that individuals
initiate changes and the community either accepts and uses them, making
them language by its use or rejects and annuls them by refusing to use
them. In one word Max Müller says language is φύσει, a product of nature,
and Whitney says it is θέσει, an institution of man. We believe that
Professor Whitney stands almost alone in his conception of language.
Another no less important point is Professor Whitney’s objection to Prof.
Max Müller’s proposition of the Identity of Language and Thought. Here
Professor Whitney will find many supporters for his case; but we must
add that Prof. Max Müller does not exactly mean what he says. He means
by identity inseparableness. It is not so much Max Müller’s position
that should be attacked as his misleading terminology. Concerning the
origin of language Professor Whitney finds an instructive parallel in the
beginnings of writing which were mutually intelligible signs, or in the
written language of mathematics. “So we do no longer see,” he says, “the
two and three strokes in our figures 2 and 3, although they are really
there disguised from view.” This is a good simile, and undoubtedly _cum
grano salis_ true. But it is rather strange that Professor Whitney should
find Noiré’s theory of the origin of language “utterly fantastic.”
These are fundamental differences. There are some more, less important
points such as the etymology of king being the Sanskrit _janaka_. Max
Müller proposes a very improbable reason for the change of meaning in the
Lat. _fagus_, O. Germ. _boka_ (beech), Greek _phegos_, Lat. _quercus_,
and Germ. _foraha_ (fir). Professor Whitney might have mentioned that a
more probable reason for this change has been proposed of late by those
who seek the home of the Aryans in Europe. A migrating people would
naturally have called in their old home the beech, in their new the oak
“a tree with edible fruit.” The same method is applicable to explain the
change of meaning in _forah-a-quercus_ which means in northern countries
a fir and in Italy an oak.
Professor Whitney sums up his case as follows (p. 77): he finds “language
study ... declared on transparently false grounds, to be a physical
science, and language an existence which man had no part in making
and changing; dialectic growth misunderstood, families of language
regarded as exceptional, and a ‘Turanian’ barathrum arranged to catch
all little-known varieties of speech; antecedent unity of dialect taught
in one case and denied in another; a word held to be killed by the
least mispronunciation; _conventional_ explained to mean ‘voted by a
convention’; thought and its expression viewed as inseparable, and even
identical; the origin of language seemingly ascribed to an instinctive
ding-dong of the tongue—and so on; to complete the list would be almost
to give a table of principal contents of the two volumes—and a style of
discussion used throughout which indicated that the author was playing
with his subject rather than investigating it seriously.... The book is
not science, but literature. Taken as literature, it is of high rank, as
the admiration of the public sufficiently testifies; its author has a
special gift for interesting statement and illustration, for lending a
charm to the subjects he discusses; and he carries captive the judgments
of his hearers and of many of his readers. He is a born _littérateur_.”
Professor Whitney concludes: “Now as heretofore, I rest my defense on not
the just intent alone, but the real substantial justice of my criticisms;
if they are unfounded, I deserve reprehension for making them; if they
are right, then there is nothing, either in the degree of importance of
the subjects to which they relate, or in the personality against whom
they are directed, to call for their condemnation.”
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SEIFENBLASEN. Moderne Märchen. By _Kurd Lasswitz_. Hamburg and Leipsic:
Leopold Voss. 1890.
“Märchen,” in the province of science, we are inclined to believe are
a prize problem for our modern poets. Who will solve it? Kurd Lasswitz
has made an attempt and considering the great difficulty of the problem,
we are not inclined to criticise him. The author, who has worked in
scientific fields and has proved his ability as a close student, exhibits
in these “soap-bubbles” a fertile imagination and poetic invention. Most
of his sketches fall short of the ideal märchen of science as we conceive
it, but their reading is suggestive and deserves the attention of those
whose disposition favors the creation of a middle ground between science
and poetry.
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