Dr. C. du Bois-Reymond believes that corporeal vision is either produced
by one eye running in succession over several places or two eyes viewing
two aspects of the object. Mach’s theory of the influence of shade upon
the production of the third dimension in vision which affords quite a
new and a better explanation of the phenomenon is not mentioned. Stumpf
closes his controversy with Wundt with a few remarks in answer to Wundt’s
reply (in _Philos. Studien_ VII, pp. 298-327); and Flügel objects to
Professor Rehmke’s proposition made in a criticism of Flügel’s book “Die
Seelenfrage,” that Herbart’s psychology, being atomism, is at bottom
materialism.
Dr. Richard Greeff describes Hering’s apparatus for investigating the
cause of binocular vision. Wheatstone believes that the perspective
of the two retina pictures produces the effect of corporeality while
Brücke declares that it is mainly due to muscle-sensations. Hering sides
with Wheatstone, and the experiments as described by Greeff prove that
the third dimension is unfailingly perceived whenever the ocular axes
diverge, while in other cases the same result is not attained.
Dr. Sommer had presented in a former article the facts of an interesting
case of aphasia, (see _The Monist_, Vol. I, No. 4, p. 629) where the
patient, his name is Voit, could remember and pronounce words only when
writing them. Prof. A. Pick objects to Dr. Sommer’s regarding the case as
contrary to our present experience and following two French authorities
Ballet and Bernard, adduces cases of Aphasia by right-sided hemiphlegia
where patients could read only when they were able to write or represent
to themselves the writing motions of their hand. Thus one patient of
Charcot could only read print, and not written words “because,” as
he said, “it was easier for him to reproduce in his mind the written
letter.” This reminds one of the case a deaf-mute who said: “I feel
whenever I think of the motions of my fingers although they are perfectly
at rest. I see internally an image of my moving fingers.” Professor Pick
concludes that the case Voit is a good argument against Max Müller’s
proposition of the identity of language and thought. Max Müller however
includes in his conception of word any symbol of an idea. The finger
motion of a deaf-mute is a word, and the writing motion of Voit is also a
word, according to Professor Max Müller’s theory.
Prof. H. v. Helmholtz publishes the tables of his experiments in applying
the psycho-physical law upon color differences of trichromatic eyes, and
presents the three fundamental colors diagrammatically in an equilateral
triangle in the centre of which lies white. A curve winding round
this centre shows the relation of the rainbow spectrum in the system
of three fundamental colors. The results do not as yet agree with the
investigations of A. König and C. Diterici who make similar inquiries
with bichromatic eyes. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)
κρς.
VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XVI. No. 1.