LITERARY NOTICES. 



849 



inquiries, and testing with her the infer- 

 ences drawn from his experience with his 

 first-born. There were two other infants 

 under his observation at the time, though 

 not so constantly and uninterruptedly as 

 were his own children. In pursuing these 

 studies Prof. Baldwin was led on to an en- 

 largement of view concerning the mode and 

 order of unfolding of mind in infancy, and 

 the genesis of mind itself, and it is to this 

 enlargement of view that we are indebted 

 for the present work. It was while studying 

 the child's imitations and their relation to 

 volition that there came to him such a reve- 

 lation concerning the function of imitation in 

 the evolution of mind that he resolved to 

 work out a theory of mental development 

 embodying this new insight ; and he soon 

 saw that no consistent view of mental de- 

 velopment in the individual could be reached 

 without a doctrine of the race development 

 of consciousness. With this conviction he 

 undertook to make a synthesis of the biologi- 

 cal theory of organic adaptation with the 

 conception of infant development he had 

 already reached. The work, he says, is a 

 treatise upon this problem an attempt to 

 form a system of " genetic psychology." 

 We can not give a fair account of Prof. 

 Baldwin's theory in the limits of a book 

 notice. But we will say, briefly, that he 

 bases it upon the law of dynamogenesis, 

 " which current psychology and biology 

 agree in accepting as a well-established prin- 

 ciple of the manifestations of organic and 

 mental life. The principle of contractility, 

 recognized in biology, simply states that all 

 stimulations to living matter from proto- 

 plasm to the highest vegetable and animal 

 structures if they take effect at all, tend 

 to bring about movements or contractions 

 in the mass of the organism. It is now also 

 safely established as a phenomenon of con- 

 sciousness that every sensation or incoming 

 process tends to bring about action or out- 

 going process." It should be remarked here 

 that the rise of hypnotism in late years has 

 opened the way to an entirely new method 

 of mental study. And it is now understood 

 that " suggestion by idea, or through con- 

 sciousness, must be recognized to be as fun- 

 damental a kind of motor stimulus as the 

 direct excitation of a sense organ." Some 

 idea of the importance of suggestion in mod- 

 vol. xlvii. 69 



ern psychology may be gained by noting the 

 headings Prof. Baldwin has given to the sec- 

 tions in the long chapter upon this subject. 

 They are (1) General Definition; (2) Physi- 

 ological Suggestion ; (3) Sensori-motor Sug- 

 gestion ; (4) Ideo-motor Suggestion;* (5) 

 Subconscious Adult Suggestion; (6) Inhibi- 

 tory Suggestion; (7) Hypnotic Suggestion; 

 (8) Law of Dynamogenesis. 



In attempting to reach some kind of 

 formula of dynamogenesis, Prof. Baldwin 

 found the definitions of " suggestion " in the 

 psychologies very conflicting, and he there- 

 fore adopted the most general description of 

 suggestive reaction i. e., "that it always 

 issues in a movement more or less closely 

 associated in earlier experience with the par- 

 ticular stimulus in question." This defini- 

 tion constitutes suggestion a phenomenon of 

 habit ; but many suggestions issue in move- 

 ments not exactly like those before associ- 

 ated with these stimuli. Many of them be- 

 get new movements, by a kind of adaptation 

 of the organism, which are an improvement 

 upon those the organism has formerly ac- 

 complished. This kind of adaptation Prof. 

 Baldwin names Accommodation, and one of 

 the main subjects discussed in the book is 

 this theory of accommodation. The chapter 

 upon suggestion closes with these words : 

 " So far as we have gone we have a right to 

 use the principle of suggestion as a principle 

 of dynamogenesis whenever we mean to 

 say simply that action follows stimulus. But 

 when we come to ask what kind of action 

 follows in each case each special kind of 

 stimulus, we have two possibilities before us. 

 A habit may follow or an accommodation may 

 follow. Which is it? And why is it one 

 rather than the other ? These are the ques- 

 tions of the theory of organic development 

 to which our next chapters are devoted." 

 These nine chapters are upon The Theory 

 of Development ; The Origin of Motor Atti- 

 tudes and Expressions ; Organic Imitation ; 

 Conscious Imitation (begun) ; The Origin of 

 Memory and Association; Conscious Imita- 

 tion (continued) ; The Origin of Thought and 

 Emotion ; Conscious Imitation (concluded) ; 



* Prof . Baldwin observed his children during 

 their first two years to discover, if possible, 

 whether ideo-motor suggestion is a normal thing, 

 and the section upon this subject has absorbing 

 interest. 



