96 NOTES AND COMMENTS [august 1899 



consistent thought ought to take up this unamusing book." But it 

 has all the charm of boldness, originality, and evident conviction. 

 Whether we agree or not we are forced to think. There are, too, 

 many passages which stimulate by their piquancy. Of the greatest 

 possible happiness of the greatest possible number, " that discouraging- 

 phrase in which the whole vulgarity of a naturalistic century seems 

 condensed," he asks, " is it really the source of inspiration for an ideal 

 soul, and does our conscience really look out for titillation in connection 

 with a majority vote ? " Again in the essay on " Psychology and 

 Mysticism " he says : " The telepathists annihilate the theosophists, and 

 the spiritualists belittle the telepathists ; and when the Christian 

 scientists and metaphysical healers on the one side, the mind curers 

 and faith curers on the other side, have spoken of each other, there 

 remain few abusive words at the disposal of us outsiders." 



The gist of Prof. Miinsterberg's argument, so far as it can be 

 presented in a few words, is as follows. Physical science deals with 

 the phenomena of which it treats in terms of matter and motion ; 

 mental science devotes its attention to states of consciousness. The 

 one leads to materialism, the other to idealism. Both are right 

 within the limits of an ideal construction elaborated for specific ends. 

 Both are utterly wrong if they seek to impose their special isms 

 beyond these limits. In other words their final conclusion is scientifi- 

 cally valid but philosophically monstrous. Human life and conduct 

 present abundant material both to physics and to psychology, material 

 to be explained in terms of cause and effect ; but " the interests of life 

 have not to do with causes and effects, but with purposes and means ; 

 in life we feel ourselves as units and as free agents, bound by culture 

 and not only by nature, factors in a system of history and not only 

 atoms in a mechanism." This may seem to some a hard saying ; nor 

 will it sound less hard when it is urged that the real world of pur- 

 poses and teleological ends in which we live is endlessly fuller and 

 richer than that shadow of reality which we mean by physical and 

 psychological existence. There are plenty of hard sayings in Prof. 

 Miinsterberg's book. But though we may not agree with some of his 

 main positions which appear to us open to criticism, he knows quite 

 well what he is discussing, he is trained alike in physics and psycho- 

 logy, he is well acquainted with the stock, and often cheap, arguments 

 of the materialist, and he is a thinker whose thought is not to be 

 lightly disregarded and brushed aside simply because it does not 

 chance to be consonant with our own. Hence we commend his book 

 to serious naturalists, who can spare some attention to human affairs, 

 not necessarily for acceptance but at any rate for careful consideration. 



