360 SOME NEW BOOKS [November 



accuracy and expedition that farmers are supplied with warnings which enable 

 them to take precautions which result in the prevention of much injury to their 

 field crops and fruits. In the Division of Soils progress has been made with 

 the electric method of moisture determination. "The work includes the record 

 of evaporation to which the plant is subjected, the water supply maintained by 

 the soil for supplying the loss due to this evaporation, and the intensity of the 

 actinic and heat radiations which influence the physiological activities of the 

 plant." The electrical method of salt determination in soils has proved of 

 special value in areas which have been over-irrigated. The year's expenditure 

 of the Agricultural Department amounted to the enormous total of over 

 £480,000 sterling, and about one-fourth of this sum was spent upon the 

 printing and circulation of agricultural literature. So great is the desire for 

 information through this source that the supply is not ecpial to the demand. 



Among the thirty-six special articles which are comprised in Part II. of this 

 bulky volume, may be mentioned the following, which have more or less direct 

 interest to readers in this country : — Some Types of American Agricultural 

 Colleges, The Danger of introducing Noxious Animals and Birds, The Prepara- 

 tion and Use of Tuberculin, Pruning of Trees and other Plants, Utilising Sur- 

 plus Fruit, Construction of good Country lloads, Grass Seed and its Impurities, 

 and Notes on some English Farms and Farming. The book is beautifully 

 illustrated with 42 full-page plates, and 136 figures in the letterpress. 



E. Wallace. 



INHIBITED. 



On Inhibition. By B. B. Breese. Psychological-Review, iii., 1899 : 

 Monograph Supplement, No. 41, pp. 65. 



The author gives a long account of a very elaborate series of experiments he 

 has lately made to determine what conditions, both subjective and objective, 

 affect binocular rivalry. He first gives an account of the views held in regard 

 to inhibition by many psychologists, from Spinoza to Ladd. He concludes 

 that these may be classified into five conceptions, the first four entirely psychical, 

 and the fifth psychophysical. 



" Almost universally," he says, " the instances of inhibition cited by the fore- 

 going psychologists involve definite bodily activities, either within the field of 

 sense perception or bodily movements. These instances fall under the following 

 classes : — 



1. Inhibition of one sensation by another : A faint sound is inhibited by a 

 loud sound ; a slight pain by a greater pain. 



2. Inhibition of bodily movements by sensation : A sudden sight or sound 

 may inhibit movements of walking, breathing or the action of the heart. Pain 

 may inhibit the movements which cause it. 



3. Motor activity may inhibit mental states : Activity in battle may in- 

 hibit fear. Motor activity inhibits the feelings of embarrassment. If, when 

 trying to remember a name, some other name very similar is pronounced the 

 first name is inhibited. 



4. Emotions may inhibit bodily functions : Shame inhibits the action of the 

 vasomoter muscles. Great dread inhibits the flow of saliva. Great grief in- 

 hibits the flow of the blood to the brain. 



5. Will may inhibit the voluntary and half-voluntary movements of the 

 body, and, to a certain extent, the involuntary muscles. Some people are able 

 to decrease the activity of the heart at will. 



Experimentally he has investigated two phases of inhibition within this 

 field :— 



(1) Inhibition of one sensation by another, and 



(2) Inhibition of mental states through suppression of their motor 



elements." 



