LITERARY NOTICES. 



273 



" the boundary line of the mental is certain- 

 ly vague. It is better npt to be pedantic, 

 but to let the science be as vague as its sub- 

 ject, and include such phenomena [instinct- 

 ive and reflex acts of self-preservation] if 

 by so doiDg we can throw any light on the 

 main business in hand." He recognizes that 

 at a certain stage in every science vagueness 

 best consists with fertility, and quotes in 

 illustration the Spencerian formula that life 

 consists in " the adjustment of inner to outer 

 relations," which he says has done much 

 real service in psychology though it is 

 "vagueness incarnate." He further says 

 that "because it takes into account the fact 

 that minds inhabit environments which act 

 on them and on which they react ; because, 

 in short, it takes mind in the midst of all its 

 concrete relations, it is immensely more fer- 

 tile than the old-fashioned rational psychol- 

 ogy which treated the soul as a detached ex- 

 istent, sufficient unto itself, and assumed to 

 consider only its nature and properties. I 

 shall, therefore, feel free to make any sallies 

 into zoology or into pure nerve-physiology 

 which may seem instructive for our pur- 

 poses." The whole book, we are told, will 

 be more or less a proof of the proposition 

 that the brain is the one immediate bodily 

 condition of the mental operations. 



Accordingly, Chapter II treats through *78 

 pages of the Functions of the Brain, and 

 Chapter III, of over 20 pages, considers 

 the General Conditions of Brain Activity. 

 These two chapters embody the latest as- 

 sured results of experiment and observation, 

 along with much comment and elucidation, 

 and are very interesting and instructive. In 

 Chapter IV the subject of Habit is dealt 

 with in a most practical and impressive man- 

 ner. The author supports his statements by 

 liberal quotations from Dr. Carpenter's Men- 

 tal Physiology. He closes with six or seven 

 pages upon the Ethical Implications of the 

 Law of Habit, addressed chiefly to the young, 

 and bearing on the formation of charac- 

 ter. Chapter V, on the Automatic Theory, 

 and Chapter VI, on Mind-stuff, are lively, con- 

 troversial, theoretical, all-sided, and strik- 

 ingly display both the author's gifts of ex- 

 pression and peculiarities of method. Be- 

 ginners are warned against several chapters 

 in the book as too metaphysical, the one on 

 Mind-stuff among them. If the trusting ne- 

 VOL. XXXVIII. 19 



ophyte could read this chapter understand- 

 ing^, it is hard to imagine the state of mind 

 produced in him by the concluding para- 

 graph, wherein all the points that have just 

 been so conclusively refuted are affirmed to 

 be, in the present state of our knowledge, 

 the only ground of a scientific psychology. 

 This backing and filling seem very odd in a 

 text-book ; but the author evidently can not 

 help it. His aptitudes and tendencies are 

 too strong to be vesisted. And perhaps this 

 non-committal, bantering, disputatious way 

 of presenting all sides of the subject is the 

 best possible one for the author's purpose as 

 a teacher. 



Chapter VII, on The Methods and Snares 

 of Psychology, and Chapter VIII, on The 

 Relations of Mind to Other Things, are also 

 too difficult for beginners. They treat of 

 the " outer world of objects and relations to 

 which the brain states correspond." 



In Chapter IX, on The Stream of 

 Thought, the author enters upon the expo- 

 sition of mind from within, or subjective 

 psychology. Instead of adopting the syn- 

 thetic method, and beginning, as is usual, 

 with sensations, he begins with the process 

 of thinking, which is treated analytically. 

 He rejects the idea that because sensations 

 are the simplest things they should be taken 

 up first, and affirms that " the only thing 

 which Psychology has a right to postulate 

 at the outset is the fact of thinking itself, 

 and that must first be taken up and ana- 

 lyzed." In this chapter he treats the sub- 

 ject of consciousness in a general way, and 

 in Chapter X he discusses The Conscious- 

 ness of Self. More than half of this long 

 chapter of 110 pages is devoted to Pure 

 Self, and treats of the Spiritualist The- 

 ory, the Associationist Theory, and the 

 Transcendentalist Theory. He winds up the 

 section upon The Soul Theory with the fol- 

 lowing words : " My final conclusion, then, 

 about the substantial soul is that it explains 

 nothing and guarantees nothing. Its suc- 

 cessive thoughts are the only intelligible and 

 verifiable things about it, and definitely to 

 ascertain the correlations of these with 

 brain-processes is as much as Psychology 

 can empirically do." 



One section of this chapter treats of The 

 Mutations of Self, both normal and abnor- 

 mal. The abnormal alterations are classed as 



