LITERARY NOTICES. 



275 



makes life and history tingle with such a 

 tragic zest, may not be an illusion. As we 

 grant to the advocate of the mechanical 

 theory that it may be one, so he must grant 

 us that it may not. And the result is two 

 conceptions of possibility face to face with 

 no facts definitely enough known to stand 

 as arbiter between them." And he adds 

 that one can leave the question open, or let 

 one's general philosophy incline the beam. 

 In his own case, for ethical reasons unstated, 

 he sides with the believers in the cause-the- 

 ory, or that consciousness is a spiritual force. 



The remainder of Vol. I is Chapter XII, 

 Conception ; Chapter XIII, Discrimination 

 and Comparison ; Chapter XIV, Association ; 

 Chapter XV, The Perception of Time ; Chap- 

 ter XVI, Memory. They are spirited and in 

 esting, and especially instructive to teachers. 



The opening chapter of Vol. II is upon 

 Sensations, and discusses such general ques- 

 tions as the Cognitive Function of Sensa- 

 tion and The Relativity of Knowledge, which 

 answers the question whether our objects of 

 knowledge contain absolute terms or consist 

 altogether of relations. These sections oc- 

 cupy twelve pages of the chapter, and the 

 remaining thirty pages are devoted to The 

 Law of Contrast. Then follows the chapter 

 on Imagination, which contains an especially 

 interesting section upon the differences of 

 individuals in the power of imagination. The 

 work done in this field by Fechner and Gal- 

 ton is set forth, and Mr. James gives also 

 the results obtained from his own psychol- 

 ogy-students' descriptions of their power of 

 visual imagination. The entire chapter is 

 very readable, although less disputatious 

 than usual. The next three chapters are 

 upon The Perception of Things, The Per- 

 ception of Space, and The Perception of Re- 

 ality, the two latter being among those the 

 beginner is advised to omit on a first read- 

 ing. The chapter on Reasoning is popular 

 and entertaining. Of course, Mr. James in- 

 sists on the intellectual contrast between 

 brute and man, and does not admit any of 

 the instances adduced by evolutionists to 

 prove that the essential mental process in- 

 volved in reasoning is sometimes exhibited 

 by dogs and elephants. The chapters enu- 

 merated occupy 3S2 pages of the volume. 

 The next three chapters, occupying 200 

 pages, are upon Instinct, The Emotions, and 



Will. There is a short chapter on Hypno- 

 tism, in which the various theories concerning 

 it are discussed in the usual vein. These theo- 

 ries are (1) Animal Magnetism ; (2) Neuro- 

 sis ; and (3) Suggestion, the latter of which, 

 Mr. James says, is quite triumphant at the 

 present day over the neurosis theory, as held 

 at the Salpetriere. 



The last chapter in the book, on Neces- 

 sary Truths and the Effects of Experience, 

 is an elaborate effort to discredit all at- 

 tempts of the experience philosophy to ex- 

 plain the genesis of our mental structure. 

 As Mr. Spencer is the thinker who has done 

 most in this direction, of course it is his 

 especial doctrines that are first of all over- 

 thrown. This is done in the usual way by 

 means of half statements and unwarranted 

 assumptions. To gain his point he regards 

 the process of adaptation, which Mr. Spencer 

 calls direct equilibration, as the way of ex- 

 perience proper, the front-door way, but the 

 process which Darwin named "accidental 

 variation," and which Mr. Spencer terms in- 

 direct equilibration, he calls the back-door 

 way, and says : " Both these processes are of 

 course natural and physical ; but they bclony 

 to entirely different physical sphc?-es." (The 

 Italics are ours.) This is a pure assumption, 

 the contrary of which is made more and 

 more manifest as the observations of natu- 

 ralists are extended. Yet on this assump- 

 tion the meaning of experience is given as 

 "processes which influence the mind by the 

 front-door way of simple habits and associa- 

 tion " (the Italics are the author's) ; and back- 

 door processes are said to be " pure idiosyn- 

 crasies, spontaneous variations, fitted by good 

 luck to take cognizance of objects without 

 being in any intelligible sense immediate 

 derivations from them." It is in such ways 

 as this that Mr. James is able to be both 

 scientist and metaphysician, evolutionist and 

 anti-evolutionist, as the peculiarities of his 

 own mind determine. 



A Text-book of Comparative Physiology. 

 By Wesley Mills, M. D., D. V. S. 

 New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 

 636. Price, $3. 



Like the author's Text-book of Animal 

 Physiology, recently published, this work is 

 designed primarily for students and practi- 

 tioners of veterinary medicine. It is intend- 

 ed to replace the text books of human physi- 



