ESSAY-REVIEWS 



CHARACTER IN RELATION TO THE EMOTIONS AND 

 INSTINCTS, by F. W. Mott, M.D., F.R.S. : on The Foundations of 

 Character, being a study of the tendencies of the emotions and sentiments, 

 by Alexander F. Shand, M.A. (Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1914, price 

 12s. net.) 



Opposite the title page the author gives the two following passages from 

 the works of two of the greatest of English philosophers and students of Mind 

 and Character : 



"And this subject of the different characters of dispositions is one of those 

 things wherein the common discourse of men is wiser than books— a thing which 

 seldom happens. 



"Wherefore out of these materials (which are surely rich and abundant) let a 

 full and careful treatise be constructed so that an artificial and accurate dissection 

 may be made of men's minds and natures, and the secret disposition of each 

 particular man laid open, that from a knowledge of the whole, the precepts 

 concerning the cures of the mind may be more rightly formed. And not only the 

 characters of dispositions impressed by nature should be received into this treatise, 

 but those also which are otherwise imposed upon the mind by the sex, age, 

 country, state of health, make of body, etc. And again those which proceed from 

 fortune, as in princes, nobles, common people, the rich, the poor, magistrates, the 

 ignorant, the happy, the miserable, etc." — Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum, 

 bk. vii. ch. iii. 



"Ethology is still to be created; but its creation has at length become 

 practicable. The empirical laws, destined to verify its deductions, have been 

 formed in abundance by every successive age of humanity, and the premises for 

 the deductions are now sufficiently complete." — J. S. Mill, A System of Logic, 

 bk. vi. ch. v. 6. 



No apology is necessary for giving fully these two quotations in the review of a 

 book which essays " a full and careful treatise," and the creation of which science 

 of character Mill states has at length become practicable. It may be stated that 

 this work has given rise to a discussion at the Aristotelian Society, which has been 

 printed in the form of a " Symposium : Instinct and Emotion. By Wm. McDougall, 

 A. F. Shand, and G. F. Stout." A reference to the symposium will be 

 made later. 



Nearly twenty years have elapsed since Mr. Shand published in Mind an 

 article entitled "Character and the Emotions"; in this he formulated the 

 hypothesis that the sentiments are complex derivatives of the primitive emotions. 

 Many eminent psychologists have adopted or partially adopted his views, among 

 whom may be mentioned Professors Stout, McDougall, Westermarck, Sully, 

 Caldecott, and Boyce Gibson. The work under review shows that the author 

 in the interval that has elapsed, has spared no pains by thoughtful analysis, 

 observation, and wide reading to develop and mature his original theories. Thus 

 n the analysis of love and hatred he shows that " the same four emotional 

 dispositions of fear, anger, joy, and sorrow, which are essential to the system 



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