;2 8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



he forgets them the better will he understand the disorders of mind from which 

 the patient suffers" — "to understand the disorders of mind it is necessary to 

 forget all the teaching of psychologists,"—" a psychological analysis of the dis- 

 ordered mind has never hitherto been attempted," and " self-estimation is a 

 faculty unknown to the psychologist." These are overstatements, for Bain — upon 

 whose work Dr. Mercier must have browsed psychologically in his earlier days — 

 deals fully with all the emotions of self: self-esteem, self-complacency, self-pity, 

 self-interest, and self-humiliation. Stanley Hall also refers to self-estimation in 

 his two volumes upon Adolescence ; Kant based upon it the radical principle of 

 evil, and Spinoza defines it at full length. Naturally, and because of the high 

 position the author holds among psychologists, the most interesting chapter in 

 the book is the third, which deals with the analysis of mind. This chapter is 

 the fundamental factor in the book, and it is full of originality, ingenuity, and 

 suggestiveness. He divides the mind into certain primary faculties ; on page 52 

 they are seven, on the next they are five, but they are sub-divided into four 

 evolutionary levels, " so that altogether there are twenty-five pigeon-holes or 

 compartments, in one or more of which every disorder of mind can be placed." 



Dr. Mercier states somewhat categorically that in practice any one of these 

 faculties may alone be subject to disorder, apparently in some way insulated or 

 separated from the others which remain normal. We have always held and 

 taught that the mind is an indivisible whole, although it may be convenient 

 theoretically to abstract it into faculties, but these faculties are fictitious, they 

 are a sham, and they reduce the mind to a flux of descriptive literature. The 

 highest level of " objective " thought is described by the author as " wisdom," but 

 fancy the " wisdom " of a bank clerk or of a bricklayer's labourer being alone 

 affected ! Moreover, the cortical structure of the brain forbids a " natural history " 

 classification of the mind. In only one portion of the brain cortex, and that the 

 motor area, are there, apart from the granules, any cell areas which can in any 

 sense support the "faculty" division. It is the whole mind which feels, which 

 wills, which thinks. We have no belief in "faculty psychology." Our experience 

 of mental disorders forbids its validity, and we hold that the mind must be taken 

 wholly in its cognitive, affective, and conative attitudes, as one of these is 

 meaningless without the other. We also think that the classification which the 

 author adopted from Herbert Spencer in the first edition to be the more preferable 

 analysis whereon to base the motives for normal conduct, as also to study their 

 departures in insanity, viz. the impulses, instincts, and desires which are directly 

 or indirectly self-preservative, and in these a chain of mutual dependencies occur 

 which are sufficient to explain both conduct and character. We believe it is 

 true to state that the plotting in tabular form of the constituents of mind and 

 their sub-division into evolutionary levels has not hitherto been attempted in an 

 analysis of mind ; but the method, although original, is neither convincing nor 

 final. These fractional representations of the mind are frequently referred to in 

 the text, but we think they are unprofitable as an analysis, and are a mechanical 

 setting of a dynamic psycho-physiological process which, with a " purpose," guides 

 the individual in peril and helps him to avoid disaster. The author urges that 

 the composition of the emotions is not a matter of any concern to the alienist, 

 but we maintain that in the emotions, the appetites, and impulses we have the 

 clue to all intellectual and voluntary processes, and all qualities of character must 

 finally depend upon these. The classification of insanity adopted by the author 

 is one that we have not infrequently found from experience in teaching to be a 

 source of bewilderment to students. Forms and varieties and symptoms are dis- 



