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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



given as he goes along will find several 

 years of work in them ; but, while gaining 

 first a general knowledge of the system, he 

 can then easily know where to go for more 

 detailed study on special subjects. To an 

 intelligent reader the work will then be 

 both a manual and a guide. 



A System of Psychology. By Daniel 



Greenleaf Thompson. In two volumes. 



Vol. I, 613 pages; Vol. II, 589 pages. 



London : Longmans, Green & Co. Price, 



305. 



The unobtrusive issue of this compre- 

 hensive work by an American writer will be 

 a surprise to many. We confess to having 

 been somewhat stunned at receiving and 

 looking it over, and not more by its formi- 

 dable proportions than by the evidences of 

 scholarship, and mastery of the subject dis- 

 played in every page we examined. It is 

 undoubtedly the most important contribu- 

 tion to psychological science that any Amer- 

 ican has yet produced; nor is there any 

 foreign work, with which we are acquainted, 

 that contains so exhaustive, so instructive, 

 and well-presented a digest of the subject 

 as this. 



The work is written mainly from the ' 

 point of view of an expositor. It is the ob- 

 ject of the author to put his readers in pos- \ 

 session of the present state of knowledge on 

 a broad range of psychological subjects ; but, 

 while he makes no claims to any consider- 

 able discoveries, his pages betray many inti- 

 mations of independent and oi'iginal thought. 

 The work is written throughout in the true 

 spirit of science, which aims only at the 

 estabUshmcnt of truth, and in its philosophy 

 it of course represents the latest school of 

 psychological doctrine as it has been devel- 

 oped by English thinkers. In a brief pre- 

 liminary note the author thus explains his 

 relation to the minds that have mainly in- 

 fluenced his course of study. He says : 

 " Besides the httle I myself may have con- 

 tributed, the reader is indebted for whatever 

 science there is in this book chiefly to four 

 other minds : to Julius H. Seelye, the per- 

 sonal teacher of my youth, who showed me 

 that philosophy is possible and necessary 

 for human welfare, and who inspired me 

 with zeal for philosophizing ; to John Stuart 

 Mill, the ever - influencing though unseen 

 friend of boyhood, youth, and manhood. 



who with the first named taught me to love 

 truth above all things else ; to Herbert 

 Spencer and Alexander Bain, who with the 

 second of the four have shown me the paths 

 of true knowledge in the department of 

 psychology." 



As may be inferred from this statement, 

 and as amply justified by an examination of 

 it, Mr. Thompson's treatise is a systematic 

 and symmetrical presentation of the most 

 modern and authoritative system of psychol- 

 ogy in which the views of Mill, Spencer, and 

 Bain are rcfjroduced in a connected and 

 unified form so as to be more available for 

 general students than in the elaborated 

 works of those eminent authors. The task 

 was a formidable one, but it has been thor- 

 oughly and successfully executed. The au- 

 thor is not a recluse professor who has been 

 shut up in his library to spin a speculative 

 system of his own, but he is a working law- 

 yer, and a practical man capable of making 

 a valuable and useful book for the public, 

 We have been struck by the thoroughly 

 popular nature of the exposition. The au- 

 thor has evidently been well trained in the 

 important art of plain, direct, and effective 

 statement. He is neither burdened with his 

 learning nor the victim of its technicali- 

 ties, but expresses himself with the ease and 

 freedom of one who is master alike of his 

 theme and the resources of skillful explan- 

 atory presentation. These characteristics 

 adapt the treatise to popular wants, and will 

 give it especial claims upon that large class 

 of American readers who have neither time 

 nor taste to conquer the formidable books 

 on philosophy and psychology, the contents 

 of which are here reduced to more available 

 and attractive form. 



The work, however, is large, and the field 

 it covers is so extensive that it will be quite 

 impossible to attempt here any representa- 

 tion of its general plan, any intimation of its 

 distinctive doctrines, or any summary of the 

 numerous problems it deals with. 



But while the work is an honor to 

 American scholarship, and the intrepid en- 

 terprise of an individual American thinker, 

 we regret to say that it does no honor to 

 American publishing. There is a London 

 imprint upon its title-page, from which we 

 may fairly infer that American publishers 

 decline to undertake the work. Our pub- 



