EDITOR'S TABLE. 



267 



cause it flies in the same atmosphere 

 as the bat ? Why should " vibra- 

 tions " not be the condition of exist- 

 ence of one mental phenomenon as 

 well as of another? Surely the very 

 fact that Dr. Crozier classes all the 

 feelings he mentions as mental affec- 

 tions should prepare him to believe 

 that they have a common basis. But 

 how feelings shall be classified and 

 ranked after they have taken forvi is 

 a question precisely similar to the 

 question how the various combina- 

 tions of words should be classified 

 and ranked. In the latter case 

 words are the basis of them all, but 

 we say : " This is an epic poem ; this 

 is a moral essay; this is an immoral 

 novel; this is a silly joke; this is a 

 market report." Are these distinc- 

 tions illusory because words are the 

 basis and substance of all these va- 

 rious forms of composition? Does 

 the poem lose anything of its beauty, 

 or the essay anything of its ethical 

 value, because each was not com- 

 posed of elements altogether peculiar 

 to itself? The solid globe itself was 

 once a diffused nebula, but we do 

 not on that account find a less varied 

 beauty in flower and tree, in hill- 

 side and running brook and grand- 

 ly flowing river. 



In his sad condition of mental 

 disarray our author betook himself, 

 he says, to the counsels of Thomas 

 Carlyle. That sage, when he heard 

 that his visitor had been reading 

 Spencer, made some uncomplimen- 

 tary remarks about the latter which 

 we hardly think the visitor was jus- 

 tified in repeating. Apart from 

 this, Carlyle told him in effect that, 

 as he was in the world, he had just 

 to make the best of it, and that in 

 time he would find work that he 

 could do with benefit to himself and 

 others. Finally, our author made 

 what he calls a discovery and offers 

 as a contribution to modern philoso- 

 phy — namely, that in the mind of 

 man there is a " scale," according to 

 which thoughts and feelings are ap- 



praised. Some are high up on the 

 scale and some are low down. He 

 found that there is that in the mind 

 which is not of the mind, and which 

 sits in judgment on all the contents 

 of the mind — something which 

 smiles on every right action and 

 frowns on every wrong one, and yet 

 which he does not care to speak of 

 as conscience. Here was the anti- 

 dote he required to the " pure and 

 undiluted materialism " which had 

 so paralyzed his moral being in the 

 Principles of Psychology; and, hav- 

 ing obtained it, he has been living 

 happily, as we gather, ever since. 



We have tried to do justice to the 

 originality of Dr. Crozier's concep- 

 tion, but really with indifferent suc- 

 cess. That there is a scale by which 

 we are all accustomed to measure the 

 varying values of our thoughts, feel- 

 ings, and actions hardly needs to be 

 stated; and that there is substantial 

 agreement between men on the same 

 plane of civilization as to the rela- 

 tive values of different mental prod- 

 ucts is also unquestionably true. 

 What our author has not shown is 

 how this conflicts with the strict sci- 

 entific position taken in the Prin- 

 ciples of Psychology. He does not 

 tell us that he has repudiated the 

 teachings of that work; indeed, he 

 gives us distinctly to understand 

 that, so far as it affirms the depend- 

 ence of thought upon physical or- 

 ganization, he adheres to it still. If 

 so, he has only built upon it a super- 

 structure which it was always open 

 to him to build; so, why he should 

 find fault with the foundation it is 

 not easy to see. Science goes as far 

 as she can see her way to go in set- 

 ting forth the relations between the 

 mind of man and the environing 

 universe. It studies also the human 

 mind in its historical manifesta- 

 tions, and tries to unfold the laws 

 of human conduct. It confines itself 

 to facts which are believed to ad- 

 mit of verification and to inferences 

 which have been tested by experi- 



