558 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



order; nor can one constructed on 

 bad principles and of interior material 

 be expected to keep itself in position 

 alter all the strenjjth it ever Lad has 

 been jarred out of it by several years' 

 traffic. Nothing, indeed, could be 

 simpler than all this; but how is the 

 responsibility of the railway companies 

 of to-day to be lessened by the reflec- 

 tion that the rude ox-teams of prehis- 

 toric man were also subject to vicissi- 

 tudes? No doubt a badly-made ox- 

 cart would be liable to break down, 

 just like a badly-built bridge of modern 

 days; but what bearing has that on the 

 present question? Mr. Morgan tells us 

 of a certain Philares (by which we sus- 

 pect he means Phalaris) who used to 

 roast his subjects for his amusement in 

 the interior of a brazen bull; and he 

 says, no doubt with great truth, that 

 the railway companies are not of this 

 disposition, and moreover that a mod- 

 ern railway accident, considered as a 

 means of cremation, is very costly — 

 much more so than the half-cord or so 

 of wood used for heating up the brazen 

 bull. All very true. "We quite admit 

 that the companies would like to avoid 

 accidents and save costs of all kinds ; 

 but we say that nothing will hold them 

 to a determination to do so, so far as 

 the utmost exertion of vigilance and 

 the employment of the very best ap- 

 pliances can avail for the purpose, so 

 much as the knowledge that, if their 

 system breaks down at any point, they 

 are responsible to the last dollar. "We 

 quite agree with Mr. Morgan that 

 newspaper declamation as to tlie 

 " greed " of companies is often wide 

 of the mark and quite undeserved ; but 

 we also believe that such declamation, 

 even when it is most out of place, is 

 not calculated to do half as much 

 harm as his reactionary plea for a di- 

 vision of responsibility for railway ac- 

 cidents between the companies and 

 some occult agency wholly inaccessi- 

 ble to human prediction and to human 

 control. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



TiiK Amkrican Journal of Psychology. 

 Edited by G. Stanll^ Hall, Professor 

 of Psychology and Pedagogics in tlie 

 Johns Hopkins Univci-f^ity. Vol. I, No. 

 1. Baltimore, JId. : N. Murray. Pp. 

 205. Quarterly, §3 per 3-e.ar. 



Tins journal is to be heartily welcomed 

 and commended. It supplies a genuine 

 want, and if the first number is a fair sam- 

 ple, its work will be well done, and a great 

 credit to American science. The object of 

 the journal "is to record the psychological 

 work of a scientific as distinct from a spccu- 

 lalivc cliaracter, which has been so widely 

 scattered as to be largely inaccessible save 

 to a very few, and often to be overlooked 

 by them." The journal is to consist of three 

 parts : " /. Original contributions of a scien- 

 tific character. These w ill consist partly of 

 experimental investigations on the func- 

 tions of the senses and brain, physiological 

 time, psycho-physic law, images and their 

 association, volition, innervation, etc. ; and 

 partly of Inductive studies of instinct in 

 animals, psychogenesis in children, and the 

 large fields of morbid and anthropological 

 psychology not excluding hypnotism ; meth- 

 ods of research, which will receive special 

 attention ; and lastly, the finer anatomy of 

 the sense-organs and the central nervous 

 system, including the latest technical meth- 

 ods, and embryological, comparative, and 

 experimental studies of both neurological 

 structure and function ; // Digests and re- 

 views, and ///. Koles, news, brief mentions, 

 etcy 



The number before us contains leading 

 articles, entitled: "The Variations of the 

 Normal Knec-Jerk and their Piclation to the 

 Activity of the Central Nervous System" 

 (with plates), by Warren Plympton Lom- 

 bard, M. D. ; " Dermal Sensitiveness to 

 Gradual Pressure-Changes," by G. Stanley 

 Ilall and Yuzero Motoro; "A Method for 

 the Experimental Determination of the 

 Horopter" (with plate), by Christine Ladd- 

 Franklin ; " Tlic Psycho-Physic Law and 

 Star Magnitudes," by Joseph Jastrow, Ph. D. 

 In addition there are sixty pages and more 

 of reviews of psychological literature, cov- 

 ering thirty-eight works reviewed — Ameri- 

 can, English, French, German — the reviews 

 being of unusually excellent quality. Fi- 



