96 NOTES AND COMMENTS [avucust 1899 
consistent thought ought to take up this unamusing book.” But it 
has all the charm of boldness, originality, and evident conviction. 
Whether we agree or not we are forced to think. There are, too, 
many passages which stimulate by their piquancy. Of the greatest 
possible happiness of the greatest possible number, “ that discouraging 
phrase in which the whole vulgarity of a naturalistic century seems 
condensed,” he asks, “is it really the source of inspiration for an ideal 
soul, and does our conscience really look out for titillation in connection 
with a majority vote?” Again in the essay on “Psychology and 
Mysticism” he says: “The telepathists annihilate the theosophists, and 
the spiritualists belittle the telepathists; and when the Christian 
scientists and metaphysical healers on the one side, the mind curers 
and faith curers on the other side, have spoken of each other, there 
remain few abusive words at the disposal of us outsiders.” 
The gist of Prof. Miinsterberg’s argument, so far as it can be 
presented in a few words, is as follows. Physical science deals with 
the phenomena of which it treats in terms of matter and motion ; 
mental science devotes its attention to states of consciousness. The 
one leads to materialism, the other to idealism. Both are right 
within the limits of an ideal construction elaborated for specific ends. 
Both are utterly wrong if they seek to impose their special isms 
beyond these limits. In other words their final conclusion is scientifi- 
cally valid but philosophically monstrous. Human life and conduct 
present abundant material both to physics and to psychology, material 
to be explained in terms of cause and effect; but “the interests of life 
have not to do with causes and effects, but with purposes and means; 
in life we feel ourselves as units and as free agents, bound by culture 
and not only by nature, factors in a system of history and not only 
atoms in a mechanism.” This may seem to some a hard saying; nor 
will it sound less hard when it is urged that the real world of pur- 
poses and teleological ends in which we live is endlessly fuller and 
richer than that shadow of reality which we mean by physical and 
psychological existence. There are plenty of hard sayings in Prof. 
Miinsterberg’s book. But though we may not agree with some of his 
main positions which appear to us open to criticism, he knows quite 
well what he is discussing, he is trained alike in physics and psycho- 
logy, he is well acquainted with the stock, and often cheap, arguments 
of the materialist, and he is a thinker whose thought is not to be 
lightly disregarded and brushed aside simply because it does not 
chance to be consonant with our own. Hence we commend his book 
to serious naturalists, who can spare some attention to human affairs, 
not necessarily for acceptance but at any rate for careful consideration. 
