360 SOME NEW BOOKS [NOVEMBER 
accuracy and expedition that farmers are supplied with warnings which enable 
them to take precautions which result in the prevention of much injury to their 
field crops and fruits. In the Division of Soils progress has been made with 
the electric method of moisture determination. ‘‘The work includes the record 
of evaporation to which the plant is subjected, the water supply maintained by 
the soil for supplying the loss due to this evaporation, and the intensity of the 
actinic and heat radiations which influence the physiological activities of the 
plant.” The electrical method of salt determination in soils has proved of 
special value in areas which have been over-irrigated. The year’s expenditure 
of the Agricultural Department amounted to the enormous total of over 
£480,000 sterling, and about one-fourth of this sum was spent upon the 
printing and circulation of agricultural literature. So great is the desire for 
information through this source that the supply is not equal to the demand. 
Among the thirty-six special articles which are comprised in Part II. of this 
bulky volume, may be mentioned the following, which have more or less direct 
interest to readers in this country:—Some Types of American Agricultural 
Colleges, The Danger of introducing Noxious Animals and Birds, The Prepara- 
tion and Use of Tuberculin, Pruning of Trees and other Plants, Utilising Sur- 
plus Fruit, Construction of good Country Roads, Grass Seed and its Impurities, 
and Notes on some English Farms and Farming. The book is beautifully 
illustrated with 42 full-page plates, and 136 figures in the letterpress. 
R. WALLACE. 
INHIBITED. 
On Inhibition. By B. B. BREESE. Psychological-Review, iii., 1899 : 
Monograph Supplement, No. 41, pp. 65. 
The author gives a long account of a very elaborate series of experiments he 
has lately made to determine what conditions, both subjective and objective, 
affect binocular rivalry. He first gives an account of the views held in regard 
to inhibition by many psychologists, from Spinoza to Ladd. He concludes 
that these may be classified into five conceptions, the first four entirely psychical, 
and the fifth psychophysical. 
*‘ Almost universally,” he says, ‘‘ the instances of inhibition cited by the fore- 
going psychologists involve definite bodily activities, either within the field of 
sense perception or bodily movements. These instances fall under the following 
classes :— 
1. Inhibition of one sensation by another: A faint sound is inhibited by a 
loud sound ; a slight pain by a greater pain. 
2. Inhibition of bodily movements by sensation: A sudden sight or sound 
may inhibit movements of walking, breathing or the action of the heart. Pain 
may inhibit the movements which cause it. 
3. Motor activity may inhibit mental states: Activity in battle may in- 
hibit fear. Motor activity inhibits the feelings of embarrassment. If, when 
trying to remember a name, some other name very similar is pronounced the 
first name is inhibited. 
4. Emotions may inhibit bodily functions: Shame inhibits the action of the 
vasomoter muscles. Great dread inhibits the flow of saliva. Great grief in- 
hibits the flow of the blood to the brain. : 
5. Will may inhibit the voluntary and half-voluntary movements of the 
body, and, to a certain extent, the involuntary muscles. Some people are able 
to decrease the activity of the heart at will. 
Experimentally he has investigated two phases of inhibition within this 
field :— 
(1) Inhibition of one sensation by another, and 
(2) Inhibition of mental states through suppression of their motor 
elements.” 
qa? 
