Litcraiy Notices. 73 



stitiites consciousness he, however, regards it rather as evidence of an 

 infra-consciousness corresponding to, or rather he would say, constitut- 

 ing these inaccessible cerebral activities. What more natural than to 

 assume, he says, that every cerebral activity has its introspective or 

 inner counterpart, if not in our ordinary upper consciousness, then in 

 this lower consciousness. Here is the key to the author's point of 

 view and to his identity theory, and the reader who has already 

 threshed out the problems here involved will doubtless turn to more 

 instructive reading. There is no fallacy which to a greater extent 

 vitiates the arguments ordinarily brought forward in support of this 

 theory than the doctrine of subconscious mental states. 



Under cover of this concept of a lower consciousness, the author 

 finds it possible to attribute, not only consciousness but in some 

 cases a high degree of consciousness to the lowest types of animals, 

 e. g., to the Arcellae described by Engelmann. He finds evidences of 

 memory, perception, association, feeling, choice in ants and bees. He 

 says that the domestication of certain insects proves their plasticity, and 

 finds evidence of this trait even in worms and echinoderms. Obvious- 

 ly, the significance of such statements must be interpreted in terms of 

 his theory of unconscious mind. 



His second article treats more in detail of the habits of various 

 species of South American ants — which, again, he makes corroboratory 

 of his identity doctrine. That there is truth in some form of the 

 identity theory is extremely probable. One will perhaps agree with 

 the author when he says that logically there is no more direct connec- 

 tion between my individual psychology and your individual psychology 

 than there is between my individual psychology and the physiology of 

 my brain. Hence actions, gestures, movements, attitudes, are as 

 significant for psychology as sense-impressions. Human psychology 

 is, and must be, comparative psychology. 



But when he says that environment influences brain (soul) through 

 the sensory nerves, and brain (soul) influences the muscles, glands, 

 etc. (and thus the environment) through the motor nerves, one begins 

 to feel that the meanings of words are becoming confused. And this 

 feeling is increased when he adds that the soul is the brain-activity re- 

 flected in consciousness. One suspects that the concept of a lower 

 consciousness is simply a screen behind which the author may slip un- 

 noticed from one meaning of a word to the other according to the ex- 

 igencies of the argument. 



But quite apart from this, it must be remembered that the brain- 

 activity, which the author identifies with the soul-activity, cannot be 



