Literary Notices. cxliii 



zation and excentiic projection. The author claims that " the very-first 

 sensation which an infant gets is for him the outer universe." "The 

 object which the numerous impouring currents of the baby bring to his 

 consciousness is one big, blooming, buzzing confusion. That confusion 

 is the baby's universe." Many such expressions make us wish that the 

 author could have escaped from some of the consequences of the contact 

 with American tendencies which nevertheless impart the breeziness of 

 style which compel almost unwilling admiration. The chapter on the 

 structure of the brain, supplemented by that on its functions, gives a 

 synoptical sketch of the neurology, and it is the teacher who says, with 

 a sigh perhaps, " When is all is said and done, the fact remains that, for 

 the beginner, the understanding of the brain's structure is not an easy 

 thing. It must be gone over and forgotten and learned again many times 

 before it is definitely assimilated by the mind." 



The chapter on habit is full of useful maxims. Many will gratefully 

 agree that "the traditional psychology talks like one who should say a 

 river consists of nothing but pailsful, spoonsful, quart pots full, barrels 

 full and other moulded forms of water;" and accept with such grace as 

 he may the conclusion that "each of us dichotomises the Kosmos in a 

 different place." 



The chapter on attention is especially good. James adopts (with 

 regret) the terms recept (or construct) and isolate of comparative psychol- 

 ogy, fie goes the full length of Professor Bain in assuming that all con- 

 sciousness is motor according to a law of diffusion. "A process set up 

 anywhere in the centres reverberates everywhere, and in someway or 

 other aftects the organism throughout, making its activities either 

 greater or less." James follows Lange in asserting that " bodily changes 

 follow directly the perception of the exciting fact and that our feeling of 

 the same changes as they occur zs the emotion.'''' While not wishing to 

 belittle the physical concomitants in emotion, we protest that it is a pity 

 to strip these important sections of our psychical life of their cognitive 

 elements. It seems to us that James has fallen into an error analogous to 

 those against which he has warned us. In classing emotions as a variety 

 of impulses, as in the earlier work, he prepared the way for this error. 

 A more natural order is here followed, viz : (i) Expression of emotion, (2) 

 Instinctive or impulsive performances. (3) voluntary deeds. We object 

 to identifying emotion with either its expression or physiological ele- 

 ment. No doubt many emotions are due to reflexes producing total sen- 



