clxxxiv Journal of Comparative Neurology. 



published work that experiment belongs to truly psychological method 

 only so far as it is constantly accompanied and tested by introspective 

 examination of the phenomena of consciousness. He adds, — Experi- 

 ment gives us preliminary information as to the definate physical and 

 physiological conditions under which the psychic facts, as such, arise, 

 change and pass away. But here, again, without introspection and 

 trust in the introspective method, experiment gives us no psychical 

 data or strictly psychological laws. So far many of our best experi- 

 mental psychologists will agree with him, but he immediately proceeds 

 to so narrow the field of experimentation that it would seem as if any 

 really hopeful advocate of this method would have to part company 

 with him. He says: " Only the simpler states of consciousness, in 

 respect of their sensory and motor factors, readily lend themselves to 

 study by the strictly experimental method," and the implication is 

 that this method is now and forever must be practically fruitless else- 

 where. 



The body of the work is divided into three parts, Most General 

 Forms of Mental Life, The Elements of Mental Life, and The Devel- 

 opment of Mental Life. In his arrangement he has cut loose entirely 

 from the traditional division into faculties and his whole treatment of 

 the so-called faculties is admirable, though in some other respects he 

 seems to have succeed less perfectly in disentangling himself from the 

 old traditions. 



The discussion of Attention in the concluding chapter of Part I 

 is especially clear and suggestive. We are taught to regard primary 

 attention as a form of psychical energy which necessarily enters into 

 the determination of the character of every field of consciousness ; in 

 other words, it is a most general form of all mental life, and it is a 

 necessary accompaniment of every truly psychic fact. This primary 

 attention is present as a blind striving and selective, but self-originat- 

 ing activity in all the lower forms of conscious life, while, on the 

 other hand, in its higher stages of growth it may reach the conditions 

 necessary to intelligent, purposeful choice and thus become that vol- 

 untary attention whose cultivation and exercise constitute so important 

 elements in all education. 



The term conation is employed as correlative with sensation and 

 feeling as one of the three primary states of consciousness. It may 

 be considered as synonymous with the term " conscious striving " and 

 as such it enters into all the most primary psychical states. 



Professor Ladd has undertaken to write a text-book from the 

 " genetic " standpoint, as the title of his third part again calls promi- 



