LITERARY NOTICES. 



Sherrington, Charles S. The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. New York, Charles 

 Scribner's Sons. 1906. Pp. xvi-411. 85 Figs. $3.50. 



The material of this hook was presented as the second series of the Yale Univer- 

 sity Mrs. Hepsa Ely Silliman memorial lectures. 



Professor Sherrington, who by his brilliant researches on the structure and 

 functions of the nervous system has proved himself a master investigator, has 

 gathered together in the ten lectures which constitute this volume a large number of 

 the most important facts of nerve physiology. But, further than this, he has pre- 

 sented the results of his investigations, for the book is essentially the product of his 

 own and his students' researches, in an interesting manner and has skillfully 

 pointed out their meaning. Physiologists, students of animal behavior and psy- 

 chologists alike recognize the value of the author's investigations, and of his 

 interpretations of his results. As the title suggests, the lectures deal primarily with 

 certain of the relations of the nervous system to the activities of the organism; they 

 are preeminently important contributions to the comparative study of behavior. 

 Indeed, "The integrative action of the nervous system" might well be read as a 

 sequel to Jennings'^ masterly discussion of the behavior of organisms which either 

 totally lack a nervous system or possess a very simple one, for Sherrington deals 

 with the nature and relations of the reflex in higher animals, and with the regula- 

 tion of behavior by the nervous system. 



Because of the striking individuality of the author's style and his relatively new 

 terminology the reader is likely to get an over-emphasized impression of the original- 

 ity of the book. Even old, familiar facts as expressed in it at first appeal to the 

 reader as new discoveries. Nevertheless the work is original, unusually so, not 

 alone in its materials but even to a greater degree in method of presentation and 

 point of view of interpretation. For most readers the careful study of Sherring- 

 ton's book will mean a new and research inspiring conception of the role of the 

 nervous system, of the place of the study of activity, and of the relations of the 

 physiology of the nervous system to psychology. 



My first plan was to make this review an abstract of the volume, but I soon 

 found that anything like an adequate summary of the lectures would demand an 

 unreasonable amount of space. I shall therefore attempt, instead, after describing 

 by title several lectures, to give a vivid impression of the nature and value of the 

 book by selecting for presentation certain of the most important points made by 

 the author; and while thus describing the materials of the work, I shall attempt to 

 exhibit the interesting style and terminology of the author by the use' of his own 

 words in illustrative quotations. Anent the terminology of the book, it may be 

 observed that it is the best example of the application of something like the objective 

 terminology of Beer, Bethe and von Uexkull that has ever appeared in physio- 



'The Behavior of the Lower Organisms, 1906. 



