Literary Notices. xxxix 



tal faculties, but not to the same extent. The synthetic activities 

 are weakened with the others but not so much, so that the law of syn- 

 thesis referred to above fills the whole field of consciousness and dom- 

 inates all else. 



Accepting the Lange-James theory of the somatic origin of emo- 

 tion as probably true, the author erects upon it a theory for the etiology 

 of melancholia. Cases belonging to the first category (of somatic 

 origin) are the expression of a cachexia which is usually found to be a 

 sequella of some one of the infectious fevers, though other origins are 

 also common. Melancholia of the second type (of intellectual origin) 

 is explained in a similar way. An idea or a mental shock may act 

 upon the body (via the circulatory system, as suggested by Meynert's 

 theory of emotion) in such a way as to produce a psychical depression 

 essentially similar to that found in the cases of the first type. From 

 this, as before, arises not melancholia, but a melancholic condition. 



It follows then that melancholia has no existence as a mental en- 

 tity, but may be resolved into sensory processes, on the one hand, on 

 the other hand, into phenomena of arrest. 



Dr. Dumas' essay will prove of interest alike to pathologist and 

 psychologist. 



c. J. H. 

 Feeling and Thought.^ 



The work before us falls into two parts distinguished by the 

 sources of their materials, (i) Morbid Psychology, (2) Normal Psy- 

 chology. The pathological part part discusses in successive chapters 

 mania, melancholia, hypochondria, extacy, chronic delirium. Of 

 'these the first four are, "considered by themselves, so to speak, sym- 

 metrical and exhibit separately all the elements of conscious life.' 

 Mania is knowledge of the outer world, hypochondia of the organic, 

 or bodily processes, isolated and deprived of all feeling content. Each 

 is therefore a morbid exaggeration of thought. In melancholia and 

 extacy, on the contrary, feeling is isolated and exaggerated to the ex- 

 clusion of thought. In normal life feeling and thought each acts as a 

 counterpoise keeping the other in equilibrium. When this equilibrium 

 is destroyed by disease, feeling and thought are found to vary in in- 

 verse ratio, though no definate mathematical law is to be inferred from 

 this form of expression. 



^GoDFERNAUX, Andre. Le sentiment et la pens6e et leurs principaux as- 

 pects physiologiques. Essai dei psychologie experimentale et compar^e. Paris, 

 F. Alcan, 1894, pp. xii -j- 225. 



