Literarf Notices. xlv 



in the not-self. Here again we seem to be juggling with the phrase 

 " subjective aspect." We have been taught to avoid the use of that to 

 be defined in our definitions. Is this not the precise fallacy here com- 

 mitted ? If not what, pray, is consciousness but the criterion of sub- 

 jectivity ? To this selective synthetic activity the name of will is given, 

 which could only be ignored if the scheme were really one of conscious 

 automatism which it mysteriously is not. Alum in crystallizing, if 

 endowed with reflective self-consciousness ( as there seems to be nothing 

 but the feebleness or simphcity of its molecular processes to prevent), 

 would have a will and that will would be " free," that is, unhampered 

 by external constraint. The reviewer is certainly striving here to keep 

 close to his author, without straining for the incongruous which seems, 

 nevertheless, dangerously near. 



We might give up the attempt to follow the argument through the 

 chapter on the evolution of consciousness as our inability to grasp the 

 logic of the treatment of consciousness invalidates for us the whole. 

 Convinced as the author is that all modes of energy have their con- 

 scious aspect it follows for him that these states are like states and that 

 the highest may be evolved from the lowest concomitantly with the cor- 

 responding organisms. But it does not at all follow that because two 

 stimuli are both vibrations of definite rates that the two corresponding 

 sensations are like sensations, nor need it follow that because a certain 

 rate and complexity of vibration takes place in a monkey brain and a 

 similar but higher rate and complexity of motion occurs in the human 

 brain the psychical processes of the two differ alone in degree. It cer- 

 tainly does not follow because consciousness is associated with neural 

 processes that it is only a modification of some nonconscious process 

 associated with some other neural process. In fact, if our criticism 

 holds, the fabric of the argument dissolves and there remains an emi- 

 nently readable and incidentally very instructive collection of facts and 

 expositions. c. l. h. 



The Brain in Relation witli Psycliic Phenomena.^ 



Some four years ago the editor of this Journal explained the tardy 

 development in recent times of physiognomy and the allied sciences as 

 a result of the baseless and extravagant claims of the phrenologists 

 which tended to drive all serious investigators from the field of so much 



iMiNGAZziNi, Giovanni. II Cervello in Relazione con i Fenomeni Psichici. 

 Studio sulla Morfologia degli Emisferi Cerebrali dell'uomo. Con un'introdu- 

 zione del Prof. Suigi e 43 figure. Biblioteca Anthropologico-giuridico, Fratelli 

 Bocca, Editori, Turin, i8<pj. 



