3o6 



NATURE 



[JANUARY 4. 



published by M. Auk"-- ^ ........0. In the parts 



dcalin)^'^ with Sinrra Leone and Southern Nigeria, no 

 reference seems to be made to the valuable rain and 

 temp<'rature records kept and published by (or under 

 the direction of) Mr. Frederick Shelford, the chief 

 enjjineer or constructor of the railways in those coun- 

 tries. Mr. Shelford has made his records sufficiently 

 public in the papers of scientific soriflii-s for thi-ni 

 to be easily accessible. 



The maps contributtd t»< iliis Ixn.k b\ Mr. J. Cj. 

 Barthotomew under the direction of the author are 

 admirable, and great praise must be awarded to the 

 author for his general research, the clearness with 

 which he sets forth his details and his conclusions, and 

 the way in which he has invested what might seem to 

 be a somewhat uninteresting subject with an interest 

 and an importance sufficient to attract the general 

 reader as well as the specialist. The book, indeed, 

 is so good that it ought to be made as perfect as 

 possible in all its details, which is why the reviewer 

 has expatiated more on these slight defects than on 

 the general excellence of what should prove a standard 

 work. 



One last criticism, for the publishers. It might on 

 the whole be better in future editions to paste the 

 twelve maps on monthly rainfall into the body of the 

 work. Although in some ways it is convenient to 

 have them in a pocket and to handle them separately, 

 they are very liable in library use to be lost. 



H. H. Johnston. 



IHE NEW ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

 Animal Intelligence: Experimental Studies. By E. L. 

 Thorndike. Pp. viii + 297. (New York: The Mac- 

 millan Co.; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 

 191 1.) Price 7s. net. 



/^NE of the most remarkable examples of sudden 

 ^^ and rapid development of a new scientific 

 method and a new and extensive body of scientific 

 fact is to be seen in the growth of the study of animal 

 psychology during the last ten or a dozen years. As 

 in the case of the general science of psychology, the 

 change came with the introduction of experiment as 

 the fundamental method of investigation, but the 

 transition was accentuated by a craving for objectivity 

 of results, which focussed the attention upon the 

 objective performance or behaviour of the animal 

 under examination, not only to the detriment, but 

 even, in the case of many observers, to the complete 

 neglect of speculation as to its psychical life. If the 

 new psychology claimed to be a psychology without a 

 soul, the new animal psychology threatened, and still 

 threatens, to become an animal psychology without 

 consciousness. Many investigators have indeed 

 openly declared for this ideal — not denying the pre- 

 sence of consciousness, but regarding it as of no 

 importance or value in an explanatory scientific 

 system. Nevertheless signs are not wanting in the 

 most recent work of a healthy reaction from this 

 extreme view, based as much upon observed fact as 

 upon a priori speculation. 



After the most detailed investigations have been 

 made into the manifold relations of stimulus and 

 NO. 2201, VOL. 88] 



retponte presented h\ ^ . still toon 



to be found for psychical factors of a greater or le^ 

 degree of complexity, if the explanations are to b- 

 complete, although it is a sound principle o 

 methodology that appeal should not be made to then; 

 until the possibilities of an exclusively mechanical ot 

 chemico-physical explanation have been exhausted 

 Indeed, it is the new experimental method that ha 

 succeeded in demonstrating, in certain cases, the • 

 ence of sensations not to be suspected from ord; 

 observation of the animal. Thus, fish do n< 

 ordinarily react to certain musical tones. If, how- 

 ever, such a musical tone is sounded repeatedly whei 

 food is supplied to the animal, the latter will ulti- 

 mately respond to the sound by coming to be fe<i 

 In this case, as in many other similar cases, the - ' 

 ence of the sensation or its neural equivalent is di 

 strated by the method of association. 



.\Ithough the general tendency of the science :- 

 become more and more closely assimilated to biology 

 in its methods and explanatory hypotheses, its most 

 marked characteristic at present is a certain distrust 

 of the adequacy of the principle of natural selection 

 to explain the facts, and a greater faith in 

 physical, chemical, and physiological explanations. 

 U shows an equal distrust for finalistic, and, 

 in particular, anthropomorphic views, and is 

 more ready to form its own scientific conceptions and 

 seek the explanation of the more fundamental facts 

 of human behaviour in them than conversely. Its 

 scientific independence is well symbolised by the 

 appearance in America, at the beginning of last 

 year, of a new journal. The Journal of Animal 

 Behavior, which is issued bi-monthly, and contains 

 e,\cellent and extremely interesting articles upon the 

 modes of behaviour and (perhaps) consciousness of 

 various kinds of animals. .\ very complex and 

 efficient technique has been developed, which contrasts 

 with the anecdotal method of the English school of 

 the last generation almost as pronouncedly as do 

 modern chemical methods with those of the mediaeval 

 alchemists. One must hasten to add, however, that 

 the well-known works of Prof. Lloyd Morgan form 

 an honourable exception to this method, and are. of 

 course, exempt from the criticism. 



In the case of the psychology of vertebral. ~ > 



Prof. E. L. Thorndike, of Columbia L'niversiiy, that 

 the great credit is due of inaugurating the new 

 methods of research and indicating those modes of 

 experimentation which have met with such signal 

 success at the hands of himself and his successors. 

 The book on ".\nimal Intelligence" which he has 

 just published is a reprint of four experimental studies 

 already well known to the specialist, viz. '* .\nimal 

 Intelligence; an Experimental Study of the .Associa- 

 tive Process in .Animals " (first published in 1898), 

 "The Instinctive Reactions of Young Chicks" (1899), 

 ".A Note on the Psychology of Fishes" (1899), and 

 "The Mental Life of Monkeys" (1901), together with 

 an interesting introductory- chapter on "The Study 

 of Consciousness and the Study of Behaviour," and 

 two concluding chapters, also of a general character, 

 headed " Laws and Hypotheses of Behaviour " and 

 "The Evolution of the Human Intellect" respectively. 



