356 



NATURE 



[September 8, 192, 



I : M i h rt i \ e. and most brutal weapon yet devised. That 



1 :i;iin; 1 hat it <;irmot be ignored 



i_, ::. ■. , ; ni.i\ .mm !.<• the means of 



ultimately extingn wlnrh lias 



engendered it seemi not impossible. -No one could 

 read this considered account without l)eing impressed 

 li\ lis lundainental significance. 



There is one gas against which the respirators are 

 not effective ; this is carbon monoxide. It was not, 

 and could not easily be used as a means of attack, 

 but was encountered in ill- ventilated tanks and in 

 mines after a blow had occurred. This danger was 

 met, as similar danger is met in coal mines, by the use 

 of some form of oxygen respirator. Mine rescue work, 

 and tlie treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning, form 

 the concluding chapters of this valuable and interesting 

 document. 



The Foundations of Future Psychology. 



The Nature of " Intelligence " and the Principles of 

 Cognition. By Prof. C. Spearman. Pp. viii + 358. 

 (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1923.) 155. net. 



" T N these principles, then, we must venture to hope 

 j^ that the so long missing genuinely scientific 

 foundation for psychology has at last been supplied, so 

 that it can henceforward take its due place along with 

 the other solidly founded sciences, even physics itself. 

 In particular, these principles (together with com- 

 mentaries upon them) appear to furnish both the proper 

 framework for all general text-books and also the 

 guiding inspiration for all experimental labours." 



This is the author's very confident conclusion. The 

 source of cognition, he holds, is experience. This he 

 defines as " that which is immediately lived, undergone, 

 enjoyed, or the like " — a definition which would appear 

 to include digestion and the hardening of one's arteries. 



The first intelligent operation is the apprehension of 

 experience. This is said to include sentience, affection, 

 cognition, conation, and the ego. The inclusion of the 

 ego is firm but apologetic, " pending some much more 

 plausible alternative explanation being proffered." It 

 is hinted (but not argued) that the fundamental con- 

 nectedness of these items is also apprehended at this 

 primary level. 



The second principle — the " eduction of relations " — 

 states that " the presenting of any two or more 

 characters tends to evoke immediately a knowing of 

 relation between them." The proof of this " tendency 

 towards evocation " appears to be that these relations 

 may be discovered. These relations include all the 

 categories — time, space, causality, and the rest. All 

 are neatly ticked off. 



The third principle — the eduction of correlates — is 

 that " the presenting of any character together with 

 NO. 2810, VOL. 112] 



a relation tends to evoke immediately a knowing o( the 

 correlative character." This prirK i[)Ic i*; \ «ry thoroughly 



elaborated and ilhistratrd. 



'I'Ik-sC pMI Jl( (i 



" noegenciic dccuusc uu y arc ' noetic (.-.tli-eMdent) 

 and generate further knowing. They are " the prin- 

 ciples of intelligence " and fund lor cognition. 



The book, we are told, is " soieiy psychological and 

 by predilection practical." The author, in consequence, 

 believes liinisclt justificil in adopt iiiL' llic methods of 

 a drumhead ( ourt-marLiul on the frequent occasions 

 when he tackles metaphysical points. Since the essence 

 of his argument, however, is noetic self-evidence, it is 

 difficult to understand what he means by unadulterated 

 psychology. Certainly he makes a most resolute 

 attempt to illustrate and corroborate his results from 

 laboratory evidence ; and this is the most valuable, 

 as it is also the most distinctive, feature of his dis- 

 cussion. He is far too clear-headed, ho\' 

 mistake corroborative for fundamental eviden -. 



Take, for example, one of his favourite topics — the 

 initial status of sense-experience. Neither his choice 

 of this topic nor the greater part of his treatment 

 appears to be predominantly psychological. He 

 begins with the argument commonly known as physio- 

 logical scepticism, and ignores the vicious circle it 

 contains. Satisfied with this, he app>ears to rely on 

 self-evidence until quite late in the work, when he brings 

 corroborative experiments to bear upon his impUed 

 assumptions concerning this " tremendous problem of 

 objectivity." It is true that he assigns to these ex- 

 periments much greater value than is due ; but his 

 fallacy is logical, not experimental. To pass other 

 points, the brunt of his discussion here concerns sub- 

 jectivity in the sense of " actually constituting your 

 state of consciousness as when you say ' My conscious- 

 ness was that sensation.' " Since many philosophers 

 hold that no one can ever truthfully say any such thing, 

 it is plain that this " experimental " question is a 

 flagrant petitio principii. 



The same remarks seem apposite when the author 

 deals expressly with " transcendence," It is clear to 

 him that somehow we come to know what is not a state 

 of ourselves, and he alleges that we do this by educing 

 correlates. We apprehend the ego, grasp the relation 

 of otherness, and educe a not-self (p. 107). This looks 

 simple. Self and otherness, together, will give you, of 

 course, " other selves," or " other than any self," or 

 " anything other than yourself." You can therefore 

 " educe " or " draw out from the very nature of the 

 item (yourself) presented " your parents or, if you will, 

 the rest of the universe. In short, anything can be 

 done by these methods, and it is not at all clear why the 

 author did not choose to " educe " " non-exnerience " 



