368 



NA rURE 



[March 23, 1922 



the effects of soil, cultivation and manuring, seed rate, 

 variety, time and methods of sowing, and size of grain 

 are considered. 



One can but regret that it is not followed by a chapter 

 on quality, in which the effects of these factors on the 

 milling and baking properties of the bread wheats is 

 brought under review. Such a chapter would be 

 peculiarly welcome to both wheat-breeders and millers, 

 even if it did no more than summarise th« scattered 

 literature on the subject. It would, moreover, go 

 some way to justify the statement on the wrapper of 

 the book that it is " essential to . . . plant-breeders 

 and millers." Prof. Percival will lay workers on both 

 these subjects under a still greater obligation if such 

 an addition is made when a new edition of this useful 

 volume is called for. R. H. B. 



The Subjectivity of Psychology. 



The Psychology of Everyday Life. By Dr. James 

 Drever. Pp. ix+164. (London: Methuen and 

 Co., Ltd., 1921.) 6s. net. 



THE present generation is witnessing a sustained 

 and persistent effort to raise psychology to 

 the status of a science. Hitherto it has been a part of 

 philosophy, and it is felt by psychologists that success 

 depends wholly on their being able to detach it. There 

 is something curiously instructive in the fact that the 

 task is avowedly difficult. It is curious because the 

 data of psychology are more immediate than any other 

 data of science, and for that reason alone we should 

 expect them to be the most easily known and the most 

 susceptible to treatment. But the instructive thing 

 is that this very intimacy of our relationship with the 

 data militates against scientific treatment. All the 

 trouble in regard to the matter arises from the fact 

 that the objects of a science of psychology are more 

 difficult to abstract from the subject of experience, 

 more difficult to reify or set up with an independent 

 status of their own, than are the objects of any recog- 

 nised science, mathematical, physical, or biological. 



This is obvious at once if we compare psychology 

 with its nearest neighbour in the hierarchy, physiology. 

 We have no trouble in presenting the functions of 

 anatomical organs, and the processes of secretion, 

 circulation, innervation, and the like, as objective. 

 They are capable of mechanistic interpretation in 

 complete detachment from anything which depends 

 on the experience of the subject, although we are 

 ready to acknowledge that without such experience 

 the apparent purpose of the mechanism would be 

 wanting. But when we try in the same way to present 

 instincts, impulses, emotions, feelings, memory, wishes, 

 trains of reasoning, we seem to be in a peculiar 

 NO. 2734, VOL. 109] 



difficulty, for it is impossible to avoid not merely 

 subjectivity, but a certain vexatious personal and 

 individual subjectivity. Yet there is no obvious 

 reason for this, and the more we reflect the more 

 we are driven to recognise that while we know as 

 matter of fact that it is so, we do not know and are 

 unable to imagine the reason why it should be so. 



The difficulty goes back at least to Berkeley. It 

 is quite easy to imagine perfect cubes and circles 

 and other geometrical figures existing entirely inde- 

 pendently of the mind which knows them and to found 

 a science on the assumption that they may or do so 

 exist. The same is true in some measure of all the 

 physical and biological sciences. But a wish, a pain, 

 a thought, absolutely refuse to be detached, and will 

 not let us imagine an abstract existence for them 

 independently of the subject. Now Berkeley's conten- 

 tion was that every object of knowledge is in the same 

 case, and therefore the physical sciences have no 

 advantage over psychology. This, however, gives no 

 satisfaction to the modern psychologist, for whatever 

 be the truth of Berkeley's doctrine he knows that 

 physics and biology possess at least a practical advan- 

 tage which is lacking to psychology. 



The little manual by Dr. Drever, which is the 

 occasion of this reflection, is an excellent classification 

 and general survey of the nature of the entities with 

 which the modern science of psychology is attempting 

 to deal. What seems to qualify the author for his 

 task is his thorough knowledge of the older and philo- 

 sophical treatment of the subject, in particular with 

 its treatment in books like Descartes's " Les Passions 

 de I'Ame " and Malebranche's " Recherche de la 

 Verite." Dr. Drever is in thorough sympathy with the 

 scientific end, and is working towards it, yet with full 

 consciousness and complete understanding of its origin 



in philosophy. 



H. WiLDON Carr. 



The Study of Earthquakes. 



A Manual of Seismology. By Dr. Charles Davison. 

 (Cambridge Geological Series.) Pp. xii + 256. 

 (Cambridge : At the University Press, 1921.) 

 2xs. net. 



TIME was when the meaning of seismology was 

 clear and unmistakable; it was the study 

 of earthquakes, and by earthquakes was meant the 

 disturbance which could be felt, and, when severe, 

 caused alarm and damage. It was known that there 

 was a central area where the earthquake was most 

 severe, fringed by zones of decreasing violence, until 

 a region was reached where it was insensible to the 

 unaided senses, though still recognisable by suitable 



