July 12, igoo] 



NA TURE 



21.S 



his first experiences of sport were obtained in the fever- 

 stricken Sandarbans of Lower Bengal. Proceeding 

 northwards, he had the good fortune to be entertained by 

 the Maharaja of Kuch-Behar, whose territories are now 

 the finest sporting-grounds in India ; and here he ob- 

 tained, in addition to tiger, the large Indian rhinoceros, 

 the gaur, and the wild bufifalo. After a short sojourn in 

 Gya and Ceylon, the party then crossed to Somaliland, 

 which was at that time in its prime as a sporting country. 

 From the Italian province of Erithr?ea the Count pro- 

 ceeded by sea to Zanzibar, whence he made a journey of 

 considerable length into the interior of Equatorial Africa, 

 obtaining specimens of Coke's hartebeest {Bubalis cokei)^ 

 and the fringe-eared beisa {Oryx callotis). The final 

 stage of the tour was Russia, where elk was added to the 

 list of large game. 



Although, as the author himself states, the work lays 

 no claim to having advanced either zoological or geo- 

 graphical science, yet it may be commended as a very 

 interesting account of types of animal life which are only 

 too rapidly disappearing from the face of the earth. In 

 fact, it is so interesting that there would seem a consider- 

 able probability that an English translation would be well 

 received. R. L. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Die Moderne Fhysiologische Psychologic in Deutschland. 



By W. Heinrich. Pp. iv -I- 249. CZurich : Speidel, 



18990 

 Zur Prinzipienfragcn der Psychologic. By W. Heinrich. 



Pp. iv -f 74. (Ziirich : Speidel, 1899.) 

 An Outline Sketch., Psychology for Beginners. By Hiram 



M. Stanley. Pp. 44. (Chicago : The Open Court 



Publishing Company, 1899. London : Kegan Paul 



and Co., Ltd., 1899.) 



Mr. Heinrich's two little works demand careful study 

 as well thought-out and consistent expositions of a 

 psychological attitude which is in many ways attractive. 

 The author, who may be described as a disciple of 

 Avenarius minush\s master's metaphysics, holds strongly 

 the necessity of making the principle of psychophysical 

 parallelism, understood in the most rigid sense, the basis 

 of all psychological inquiry, and would consequently 

 recognise no causes or causal laws other than those of 

 the physical and physiological series. He has little dififi- 

 •culty in showing that Wundt and other contemporary 

 writers, who, while professing the doctrine of parallelism, 

 believe in causal sequences between psychical states as 

 such, are inconsistent with their own professions. That 

 the inconsistency can be avoided, or that an intelligible 

 account of human life can be given in terms of purely 

 physiological sequences, is scarcely so clear. As the 

 author himself admits, it is a necessary consequence of 

 his theory that the only difference between rational and 

 purely reflex reaction on stimulus is one of comparative 

 complexity. Whether an account of human life which 

 reduces all activity to the purely reflex type is not like 

 the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out, he 

 -does not discuss. The question is, however, directly sug- 

 gested by his contention that, in treating of the behaviour 

 of our fellow-men, we have no right to introduce the 

 notion of consciousness, but should confine ourselves to 

 establishing physical relations between changes in their 

 environment and their corresponding outward reactions. 

 He seems to forget that language, for instance, loses half 

 its significance if you neglect to observe that it not merely 

 can be understood by a listener, but is meant by the 



NO. 1602, VOL. 62] 



speaker to be understood. And even it we could agree 

 to take no notice of consciousness in our fellows, it still 

 remains, as the author admits, to examine the relation 

 between the environment, which on his theory all science 

 describes, and ourselves the describers. Thus all the 

 problems about the relation between consciousness and 

 its objects which Mr. Heinrich banishes from our psycho- 

 logical study of our fellows return upon us as soon as 

 we attempt to understand our own relation to our environ- 

 ment. Perhaps the chief value of the author's discussions 

 is that by his insistence on the too often disregarded con- 

 sequences of the doctrine of parallelism, he compels his 

 readers to ask themselves whether the old belief in the 

 interaction of mind and body is not, with all its diffi- 

 culties, more satisfactory than the fashionable substitute 

 for it. 



It is painful to turn from Mr. Heinrich's able and 

 thoughtful work to such a piece of loose and unsatisfactory 

 popular psychology as Mr. Stanley's essay. If psychology 

 is to be taught in schools at all— in itself a debatable 

 question — it ought, at least, to be taught in a precise and 

 definite form. These scraps of inaccurate chatter are of 

 no more value in psychology than they would be in ele- 

 mentary physics or in any other science. Read, for in- 

 stance, the light and airy sentences (pp. 8-9) in which Mr. 

 Stanley disposes of the difficult problem of space-per- 

 ception. What would be thought of a writer on heat or 

 chemistry who should evade all the puzzles of his subject 

 by such loose and flimsy generalisation ? In truth, the 

 only way to treat work of this kind with kindness is to say 

 nothing at all about it. The only words one can find in 

 which to characterise it are that, like a good deal of 

 popular writing on psychological topics, it is quite worth- 

 less, because the writer has set no serious standard of 

 scientific accuracy before him. 



Rural Wealth and Welfare: Economic Principles 

 illustrated and applied in Farm Life. By Geo. 

 T. Fairchild, LL.D. (New York: The Macmillan 

 Company, 1900 ; London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd.) 



The scope of this treatise is perhaps more accurately 

 indicated by its alternative title : it is primarily a text- 

 book of economics, the concrete illustrations being taken 

 preferably from objects and practices familiar to agri- 

 culturists. The book is accordingly addressed to this 

 class of the community, though it may be doubted whether 

 the ordinary farmer, at all events in this country, will be 

 competent to make much practical use of the principles 

 expounded. The position of farming, especially in the 

 older civilised States, has perhaps undergone more change 

 during the last thirty years than that of any other great 

 industry, since it is practically within this period that the 

 cultivator has had to learn to face the competition, not 

 merely of his own countrymen, but of the whole world. 

 It is therefore all the more necessary that he should be 

 thoroughly acquainted with the modern conditions under 

 which he has to work ; in this respect, the remarks on 

 the importance, as a factor in prices, of the increased 

 facilities for marketing the enormous quantities of grain 

 and other farm products raised in the United States, are 

 very much to the point. 



Lectures on Theoretical and Physical Chemistry. By 

 J. H. van't Hoff. Translated by R. A. Lehfeldt. Part 

 ii. Chemical Statics. Pp. 156. (London: E.Arnold.) 

 We welcome the appearance of the English translation 

 of the second part of van 't HofT's lectures. Dr. Lehfeldt 

 has, as before, done his work admirably. It may be re- 

 gretted, however, that he has adhered so closely to the 

 somewhat uncouth structural formulje used by the author. 

 We venture to hope that in a future edition a freer use of 

 brackets and points may be made, as the student might 

 have some difficulty in recognising aceto-acetic ether in 

 the formula HaCCOCHgCO^CjHs. , 



