NATURE 



[May 5, 1892 



hardly differentiated with sufficient care from the merely 

 prudential. The prudential does not pass up into the 

 moral on the same line of development ; but the pru- 

 dential and the moral are separate and sometimes widely 

 divergent lines of development. It is sometimes said 

 that the prudential is self-centred while the moral is 

 social. But is not what is socially right different from 

 what is socially prudent ? Or, in other words, is not 

 morality something other than social prudence ? Remorse 

 for wrong has a different psychological quality from regret 

 for error, no matter what the social implications of the 

 error may be. Mr. Sully does not seem to have sufficiently 

 brought out this distinction in his account of the genesis 

 of the moral sense. 



But though there may be room for some difference of 

 opinion as to the exact course of genetic development by 

 which our more complex and more highly evolved psycho- 

 logical states have been reached, there can be no question 

 that Mr. Sully's painstaking and thoughtful discussion of 

 their possible or probable mode of evolution is and will 

 long remain of real and sterling value. No living writer 

 has paid more attention to this important aspect of 

 psychology. 



There is one more point on which we may comment 

 before we pass on to Prof. Baldwin's work. It is the 

 doctrine of residual fusion. 



" The simplest form of assimilation," we read, " is to 

 be found in that process by which a present sensation (or 

 sensation complex) is re-apprehended or 'recognized' as 

 something familiar. . . . What takes place here is the 

 calling up by a present sensation of the trace or residuum 

 of a past sensation (or sensations), which trace merges in 

 or coalesces with the new sensation, being discernible 

 only through the aspect of familiarity which it imparts to 

 the sensation. . . . We have to conceive of the nervous 

 process somewhat after this manner. A given central 

 element or cluster of elements is re-excited to a functional 

 activity similar to that of a previous excitation. The 

 residuum of this previous activity or surviving ' physio- 

 logical disposition ' somehow combines with and modifies 

 the new activity ; which blending of nervous processes 

 has for its psychical correlative the peculiar mode of con- 

 sciousness known as recognition, sense of familiarity, or 

 identification. Here, however, our physiological psychology 

 seems to be more than usually conjectural." 



And again — 



" In recognition the percept and the image are fused, 

 the presence of the latter being indicated merely in the 

 peculiar appearance of familiarity which the percept 

 assumes." 



This so-called " fusion " of the percept and the image 

 seems to us an awkward figure by which to describe the 

 facts. The sequence of states of consciousness in the 

 case of (a) practical or perceptual, and {b) reflective or con- 

 ceptual recognition, seems to be briefly as follows. Sup- 

 pose I recognize a man, A, as one whom I have met 

 before, say at a dinner party. Then I have first a percept 



A 



, where A is the individual in question in the 



q .n.z . y^ ^ 



focus of consciousness, and qnzy the " fringe " generated 

 by his present surroundings, more or less out of focus. 

 This percept is immediately followed by the image 



A 



1 r t b' w^®*"^ ^ appears amid different surroundings. 

 This constitutes practical or perceptual recognition. In 

 NO. I I 75, VOL. 46] 



reflective or conceptual recognition there follows an a 

 of introspection (or retrospection), whereby the common 

 central element in the two states of consciousness is 

 explicitly identified. There is no fusion in either case, 

 except in so far as sequent states of consciousness have 

 a central or focal element which is identifiable. If we 

 simply recognize A as someone we have met somewhere, 

 we do not remember where, there is associated with the 

 focal image, A, an indefinite fringe of pastness serving to 

 differentiate it from the percept with its fringe of present 

 surroundings ; and if, on the other hand, we recognize A 

 as a quite familiar person whom we have seen again and 

 again amid all sorts of surroundings, there is a frini^c 

 which we can only describe as involving both pastncs 

 and frequency. In the case of the animal or the child, 

 recognition presumably does not pass beyond the practical 

 stage — that is to say, a percept A with this fringe is 

 followed by an image A with that fringe. Reflective re- 

 cognition, involving retrospection and a comparison of 

 the two images {A with this fringe and A with that fringe) 

 and the identification of the element common to both, is 

 a product of conceptual processes of later genesis. 



In conclusion, it is sufficient to say that by his treatise 

 on the human mind Mr. Sully fully sustains his reputation 

 as a psychologist. 



In his volume on " Feeling and Will," Prof. Baldwin 

 has completed the survey of the mind begun in his 

 " Senses and Intellect." 



The first three chapters contain an adequate physio- 

 logical introduction. There is, however, one statement 

 which seems to us awkward if not misleading. After 

 briefly noting the views that have been suggested as to 

 the relation of consciousness to the so-called nervous 

 conditions, Prof. Baldwin says : — 



" It has become apparent that nervous activity, con- 

 sidered by itself alone, does not bring us into the range 

 of psychological science. However we may decide the 

 inquiry as to whether such activity is ever entirely free 

 from consciousness, it is yet true that it may be quite 

 outside of what is called the individual's consciousness. 

 ... In other words, the greater part of our ordinary 

 nervous reactions are not above the threshold of our 

 conscious lives. So we reach a distinction between sen- 

 tience as a nervous property and sentience as a conscious 

 phenomenon, between sentience and sensibility. Sensibility 

 is synonymous with the usual consciousness of the indi- 

 vidual's experience, and sentience is the nervous function 

 which may or may not be accompanied by consciousness 

 or inner aspect in general. . . . The transition from 

 simple sentience to the full consciousness is through a 

 stage of subconscious modification." 



With no desire to be hypercritical, this does not seem 

 to us altogether satisfactory. Sentience is spoken of as 

 ^^ tht nervous function which may or may not be accom- 

 panied by consciousness." The words we have italicised 

 seem to imply that sentience belongs to the physical, 

 not the psychical order of existence. If so, the " transi- 

 tion from simple sentience to full consciousness" is a 

 transition from the physical to the psychical order, and 

 consciousness becomes a mode of energy. We do not 

 think that this is the author's meaning ; but in that case 

 it would be well so to define sentience as to clearly show 

 that though it may not rise to the level of consciousness, 

 it is none the less of the conscious or psychical order. 



