M(> 



OISCOVliHY 



(iftfn iiii.ibic to iiucrcst ihc cliiMicii, ami tliiis resorting 

 to other methotls). " Learning is only possible when 

 instinct supplies the driving force. The animals in cages, 

 which gradually learn to get out, perform random move- 

 ments at first, which are purely instinctive. But for 

 these random movements they would never acquire the 

 experience which afterwards enables them to produce 

 the right movement." And this, as to what can, and can- 

 not, be inferred from an examination test. " There is 

 obviously an observable fact called ' knowing ' such- 

 and-such a thing : examinations are experiments for 

 discovering such facts. But all that is observed or 

 discovered is a certain set of habits in the use of words. 

 The thoughts (if any) in- the mind of the examinee are 

 of no interest to the examiner ; nor has the examiner 

 any reason to suppose even the most successful examinee 

 capable of even the smallest amount of thought." In 

 its context this quotation is less startling than it sounds 

 isolated. Mr. Russell has been showing that all our 

 knowledge apart from instinct (and one would like to add 

 intuition) may be adequately described as " behaviour- 

 habits " ; and it is these, and these alone, which we test 

 in an examination. 



But it is difficult for the philosopher not to exalt the 

 reason into the master of man ; instead of the tool, or, at 

 the best, the collaborator, of his instinctual and intuitive 

 nature. Even Mr. Russell writes: "Psycho-analysis, 

 as everyone knows, is primarily a method of understanding 

 hysteria and certain forms of insanity ; but it has been 

 found that there is much in the lives of ordinary men 

 and w-omen which bears a liumiliating resemblance to 

 the delusions of the insane." The thorough-going Neo- 

 humanist would rather write: " For many hundreds of 

 years man was oppressed by the liumiliating belief that 

 members of his species were liable to behave in a totally 

 irrational manner, destructive of the self and of the race. 

 It has now been discovered that in most such cases (and 

 it probably will be discovered that in all such cases) there 

 is present the essentially sane instinct of self-development ; 

 the apparent madness is due to a natural reaction to an 

 impossible environment, or to the logical principle in 

 man choosing a mistaken means of achieving a perfectly 

 reasonable end — an accident that is liable to happen 

 to any of us." Thus mad people cease to be a perpetual 

 question-mark (like the figure of Death in Hans Holbein's 

 pictures) to the sanity of mankind, and become, like 

 other sick people, a stimulating challenge to us to develop 

 our faculties and discover the proper way of curing 

 them. 



D. X. Barbour. 



Books Received 



(Books mentioned in this column may or may not be 

 reviewed elsewhere in this number, or in a later number.) 



riCTION 

 The Master of Man. The Story oj a Sin. My H.\li, 

 C.MSE. (William Heinemann, 6s.) 



Karma and Other Stones and Essays. I3\- L.\FCADlO 

 Hf..\rn-. (George Harrap & Co., Ltd., 5s.) 



HISTORY AND ECONOMICS 

 Spain since 1815. By the Marqiis De Lema. 

 (Cambridge University Press, 4s. (>d.) 



A Digest oJ British Economic History. By I-". H. M. 

 R.\LPH, M.A., and \V. J. N. Griffith, B..\. 

 (John Murray, 5s.) 



A concise and stimulatingly-written introduction to 

 British Economic History. Starting with the Stone 

 Ages, the authors bring us down to the complicated eco- 

 nomic and social conditions of the present day. We note 

 as particularly interesting the chapter on the mediaeval 

 guil Is, that on the economic problems and theories of the 

 early nineteenth century, in which the views of Adam 

 Smith, Malthus, and Ricardo are clearly analysed, and 

 the concluding chapter on the effect of the development of 

 Trade Unions and the various tendencies of socialism. 

 Not the lesist amongst the virtues of this survey is its 

 politically unbiassed attitude to its subject. We 

 confidently recommend it not only to schoolmasters, but 

 to adults, whom the war has stimulated to a study of 

 economics. 



Prehistory. By M. C. Burkitt. (Cambridge Univer- 

 sity Press, 35s.) 



LITERARY CRITICISM 



The Tale oJ Terror. A Study oJ the Gothic Romance. 

 By Edith Birkhe.vd, M.A. (Constable & Co.. 

 Ltd., 15s.) 



Bibliography oj English Language and Literature, 1920. 

 Compiled by Members of the Modern Humanities 

 Research Association. (Bowes & Bowes, Cam- 

 bridge, 3s.) 



A scientifically-compiled catalogue of books published 

 throughout Europe and the British Empire on the 

 English Language and Literature. The main headings 

 in the Language section are Vocabulary, History of 

 Language and Grammar, Phonetics, Metre, and Style ; the 

 main headings in the Literature section are Old English, 

 Middle English, Old and Middle English : Subsidiary. 

 Modern English. As an example of the careful methods 

 employed, the Modern English sub-section is further sub- 

 divided into sections dealing with the work of each 

 century from the sixteenth to the twentieth, under the 

 headings General and Authors. An extremely good 

 three-shillingsworth for lecturers and students concerned. 



