64 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[Mabch 1, 1898. 



results of physical science (using the term in its widest 

 sense) are being used to assist the progress of the natural 

 sciences ; and the new psj'chology is a valuable product of 

 this combination. 



Dr. Scripture's volume contains a clear statement of the 

 chief work that has been done on what may be termed the 

 connection between thought and action. It is not con- 

 cerned with the academic distinctions between sensation and 

 perception, and similar discussions of ideas, but treats of 

 mental life in relation to time, energy, and space, and shows 

 how physical Lnstruments may be used to measure these 

 relationships. The book is in itself a justification of the 

 claims of psychology to a place among experimental 

 sciences. 



Natural Causes and Supernatural Secminffs. By Henry 

 Maudsley, m.d. Third Edition. (Kegan Paul.) Dr. 

 Maudsley's book is neatly, if not completely, epitomized 

 in its title. Presentiments, imprecations, magic incanta- 

 tions, predictions of witchcraft, omens, hallucinations, 

 and all phenomena usually ascribed to the supernatural, 

 are here sternly confronted with the unsympathetic con- 

 clusions drawn by cool reason from cause and effect. The 

 multitude will always take its opinions from custom and 

 tradition, and on the authority of others ; but there are 

 not a few who agree with Voltaire when he said that 

 " magic words are capable of destroying a whole flock 

 of sheep — if the incantation be accompanied with a 

 sufiicient dose of arsenic." The author looks upon life 

 as an intensely real thing, and apparently regards the 

 whole of our existence as a sort of complex mosaic, the 

 intrinsic beauty of which is masked by the creations 

 of unbridled imagination. It is plausible but quite false 

 presumption that mankind in general act on rational 

 principles : the masses, being mainly foolish, have always 

 held to the wrong opinion until dragged out of it by the 

 labours of the few who differed ; and there is probably 

 much truth in Dr. Maudsley's assertion that " the 

 extinction of a few hundred persons in a generation, who 

 keep the torch of knowledge burning in Christendom, 

 would bring progress to a standstill, and might throw the 

 world back into intellectual barbarism in the com-se of two 

 or three generations ; all the more easily because, besides 

 the passive resistance of a dead weight of ignorance, there 

 is a vast and powerful organization of hostile superstition 

 watching and working to stop intellectual progress." In 

 short, the volume affords us a glimpse into the mighty 

 edifice of error built on the basis of defective observation ; 

 and, abandoning the preposterous plane of speculative 

 intuitions, we have presented before us images in the 

 unassuming habiliments of sense and reason. Still, as the 

 senses are only so many narrow chinks of experience 

 between two unknown infinities — the infinitely great and 

 the infinitely small— there is a danger of oscillatLng from 

 the warm equatorial regions of imagination to the extreme 

 polar climes of frigid logical deduction. 



By Roatlsidc and River. By H. Mead Briggs. (Elliot 

 Stock.) 3s. 6d. Richard Jefferies has had of late many 

 imitators. For some years past the public has been 

 liberally supplied with a class of book of which " By Road- 

 side and River " is an example. The authors, without 

 laying claim to scientific accuracy, display, as a rule, some 

 powers of observation, and Mr. Mead Briggs is no exception. 

 The one thing necessary to make such a book readable, 

 however, is a fair command of literary English, and the 

 power of recording the author's observations and meditations 

 (if we must have these meditations) in language which is 

 intelligible. But it is in those very points that Mr. Mead 

 Briggs comes lamentably to grief. It is scarcely an 

 exaggeration to say that in every page of " By Roadside 



and River " the reader is irritated and perplexed by some 

 atrocious solecism, some wanton dislocation of a trite 

 expression, even if he escape the puerile essays in metre 

 with which the book is plentifully studded. Passing by 

 with a shudder such combinations as "child and bland- 

 like " (applied to a bird which "ventures to speak in a 

 shrilly voice "), we are pulled up short by the following 

 reflection : " But accident and misfortune appearing 

 suddenly upon our best bright days, comes [s/c] as a thief 

 in the night to take our happiness, and leaves our senses 

 numbed." The swallow is depicted as " reflecting her 

 dainty form in the mirrored stream. " 'When Jlr. Briggs 

 descends from reminiscence and moralization to a record 

 of facts, he has much that is interesting, if little that is 

 new, to tell us. His observations of nature are, in the 

 main, just, though we believe naturalists are agreed that 

 the cuckoo's method of depositing her egg in the nests of 

 other birds is by the beak, and not by thtf claw ; and also 

 that the eyes of the mole are practically useless, and that 

 this creature cannot " see with ease in the dark caverns 

 of the earth. " 



WiM Traits in Tame Animals, being some Familiar Studies 

 in Erolution. By Louis Robinson, m.d. (Blackwood.) 

 Illustrated. 10s. (id. net. This is a very readable book 

 for several reasons. It is well written ; it deals with 

 simple everyday matters. The theories and suggestions it 

 contains are plausible, and, above all, it teaches the reader 

 to think. The plan of the book is to discuss familiar traits 

 in tame animals such as dogs, horses, cats, etc., to compare 

 these traits with those of wild animals, and to seek to trace 

 their origin and explain their significance. The author 

 succeeds fairly well, but, as would be expected, he occasion- 

 ally pushes an analogy or a theory too far, and there is a 

 paucity of facts throughout. Some of the suggestions and 

 hints for study and research are valuable. If there is not 

 much that is actually new in the book, there are many 

 things which are put in a new and generally attractive 

 light. Altogether, it is a book which should be read by 

 every naturalist, and parts of it could, with profit, be read 

 more than once. It will prove very valuable to the young 

 student, providing he reads it slowly, and, thinking for 

 himself, sifts the evidence, takes nothing for granted, and, 

 above all, compares it with the greatest book of all — the 

 book of nature. 



Montai^/ne mid Shiih2jere. By John M. Robertson. 

 (The University Press, Limited.) 5s. net. The debt of 

 genius to its forbears must always be considerable, for 

 human experience is so " cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd," 

 that even Shakspere could only write upon what he had 

 himself observed, heard, or read. That he was familiar 

 with Florio's rendering of Montaigne has long been un- 

 questioned, but the precise degree in which he was 

 influenced by the great essayist will always form material 

 for interesting if not altogether profitable inquiry. In 

 this handsomely printed and elegantly mounted volume, 

 Mr. John M. Robertson has brought his critical acumen 

 to bear upon the problem, which he discusses throughout 

 with a refreshing freedom from that venomous antipathy 

 which so often disfigures these analytical examinations of 

 the work of the immortals. " We are embarked, " he says, 

 " not on a quest for plagiarisms, but on a study of the 

 growth of a wonderful mind. And in the idea that much 

 of the growth is traceable to the fertilizing contact of a 

 foreign intelligence, there can be nothing but interest and 

 attraction for those who have mastered the primary 

 sociological truth that such contacts of cultures are the 

 very life of civilization." 



In this eminently fair introduction to the study of the 

 comparisons will hs found the key to ^Ir. Robertson's 



