FEBRUARY 14, 1907 | 
NALOKE 
363 
verted into oleic acid and again subjected to the action 
of sulphuric acid. The author, unfortunately, says 
nothing definite about the vital matter of expense, 
but as far as the complete recovery of the by-product 
is concerned the process now leaves little to be desired. 
The other matter of interest is the Twitchell method 
of decomposing fats into their constituent fatty acids 
and glycerin. ‘This is effected by boiling the fat with 
water and a small quantity—about 1 per cent.—of 
sulphobenzenestearic acid. On standing, the pro- 
ducts of the reaction separate into layers of fatty 
acids and glycerin of a relatively high degree of 
purity. Not only in candle-making, where it is now 
largely used, but in soap-making, the 
elaimed to be economically superior in several re- 
spects to the time-honoured method of saponification 
with alkali hitherto universally adopted. It gives a 
greater yield of glycerin; the cost of recovering the 
glycerin is smaller owing to the much greater purity 
of the menstruum; there is economy in the cost of 
material, since soda-ash can be used instead of the 
more expensive caustic soda for converting the fatty 
acids into soap; and, finally, the necessary mechanical 
equipment is simpler: Whether or not with these 
advantages the Twitchell process will eventually super- 
sede the historic allkali method of soap-making re- 
mains to be seen; the indications are that it may 
well do so. Meanwhile, the remarkable steatolytic 
action of the sulpho-aromatic fatty acids, on which 
the process depends, is worthy of note from the scien- 
tific point of view. One explanation of the ease 
with which fats are resolved into their constituents 
by these compounds assumes it to be due to the 
emulsifying power of the sulpho-acids, but the matter 
requires further investigation. 
The most approved methods for the recovery of 
glycerin are fully described, and the work closes with 
a chapter on the chemical examination of 
materials and factory products. 
In view of recent events in this country, it is 
interesting to read that in the United States, where 
other kinds of ‘‘trusts’’ seem to flourish, there is 
but little *‘ cooperative control of production ’’ in the 
soap industry. On the contrary, there is a marked 
tendency towards self-sufficient independence among 
the individual producers. The author’s reason for 
this is that, whilst control of the raw material and 
of the facilities for transport are two essential factors 
in organising a successful ‘‘ combine,’’ these con- 
ditions are largely absent in the production and dis- 
tribution of soap. 
““The chief raw material is obtainable wherever 
meat is eaten, and the market exists wherever cleanli- 
ness is appreciated.”’ 
process is 
raw 
“cc 
Possibly more than anything else it was the diffi- 
culty of monopolising the supplies of raw material 
that recently enabled the individual producers in this 
country to maintain the ‘tendency towards self- 
sufficient independence ’’ which the author notes in 
the case of soap-makers in the United States. 
C. SIMMONDs. 
NO. 1946, VOL. 75] 
SOME PROLEGOMENA TO THEOLOGY. 
Volkerpsychologie: eine Untersuchung der Entwickl- 
ungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. By 
Wilhelm Wundt. Zweiter Band. Mythus 
Religion. Erster Teil. Pp. xi+617. 
Wilhelm Engelmann, 1905.) Price 14s. 
ELSES part of the second 
Wundt’s important work, and it deals in three 
long chapters with imagination, imagination in 
art, and imagination in the formation of myths. 
The first chapter defines imagination, and points out 
und 
(Leipzig : 
net. 
the first volume of 
its chief characteristics, e.g. that it is intuitive in its 
working, and does not deal with the products of the 
understanding, that it is creative, and that it is spon- 
taneous or involuntary. The author claims that 
perimental analysis reveals its mode of operation as 
e€X- 
a subjective condition of all our perceptions in space 
and 
time. 
More especially the illusions in space- 
perceptions are discussed by which, e.g., a tetra- 
hedron as represented on paper may appear to face 
Pak ¥ 4D} 
the spectator in two quite different ways, according 
to the position of the point fixated; and again, in 
regard to time, it is pointed out how the imagination 
of itself supplies the measure into which a succession 
of musical notes of precisely the same emphasis and 
length is fitted; so, too, with speech-rhythm. 
tions of light, colour, movement, and the like are 
next discussed, and the author reaches the conclusion 
that there two 
imagination, one 
Sensa- 
are main 
the 
principles at worlx in 
vivifying apperception—the 
spectator so projecting himself into the object that 
he feels himself at with it—and the the 
power of illusion or imagination to heighten feeling. 
The writer now child-psychology, and 
analyses imagination in children as it may be observed 
in their play, their fairy tales, and their attempts at 
and in the products of the 
artistic faculty in children and in savages he 
emphasises the two points that neither savages nor 
children, as a rule, copy objects before them, but 
recall what they have seen, and that both prefer 
objects in which they have an immediate interest, 
generally men and beasts. 
The second chapter deals with imagination in art. 
Wundt believes that it is utterly dle to inquire what 
form of art arose first, that in the most primitive 
races we find the beginnings, not only of the musical 
arts (including both dance and song), but of the 
graphic arts as well. Into the details of the chapter, 
which discusses the whole range and development of 
the graphic and musical arts, we cannot now enter. 
The author inquires, among other things, why in 
early art beasts are drawn more truthfully than men, 
and notes that as early art is generally based on 
recollection it exhibits a face view of human beings, 
but a profile view of beasts. The discussion of 
Stilisierung on pp. 186-8 is interesting, and the 
gradual progress exhibited of the alligator-motive, 
though perhaps not convincing to the ordinary man, 
is as possible as many other things in anthropology. 
one other 
passes to 
drawing ; comparing 
