NovEMBER 19, 1903] 
NATO RE 
a3 
picked railway men on a tour of inspection over the 
American railways. 
Chapter xx. is of value. The author gives us the 
benefit of his ‘‘ conclusions,’’ and states that 
“before starting on my tour of the United States I 
had heard or read so much in praise of the conditions 
existing on American railways that I expected to bring 
back with me a long list of recommendations desery- 
ing consideration on this side. But the more I looked 
for and inquired after any special advantages that 
were really suited to British conditions, and desirable 
of adoption here. the greater my difficulty in finding 
or learning of any became.”’ 
There is no doubt, however, that the British rail- 
ways are only too anxious to learn, for most of the 
important lines have sent their officials to study on the 
spot and to investigate anything that is new. 
We can recommend this book to all students of rail- 
way practice as one containing much useful inform- 
ation and decidedly worth reading. Ne Je: 
OUR BOOK SHELF. 
Why the Mind has a Body. By C. A. Strong. Pp. 
x+355- (New York: The Macmillan Co. ; London : 
Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1903.) Price 1os. 6d net. 
In this book Prof. Strong deals with the riddle of the 
universe, and contributes some original ideas toward 
its solution. Of the three sections into which the 
work is divided, the first deals with the current theories 
of automatism, parallelism, and interaction, and 
criticises them on their merits; the second gives us a 
metaphysical ground-work ; the third resumes criticism 
on the bases of the results of the second part, and 
develops the new doctrine. The critical part must be 
left to the reader, who will not fail to find it vigorous 
and interesting ; as the peculiar features of the author’s 
thought emerge most clearly in the constructive work, 
our space will be best used in indicating these ideas. 
The goal is psychophysical idealism, which is meta- 
physically monistic, but distinct from psychophysical 
monism. The world, as we then have it, is monistic 
in “stuff ’’ and in ‘‘ form’; in form, for the theory 
“conceives individual minds and other things-in- 
themselves as together constituting a single system ’’; 
in stuff, for all is mental. This conclusion rests on 
the doctrine of things-in-themselves which the second 
section is designed to prove. As to these, the nature 
of reality is known to us in consciousness; they are 
therefore not unknowable; we also have a transcen- 
dent knowledge of other minds, hence we know some 
extra-mental realities, and are saved from solipsism. 
Two such realities may stand in a causal relation each 
to each; Kant’s limitation of causality to the sphere 
of experience applies only to phenomenal causality ; 
but there is also a real causality to which this limit- 
ation does not apply which may be used to transcend 
experience. If we now ask how the causal chain, e.g. 
from A’s anger to B’s sensation of pain, is to be con- 
structed, we find a gap which requires filling; hence 
a *‘ cosmological proof ’’ of other things-in-themselves 
which must be mental but are not consciousnesses. 
It must be left to the reader to follow these argu- 
ments in detail; the bare outline here given will serve 
to show the trend of thought; the whole is not un- 
worthy of the slightly paradoxical title. The author 
is always attractive, and his style is vigorous, though 
at times Transatlantic in diction; he anticipates the 
possibility of failing to convince his readers, in which 
he is not without justification, for he deals with the 
obscure obscurely. The most fundamental and most 
NO. 1777, VOL. 69] 
difficult point is the relation of one consciousness to 
another; here we have a “ transcendent ’’? knowledge 
hitherto overlooked by philosophers. This knowledge 
is founded ‘‘ neither on reason nor experience, but 
solely on instinct ’’ (p. 219). | Deeper still, our own 
past experience stands to us in the same relation as 
another consciousness; ‘‘it literally is another con- 
| sciousness, though one no longer existent’? (p. 222). 
We reach this by a conjecture which bears “* the closest 
analogy to the process by which we infer other minds ”’ 
(p. 222). Then is our ‘‘instinct’’ after all an in- 
ference? And if we know another consciousness 
because it in some way acts upon us, do our own past 
experiences also in some way act upon us? As this 
is not a criticism, the question may be left without 
discussion. What should be noted is that, though we 
find the self-development of mind rejected, the evolu- 
tion of things-in-themselves accepted, though we hear 
of the ‘‘ imprinting ’’ achieved by things upon minds 
(which seems convertible with evoking states of con- 
sciousness), we nowhere have a discussion of the 
problem of activity; that is why our gratitude for this 
work does not obliterate the feeling that one riddle 
has been solved by—another. G.'S; B: 
| The Position of the Old Red Sandstone in the Geo- 
logical Succession. By A. G. M. Thomson, F.G.S. 
Pp. vi + 224. (Dundee: John Leng and Co., 1903.) 
More than sixty years ago Hugh Miller, in his classic 
on ‘‘ The Old Red Sandstone,’’ remarked, ‘‘ There are 
some of our British geologists, too, who still regard 
it as a sort of debatable tract, entitled to no indepen- 
dent status. They find, in what they deem its upper 
beds, the fossils of the Coal Measures (i.e. Lower 
Carboniferous), and the lower graduating apparently 
into the Silurian System; and regard the whole as a 
sort of common, which should be divided as pro- 
prietors used to divide commons in Scotland half a 
century ago, by giving a portion to each of the border- 
ing territories.’? One object of the present work is 
to show that the conditions under which the Old Red 
Sandstone was produced may not have been of the 
character of inland lakes without free connection with 
the sea; and another object is to show that these con- 
ditions may not have begun only after the close of 
those which produced the highest Silurian strata, nor 
have terminated before the date of deposition of the 
oldest of the Carboniferous beds. 
It would seem as if we had made very little progress 
during the past sixty years, and, to a certain extent, 
this is true. The ancient physical geography of the 
Old Red Sandstone period has yet to be clearly de- 
picted, and the precise relations of Old Red Sandstone 
and Devonian to Silurian and Carboniferous still 
require further detailed research among the fossil 
plants and animals, and among the rocks in which 
these organic remains are entombed. A book should 
in this, as in all other cases, be either useful or in- 
teresting, or it might, as with Hugh Miller’s works, 
possess both attributes. The present work, however, 
seems to fail in both respects. The expressions used 
by the author, of ‘* Prevertebrate ’’ and ‘‘ Vertebrate 
Silurian,’’ ‘‘ Prevertebrate’’ and ‘‘ Vertebrate Old 
Red,’’ eleven times on one page, and often six or seven 
times, and in one instance varied by the printer into 
“* Pervertebrate,’’ are, to say the least of it, tiresome. 
We read also of ‘‘ Vertebrate Palzeozoic times ’’ and 
““* Vertebrate Old Red ’ rivers.”’ 
The work is mainly a discussion with regard to the 
distribution and succession of life, and with regard to 
the physical conditions, bearing on the objects 
previously expressed. It may afford some new sugges- 
tions to those studying the Old Red Sandstone, but 
| it lacks precise stratigraphical evidence and tabula- 
