July 10, 1884] 



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239 



purposes of a judgment. The finished conceptions are 

 known to be standing, as it were, already built, and do 

 not require to be mentally named, or newly reconstructed, 

 in every act of thought. And similarly with respect to 

 propositions, although we cannot doubt, from inquiries 

 which we have made, that some eminent thinkers habitu- 

 ally employ the " verbum mentale " in the mechanism of 

 their thinking much more than others equally eminent, 

 yet we do not believe that any man who ever thought was 

 in any large measure really dependent upon this verbum. 

 Indeed it appears evident that in all cases that mental 

 seizure of perceived relations, in which an act of judgment as 

 such consists, must be prior to the statement of the act, 

 whether internally or externally. No doubt the statement 

 may serve in many cases to give clearness and precision 

 to the judgment after it has been formed ; but even here 

 we are convinced that some thinkers are much less de- 

 pendent upon this artificial assistance than others. In 

 some minds whole trains of conscious reasoning upon 

 matters of the most abstruse kind may pass without a 

 single act of predication being performed, until the 

 necessity arises for considering how these trains of 

 reasoning may be expressed to other minds. 



We have dwelt upon this point, because it is one to 

 which we should like to see the attention of our psycho- 

 logical readers directed. But we may now conclude by 

 saying that every one who desires to have his information 

 on psychological matters brought up to date ought to 

 procure this excellent text-book. It must have involved 

 immense labour on the part of its author, and the result 

 is one which deserves the substantial gratitude of the 

 public. George J. Romanes 



OUR BOOK SHELF 

 Numerical Exercises in Chemistry. By T. Hands, M.A., 



Science Master in Carlisle Grammar School. (London : 



Sampson Low and Co., 1884.) 

 THERE are now several of these small books of questions 

 in chemical arithmetic before the public, and although 

 serving a very useful purpose, the tendency to run into 

 purely arithmetical exercises with a flavour of chemical 

 connection or application is apparent to a greater or lesser 

 degree in all of them. This is to be regretted, as there is 

 plenty of room for purely chemico-arithmetical problems 

 and questions. And then again it is not desirable that 

 more time than necessary should be taken up by the 

 chemical student in solving arithmetical problems, see- 

 ing the immense amount of work to be done by the 

 chemical student before he attains to a very moderate 

 knowledge of the subject. We have an ever-increasing 

 number of students who pass elementary and advanced 

 examinations but who are completely fixed by problems 

 in practical or theoretic chemistry whose solution de- 

 mands only a knowledge of the fundamental properties of 

 the elements and the effects of mass or temperature. The 

 questions in this little book are varied and not too nume- 

 rous in any one section, and should be useful as leading 

 up to chemical flunking. 



Chimie Elementara. Partea I. Metaloide. By Prof. 

 Licherdopol. (Bucharest, 1884.) 



This is a text-book in use in the technical school in 

 Bucharest, and for an elementary work contains a very- 

 large amount of matter, and with the usual exception of 

 having theoretical considerations in the early part of the 

 book it is well arranged. The present part deals with the 

 so-called non-metallic elements, which are arranged and 



treated in order of valency. At the end of each section 

 are questions and problems. The appendix contains 

 some good tables for the qualitative testing for acids and 

 non-metallic substances and on rational formula, both for 

 mineral and organic substances. The work has a de- 

 cidedly practical stamp, and should be well adapted for a 

 technical school of a general character. 



Voyages of Discovery in the Arctic and Antarctic Seas 

 'an./ Round the World. Bv Deputy Inspector-General 

 R. McCormick, R.N., F.R.C.S. Two vols. (London : 

 Sampson Low and Co , 1884.) 

 It seems rather late in the day for Dr. McCormick to tell 

 the story of the various voyages in which he took part, 

 in two handsome and richly illustrated volumes. He 

 is certainly extremely diffuse, and has evidently no idea of 

 perspective and proportion. However, we can pardon 

 much in a venerable officer who has done good service to 

 his country and to science in his day, especially since his 

 volumes contain much that is really valuable. Dr. McCor- 

 mick was with Sir Edward Parry in 1S27 in the attempt 

 of the latter to reach the Pole from Spitzbergen. But the 

 greater portion of the first volume is. occupied with the 

 journal he kept when serving as surgeon in Ross's Ant- 

 arctic Expedition of 1S39-43 ; curiously he mentions only 

 once or twice the name of Sir Joseph Hooker, whose 

 classical Antarctic and other Floras were the result of 

 his exertions during the same expedition. The second 

 volume is occupied with the account of a boat voyage 

 by Dr. McCormick in search of Sir John Franklin, and 

 with his own exceedingly minute autobiography. The 

 student of science will find much to interest him in 

 these volumes ; the very large-scale illustrations of the 

 forms of ice seen during the Antarctic voyage are of 

 special value. 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 

 [The Editor does not hold himselj responsible for opinions expressed 

 by his correspondents. Neither can he undertake to return, 

 or to correspond -with the writers of, rejected manuscripts. 

 No notice is taken of anonymous communications . 

 [77./ Editor urgently requests correspondents to keep their letters 

 as short as possible. The pressure on his space is so great 

 that it is impossible otherwise to insure the appearance even 

 of communications containing interesting and novel facts.] 



Science and the Sandhurst and Woolwich Examinations 



As one of a class of private tutors who, because they possess 

 the secret of successfully preparing lads of moderate ability for 

 the above examinations, are invidiously or ignorantly termed 

 "crammers,'' I should like to say a few words on the subject of 

 your excellent leader in NATURE of June 26 (p. 189). 



With the opinions and suggestions therein propounded, I most 

 cordially agree, and I believe they would be indorsed by every 

 true friend of real education throughout the country. One or 

 two of the facts connected with the table of percentages admit 

 of an explanation founded on considerations besides those ad- 

 duced by the writer, the exposition of which will, I think, tend 

 to confirm still more the truth of the general conclusions arrived 

 at. Tims the high percentage of success in French, both for 

 Sandhurst and Woolwich, depends a good deal on the fact that 

 it is compulsory for the preliminary examination in each case, 

 a candidate naturally pursuing for his "further" examination, 

 a subject which he has already partially acquired. It is,besides, 

 notorious that this subject is highly marked. 



Again, the percentage in the geography and geology for Sand- 

 hurst would not be so high were it not that a non-classical 

 Sandhurst candidate generally pitches upon it as offering the 

 easiest choice in the way of a fourth subject, because six ques- 

 tions in the paper are pure geography, a subject which is again 

 obligatory for his "preliminary," while the geology, as the writer 

 remarks, may perhaps be more readily crammed than any other 

 scientific subject. 



In the case of a Woolwich candidate who relies mainly on his 

 mathematics, the necessity of a fourth subject is not so much 



