May 27, 1915| 
NATURE 
341 

nervous system.” So Mr. Sturt says “no physico- 
chemical energy ever foresaw anything. It is 
consciousness, then, that foresees and plans.” 
But he does not explain consciousness. Con- 
sciousness, again, is characterised by passion; by 
neglecting this fact and the fact that it is “total- 
working,” intellectualism “has obscured the true 
nature of intelligence.” 
On the fundamental nature of consciousness, 
creative and passion-wrought, Mr. Sturt has a big 
assumption, already made by McDougall, viz., 
“a true logic is impossible without animism.” 
He has some _ interesting observations and 
phrases :— 
“Felicitous naming, felicitous phrasing add 
enormously to the power of thought,” especially, 
we may add, when thought is being thought 
about. Thus, the soul is not weak and shadowy, 
a slender breath, animula vagula blandula, nor a 
mere point; “a human soul is very large”’; it 
has a wealth of faculties “correspondent to the 
richness of the world.” 
If the soul is a big thing, then the mental 
sciences, including logic, are bigger than the 
writers of the past would lead us to suppose. 
But Prof. Stout has said, “to the psychologist 
the conception of a soul is not helpful.” Further, 
there is a social soul; a society of a hundred in- 
dividuals is more than a hundred souls. On the 
“generation” of souls he says :— 
“There must be some source of soul-life . 
we cannot say that we are not surrounded by a 
soul-element, and that the whole universe is not 
pervaded by soul-life whence individual souls come 
into being as they are wanted.” 
This is precisely the doctrine of the Dayaks and 
other savages of the East Indies. 
(3) “Dynamic” is nowadays a blessed word. 
It assists Mr. Philip towards a theory of know- 
ledge. In this, the ultimate reality is ‘potential 
energy.” “Sensation is obstructed action ’’; ‘‘sen- 
sations only mark the interruptions in the dynamic 
activity in which we as potent beings partake.” 
But these obstructions do not constitute the 
essence of our experience, they merely denote it. 
For this essence we must look to our activity as 
such. Space is the absence of physical obstruc- 
tion. Time is the periodicity of natural force. 
Mr. Philip has some useful inferences drawn 
from the experiences of the blind, recently re- 
corded by M. Pierre Villez. Particularly signifi- 
cant is~his insistence throughout the book (which 
contains four short essays) on the necessity for 
metaphysics to found upon physics, a necessity 
hitherto almost totally ignored. 
: A. E. Craw Ley. 
NO. 2378, VOL. 95] 
OUR BOOKSHELF. 
Canadian Institute: General Index to Publications, 
1852-1912. Compiled and edited by J. Patter- 
son (Hon. Secretary). Pp. 518. (Toronto: 
University Press, 1914.) Price 5.00 dollars. 
THE pioneers of a new country are mainly pre- 
occupied in developing its material resources, but 
there is always a remnant faithful to the intel- 
lectual life. Cut off from the companionship of 
their peers, these men gather themselves into 
local societies, and adopt the common form of 
regular meetings for the reading of papers. 
Some two score such societies were scattered 
through the Dominion when, in 1882, the Marquis 
of Lorne founded the Royal Society of Canada. 
The older societies were not superseded, but 
affliated, and they report annually by delegates 
on their work for the year. The most important 
of them were the Natural History Society of 
Montreal (founded 1827) and the Canadian In- 
stitute of Toronto (1852). It is this latter body 
which now issues, in a handsome volume of 518 
double-column pages, an index to its 35 volumes 
of publications from 1852~—1912. 
The index has been prepared with much care 
and labour, the most important papers being in- 
dexed almost by paragraphs, and as it is arranged 
like a dictionary, alphabetically, it ought to be 
easy to find anything to which there is the slightest 
clue. 
The pity of all such series is that they become 
the burial-ground of much that is valuable be- 
neath heaps of rubbish. There are hundreds of 
references here to “papers” (especially in the 
early volumes) which are merely translations of 
some passage from the classics, fugitive reviews 
of forgotten books, scraps of antiquarian lore from 
anywhere on earth except Canada. But the real 
core of value is to be found in the original con- 
tributions on the history, customs, and folklore 
of the rapidly vanishing Indian tribes; the early 
history and settlement of Canada; its geology, 
minerals, botany, flora and fauna, with their con- 
sequent biological problems. Even in physics, 
though most that is worth while finds its way to 
European publications, there are observations 
“special to Canada (e.g., peculiar ice-formations) 
which would have found no record without the 
labours of her own pioneers of science. Distin- 
guished names like those of Sir Daniel Wilson, 
Sir J. W. Dawson, and Goldwin Smith are a 
guarantee that there is much in these Proceed- 
ings which ought not to be smothered. This 
index will enable any student, in spite of the dust, 
to rescue whatever concerns his own line of study. 
Towards Racial Health. By Norah H. March. 
With a Foreword by Prof. J. A. Thomson. 
Pp. ix+ 326. (London: G. Routledge and Sons, 
td: rors.) Price 35. 6d. net. 
In this little book Miss March deals with one of 
the most serious difficulties which lies in the path 
of those engaged in training the young. Children 
are taught elementary rules of health in relation 
| to food, drink, and exercise, but sex is seldom 

