2l6 



NATURE 



[October 24, 1912 



of their own districts, or are contemplating- such 

 surveys. It should do much towards jjuiding their 

 work on to really useful lines. 



The book is printed and issued in the same 

 stvle as the other well-known " Monographs on 

 Biochemistry." It is singularly free from errors of 

 all kinds, but there is a slip on p. 91, where the 

 formula of potassium phosphate is written K2PO4. 



T. B."W. 



PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY. 

 (i) Outdoor Philosophy : The Meditations of a 



Naturalist. By Stanton Davis Kirkham. Pp. 



xii + 214. (New York and London: G. P. 



Putnam's Sons, 1912.) Price 55. net. 

 ■(2) An Introduction to Psychology. By Prof. 



Wilhelm Wundt. Translated from the second 



German edition by Dr. Rudolf Pintner. Pp. 



xi-l-198. (London: George Allen and Co., 



Ltd., 1912.) Price 35. 6d. 



(3) The Composition of Matter and the Evolu- 

 tion of Mind. Immortality a Scientific Cer- 

 tainty. By Duncan Taylor. Pp. 176. (Lon- 

 don and Felling-on-Tyne : The Walter Scott 

 Publishing Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price 35. 6d. 



(4) The Triuneverse : A Scientific Romance. By 

 the author of "Space and Spirit." Pp. xiv + 

 221. (London: Charles Knight and Co., Ltd., 

 1962 !) Price 55. net. 



(i) 'nn^HIS book is a pleasure and a refresh- 

 J. ment to read. It is not exactly 

 science, or philosophy, or religion, but it partakes 

 of all three, and each is at its best in Mr. Kirk- 

 ham's pages. Further, the literary quality, apart 

 from the matter, is excellent. It is not too much 

 to say that the reader is continually reminded of 

 Emerson and Thoreau, by whom, indeed, the 

 author has been influenced and inspired ; yet there 

 is no plagiarism — we feel the originality of his 

 nature-impressions. " Something in me, deaf to 

 all preaching, responds to that bluebird's note." 

 " And there is the sky — the unimproved sky — the 

 only dome that gives room for thought, the only 

 roof that does not sometimes seem too near." 

 Our life is sick and artificial : the birds and beasts 

 and trees are sounder and saner than we, though 

 they know nothing of soundness and sanity. With 

 our book-learning and our words, words, words, 

 we confuse ourselves until we forget to learn from 

 Nature at first hand. Let us go to the woods 

 and listen, the sweet wind washing us clean of 

 morbid artificialities, and refreshing us after our 

 contact with a "too garrulous and gregarious 

 world." 



An admirable book. May it be widely read ! 



(2) This is a popular introduction to the 



NO. 2243, VOL. go] 



\Vundtian psychology. It is translated from the 

 second edition of the work which has had such 

 a remarkable success in Germany. The author 

 begins with metronome-experiments, showing the 

 scope of consciousness and its "rhythmical" 

 nature, with the difference between apprehension 

 and apperception. He then proceeds to differ- 

 entiate sensation and idea (simple and complex 

 awarenesses), giving his own and rather unusual 

 meaning to the latter word, which with most 

 writers means a complex that does not arise from 

 direct outward impressions. There is much to 

 be said in favour of the Wundtian use. From 

 this we go on to association and feeling, and the 

 growth of abstract concepts from concrete ones 

 — perceptions. The last chapter deals with the 

 "laws of psychic life," holding close to psycho- 

 physical parallelism (which truly needs empha- 

 sising, in view of Bergson's ably urged heresies 

 in " Mati^re et Memoire "), and admonishing 

 metaphysics to base itself on facts and to beware 

 of abstractions. 



Prof. Wundt and his translators are to be 

 thanked. In this volume they give us the best 

 elementary book of its size and kind that exists 

 in English. 



(3) The sub-title will probably have an effect 

 contrary to the expectations of the author. 

 Thoughtful readers — still more men of scientific 

 training — are rendered at qnce suspicious by 

 "certainties," and are apt to avoid books which 

 make great claims. And, indeed, in this case 

 they would be justified. The book is a queer 

 collection of incoherent paragraphs, and, so far 

 as the present reviewer can see, does not prove 

 anything. Such paragraphs as are compre- | 

 hensible often contain the most reckless state- 

 ments, as, e.g., "we know that the solar system 

 itself, with its full-orbed, glorious centre, is 

 circling round a greater centre" (pp. 12, 13). 

 Similarly, the planetary structure of the atom is 

 too stiffly put. These things may be true, but j 

 at present they are not more than provisional I 

 hypotheses or even (as in the astronomical sen- 

 tence) wild guesses. We sympathise with the 

 author's aims and feelings in certain points, but 

 he should have made his book more carefully 

 accurate and more coherent. He jumps about 

 too much from physics to metaphysics — Chri.st 

 and gravitation, God and aether, omniscence and 

 mass. If we may be permitted the phrase, we 

 might say that he seems to have got intoxicated 

 on M. le Bon. 



(4) One gets rather tired of these " Looking 

 Backward" books, which usually follow Mr. H. G. 

 Wells, longo intervallo. The one under review 

 begins at 1950 a.d., and opens with a description 



