196 



NA TURE 



[June 27, 1907 



has passed, and examines more particularly, in the 

 case of Kepler, the struggle between the non-scientific 

 (and commonly theological) prepossession and the 

 purely scientific spirit — so well illustrated, for ex- 

 ample, in Kepler's demonstration that the orbit of 

 Mars is an ellipse, and not a circle as his "pre- 

 possession of perfection " had originally compelled 

 him to suppose. But in all attempts at explanation, 

 whether " the divine " is invoked or not, the primary 

 facts are qualified by an hypothesis — in other *ords, 

 they are made to forin part of an apperceptive system. 

 In this way the non-scientific attempts to render 

 the Objective intelligible do not differ formally from 

 the scientific, and Mr. Nunn argues that it is, in 

 fact, difficult to declare any concept essentially in- 

 capable of mediating a scientific interpretation of the 

 Objective to some thinker : he instances the use 

 made by some scientific men of the concept of cause 

 in the sense of transeunt action, or again the prefer- 

 ence shown by Weber and the Continental school for 

 the concept of action at a distance, as contrasted 

 with the equally marked preference of the British 

 school for the concept of an intervening medium. 

 Finally, as for the close connection between mathe- 

 matics and science, it is due simply to the fact that 

 primary facts present themselves for the most part 

 in series, and so " the most useful method of deter- 

 mining the Objective consists in correlating terms of 

 these series with the members of the number series." 

 (2) and (3) These two books form part of the ex- 

 cellent " Philosophische Bibliothek." The Descartes 

 volume contains (in a German translation) the 

 " Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii " and the " Inqui- 

 sitio Veritatis per Lumen Naturale." The editor, in 

 a well-written introduction, discusses the question of 

 dates, and reaches the conclusion that the 

 " Regulae " were composed about the year 1628, and 

 in Latin, as Descartes at that early age still employed 

 the language of his instructors. The " Inquisitio," 

 on the other hand, was probably written in French 

 between 1644 ''"d 1647, and translated into Latin by 

 the unknown editor of the posthumous works pub- 

 lished in 1701. Dr. Buchenau concludes that its 

 fragmentary condition is due to the fact that 

 Descartes, in 1645, had an opportunity of comparing 

 the French translation of the " Meditations " with 

 his own new French work, and on finding a great 

 similarity between the two thought it unnecessary 

 to proceed with his later effort. — Herder's works 

 readily lend themselves to selection, and it would be 

 a pity that we decadents should forget one who, 

 though overshadowed by the gigantic figures of Kant 

 and Goethe, is by no means negligible in the history 

 of thought. The excerpts are chosen with discrimin- 

 ation, and include the most suggestive passages of 

 the " Ideen." The introduction gives a good account 

 of Herder's relation to Kant, and a useful inde.x is 

 provided. 



(4) The title of this work is rather misleading. 

 The International Scientific Series already contained 

 a book entitled " Mind and Body," by Prof. Bain, 

 and it has therefore seeined to the translator or 

 publishers desirable, and to M.' Binet tolerable, that 

 NO. 1965, VOL. 76] 



this work in its English dress should be called " The 

 Mind and the Brain," and not " Soul and Body " or 

 "Mind and Body." But, for that matter, the well- 

 known series in which it appears also contains works 

 entitled "The Brain as an Organ of Mind," and 

 "The Brain and its Functions," so that he who 

 would avoid Scylla must reckon with Charybdis. 

 And certainlv, when one finds that the table of con- 

 tents is boldly divided into three parts, " The Defini- 

 tion of Matter," "The Definition of Mind," "The 

 Union of the Soul and the Body," it argues a certain 

 lack of insight and imagination to fix uiwn a name 

 so inappropriate as "The Mind and the Brain." 



M. Binet writes in an interesting and generally a 

 clear style, with a French lightness of touch which 

 occasionally borders on superficiality. The subject 

 could, in our judgment, have been better treated. 

 The reader is often irritated by one-sided statements 

 which are apparently, a few pages later, contradicted 

 by one-sided statements in precisely the opposite 

 sense. One yearns for the synoptic view, for the 

 cacoethes explicaitdi, which will compel the writer, 

 even at the risk of being tiresome, to burrow to the 

 verv roots of his problem. Thus, for example, on 

 p. 25 we are told that our nervous system, which 

 enables us to communicate with objects, prevents us 

 from knowing their nature. Sensation has, as its 

 unknown cause, the great X of matter. On p. 38 

 we find objection taken to the physicist's attempt to 

 explain sensations of sound : — " outside our ears 

 there exists something we do not know which excites 

 them ; this something cannot be the vibratory move- 

 ment of the tuning fork, for this vibratory movement 

 which we can see is Ukewise [as much as the sensa- 

 tion of sound] a subjective sensation"; and the airy 

 reference on p. 39 to the hegemony of certain of 

 our senses over others still avoids much of the 

 difficulty. But in the light of all these statements 

 the conclusions reached on p. 109 are little short of 

 astonishing; they are these, that (i) there remains 

 no reason for refusing to admit that we perceive 

 things as they are, and that the consciousness, by 

 adding itself to objects, does not modify them ; (2) the 

 statement that we only know our sensations, and 

 not the excitants which produce them, is to be under- 

 stood in this way that these sensations are matter — 

 they are matter modified by other matter, viz. our 

 nervous centres. This is perhaps skilful, but is it 

 convincing? 



(5) M. Ribot's " Essay on the Creative Imagin- 

 ation," which appeared in French about six or seven 

 years ago, has now been translated into English. 

 Like all its author's work, it is suggestive and 

 thorough. The translation is usually well done ; but 

 is it author or translator who is responsible for the 

 statement on p. 58 (" The Unconscious Factor ") that 

 inspiration is the result of an underhand process 

 existing in men? Chatterton is said, on p. 145, to 

 have died at the age of sixteen, some emphasis being 

 attached to that precise number; the usual statement 

 is that " the marvellous boy " had almost reached his 

 eighteenth year when he died. 



(6) Mr. Mitchell's work will compare very favour- 



