;34 



NATURE 



[May 20, 1909 



of parts, even in cases of complicated figures, will 

 occasionally be felt as a great drawback. The 

 volume also contains a map of Africa, with Engler's 

 " Florengebiete und Provinzen," and a census of the 

 African flora, as compared with that of the whole 

 world. The figures, especially for the species, are, 

 of course, mostly approximate, but even so the 

 totals are interesting enough to be quoted, namely : — 

 Genera (of Siphonogams or Phanerogams) for the 

 whole world 0942 (species 136,000.); Africa 34S6 

 (species 38,600) ; North Africa 981 (species 4850) ; 

 Tropical Africa (continental) 2185 (species 18,300); 

 Mascarenes and Madagascar 1266 (species 5950) ; 

 South Africa 1393 (species 13,300). 



The publishers deserve great credit for the excellent 

 get-up of the book and the astonishingly cheap price. 

 Taking the book as a whole, it is remarkable as 

 a feat of painstaking industry, and it bears witness 

 to the extraordinary development of the botanical 

 exploration of Africa during the last twenty or 

 twenty-five years, and to the general interest in its 

 flora ; but, after all, on laying down the book one 

 cannot quite resist a suspicion that so much labour, 

 so much skill, and last, not least, so much know- 

 ledge, might have been applied to a more lasting 

 purpose than the making of a stupendous key which 

 in five or ten years may be out of date. 



Otto Staff. 



SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY. 

 Volkerpsychologie, eine Untersuchung der Entwick- 

 lungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. By 

 Wilhelm Wundt. Zweiter Band, Mythus und Re- 

 ligion, Dritter Teil, 1909. Pp. xii-t-792. Price 18 

 marks. Dritter Band, Die Kunst, second edition, 

 1908. Pp. x+564. (Leipzig : W. Engelmann.) 

 Price 12 marks. 



THIS encyclopaedic work, of which we have here 

 two volumes, is a prolegomena to sociology. 

 Wundt is tracing the evolution of language, art, myth, 

 religion, and custom from their beginnings to the 

 civilisation of the present day. In his own phrase, he 

 is giving us a study of the development of " mental 

 communities," those " changing pluralities of mental 

 unions which are interlaced in the most manifold ways 

 and become more and more numerous as development 

 progresses." 

 The basis of such development is language. 



"The prime necessity of every mental communitv at 

 its beginning, and a continually operative factor in its 

 further development, is the function of speech. This 

 is what makes the development of mental communities 

 from individual existences psychologically possible. 

 .... It becomes the indispensable form for all the 

 common mental contents. These common contents, 

 or the mental processes which belong to the whole 

 community, may be divided into two classes, which 

 are merely interrelated components of social life. . . . 

 The first of these classes is that of the common ideas, 

 where we find especially the accepted conclusions on 

 the questions of the content and significance of the 

 world — these are the mythological ideas. The second 

 class consists of the common motives of volition, 

 NO. 2064, '^■OL- 80] 



which correspond to the common ideas and their at- 

 tending feelings and emotions — these are the laws of 

 custom." 



The whole mental development of man in society 

 is thus schemed out, with language as its essential 

 condition, into mythology and religion, decorative, pic- 

 torial, and plastic art, epic, lyric, and romantic litera- 

 ture, dance, music, opera, mime, and drama ; the 

 result is a philosophy of culture based on the latest 

 psychological principles. 



The greater part of the study naturally is occupied 

 with the earlier stages of development, but each form 

 of mental activity is followed right up to the present 

 time. In one volume, for instance, we may find an 

 exposition both of primitive magic and of latter-day 

 pragmatism and modernism. 



The author omits nothing of importance ; recent 

 and ancient theories are assigned positions according 

 to their relevance ; the facts selected are generally 

 well chosen. The whole work, encyclopaedic as it is, 

 has the unity of one mind — that of the greatest of 

 psychologists. 



It is significant to compare the author's treatment 

 of ethnographical data with that of the majority of 

 anthropologists to-day, and with that of Tylor and 

 Spencer some years ago. Spencer applied the exact 

 psychology of his time to the data for his sociology r 

 Tylor treated the data for his primitive sociology in 

 an acute but inexact method, the result being that 

 the conclusions of the amateur have outlasted those 

 of the professed psychologist. In the interval of 

 thirty years or so psychology has been revolutionised 

 and become more and more an exact science. It is, of 

 course, the only concrete science. Its predominant 

 importance to-day is due to Wundt himself above all. 

 In these volumes we have, for the first time since 

 Tylor and Spencer, a scientific analysis of the develop- 

 ment of culture ; carried out by a psychological instru- 

 ment far surpassing theirs in exactness and precision, 

 the analysis is correspondingly a great advance. 

 Comparing it with the anthropological work of the 

 day, it is to be regretted that so much of the latter 

 has no psychological value. The author shows on 

 everv page — solvitur atnbulando — that the only sound 

 results producible for anthropology are those which 

 are based on psychological evidence. He has pointed 

 out to anthropologists " the only way." 



At the same time, the anthropologist may regret 

 that the author has not driven his analysis more 

 deeply and more searchingly in various directions. 

 To do so is more than can be expected of one man, 

 but perhaps a reduction of the historical description 

 and an amplification of the psychological analysis 

 would have been more useful to science. For in- 

 stance, a closer analysis of the facts of animism 

 and fetishism is much to be desired. There is 

 considerable obscurity about the origin of these ten- 

 dencies. They are, as a rule, slurred by students, or 

 receive an additional superstructure to crown an 

 edifice built upon misconception and pseudo-science. 

 The author should be better able than any man to 

 give a final explanation of spiritism, but he has not 

 done so. 



