912 iiEPORT— 1900. 



comUned system, we iacrease tlie power of effective classification tenfold, and 

 obtain no less tlian 2,430 divisions, and that without straining either source of 

 classification, 



WEDA'ESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. 



The following Papers and Report were read : — 



1. The Sense of Effort and the Percej^fion of Force. 

 By Professor G. J. Stokes, M.A. 



According to the most generally accepted view the idea of force is obtained 

 from the muscular sense. It has also been attributed to touch. The most 

 important question is whether the perception is connected with the motor or 

 sensory nerves. If the latter view be adopted, it has been thought that this sensa- 

 tion can reveal nothing of the nature of the objective cause. As recent investiga- 

 tion seems to compel the adoption of the latter view, the objective character of the 

 perception can only be saved if we admit the presence of an objective character in 

 all sensation. If "Wundt's theory of the original functional indifference of the 

 nerves be accepted, we may yet be enabled to remove the difficulties in the way of 

 admitting such an objective character. The true difference between the perception 

 of force and other sensations will then lie, not in the process by which the pheno- 

 menon is apprehended, but in the nature of the phenomenon apprehended. We 

 may thus have an apprehension of an objective external reality — the same reality 

 which underlies the phenomena of dynamics. The principle of Least Action 

 may perhaps explain the directive character of vital and voluntary processes. 



2. On Interpolation in 2Iemory} 

 By Professor Marcus Hartog, M.A., D.Sc. 



Many educational syllabuses that profess to rest on a psychological base assume 

 that the only guidance for action is a sensation which has been memorised by 

 frequent repetition. The mind, however, seems to have the power of classifying 

 the memories of each category apart and in order of magnitude and direction, 

 completing the records of single memories with what may be compared with an 

 interpolation-curve, and even extrapolating on either side ; so that, if a suitable 

 response have been learned to a limited number of sensations, a new sensation of 

 the same category will j)roduce a new appropriate response. This capacity for in- 

 terpolating has been long recognised in various arts, and is known as ' faculty,' 

 ' feeling,' «S:c. It has not, however, been definitely recognised by the psychologist, 

 who has asked whether the conscious memory and judgment can construct inter- 

 mediate sensations between those he has learned from experience, rather than 

 whether there is a power in virtue of which it can recognise the appropriate position 

 of new sensations, or appropriately act on the stimulus of new sensations when 

 they occur. 



"Similarly with combinations of intermediate sensations, the mind can simulta- 

 neously act on them and execute the combined appropriate response in much the 

 same way as the pencil of a tide-predicting machine is simultaneously acted upon 

 by the independent wheels. This is shown by the now received fact (finally proved 

 by Richet) that each mental act takes about the tenth of a second, and any act of 

 conscious {sit veniu verbo) combination and judgment is usually out of the question 

 from a lack of adequate time. 



Illustrations of these views were quoted from the domains of housekeeping, the 

 plastic arts, cards, billiards, and language. It was urged that a priori methods of 

 instruction based on incomplete premises must be regarded with extreme caution. 



1 Published in the Contem2>orary Review for October 1900. 



