July 30, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



151 



Instead of starting from the simpler facts 

 which everybody can experience, and possibly 

 try, to the more complex phenomena which the 

 majority will have to be satisfied to be able to 

 merely " understand " — or let alone — Miinster- 

 berg takes the reader first through a "pains- 

 taking and perhaps fatiguing inquiry into 

 principles, before the facts are reached"; 

 chapters on the aim of psychology, mind and 

 brain, psychology and medicine, a chapter on 

 suggestion and hj^pnotism and a discussion of 

 the subconscious (which is rather dramatically 

 eliminated by the three words " there is none," 

 but after all rather fully discussed). A state- 

 ment of the simple and plain facts and then a 

 reply to the probable queries of the unsophis- 

 ticated and the sophisticated varieties of read- 

 ers would have been more illuminative and 

 more likely to bring home necessary principles 

 to readers who should get them in direct pro- 

 portion to their eagerness to take in the stories 

 and facts. 



In the second part Miinsterberg discusses 

 first the field of psychotherapy, the general and 

 special methods, and only after that the mental 

 and bodily symptoms (or facts to be dealt 

 with) ; he introduces the concrete instances 

 as mere examples instead of a starting point 

 of demonstration and analysis and the prin- 

 cipal reason for a discussion. 



The third part is devoted to the discussion 

 of the place of psychotherapy in its relation to 

 the church, to the physician and to the com- 

 munity, with a thoroughly sane standpoint 

 and with interesting perspectives. 



The effect of the book on physicians, from 

 what I have gathered from a number of in- 

 quiries, has been somewhat disappointing. 

 The book has not the breadth of the presenta- 

 tions by physicians like Forel, Moll, Lowen- 

 f eld and others ; the examples of psychotherapy 

 are chiefiy enumerations of cures with profuse 

 expressions of gratitude, without enough refer- 

 ence to failures and to their number and rea- 

 sons, and without always satisfying the physi- 

 cian to the point of helpfulness. We can 

 safely say that the medical contribution is 

 chiefly that of great optimism, and the some- 

 what dramatic examples frequently a comment 



on the narrowness and limitation of the 

 thereapeutic fund of most physicians, but too 

 exclusively selected from among the successes. 

 The theoretical discussions are in the main 

 sound and in many points unusually helpful 

 and suggestive, but unnecessarily loaded with 

 difficulties of Miinsterberg's own making. To 

 some of us it must seem unfortunate to see the 

 undue contrast between psychiatry and psy- 

 chotherapy ("psychotherapy is sharply to be 

 separated from psychiatry," whereas the fact 

 is that just now many psychopathologists know 

 little psychiatry and many psychiatrists little 

 psychopathology, but for reasons extraneous 

 to the real principles), and the over-emphasis 

 of the contrast of "the attitude of apprecia- 

 tion" and "the attitude of physical explana- 

 tion," the contrast of the subjective and ob- 

 jective, of the purposive and the causal view — 

 which is raising a string of difficulties which 

 might be dispelled rather than emphasized; 

 further such claims as: 



Whatever belongs to the psychical world can 

 never be linlied by a real insight into necessity. 

 Causality there remains an empty name without 

 promise of a real explanation (p. 32). 



We are practically made to believe (p. 43) 

 that translation of the facts into neurological 

 terms furnishes the only real explanatory 

 ground. Is not the role of the psychophysical 

 doctrine chieily that of eliminating harmful 

 features of a dualistic standpoint which hardly 

 would present itself to a well-guided observer 

 of the simple and plain facts? Does it not 

 call for mere neurologizing tautologies unless 

 we know much more about neuro-physiology ? 



A plausible and attractive presentation of 

 the problem of attention relieves the start 

 with sensationalism and association psychol- 

 ogy. In the "psychophysical" scheme (p. 

 50) the quality of the " elements " is traced 

 to the local position and connection of the 

 brain cells, the intensity corresponds to the 

 energy of the excitement; and the vividness 

 to the relation of motor channels. But then 

 the reader must wrestle with the claim that 

 " psychology must destroy unity and freedom 

 of our personality " (p. 51) — probably because 

 " anv will which is not understood as deter- 



