Deceubeb 17, 1909] 



SCIENCE- 



881 



rather than as a great scientific responsibility. 

 — New York Evening Post. 



THE MASSACIIUSKTTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 



The report of President Maclaurin, of the 

 Institute of Technology, derives rather un- 

 usual interest as a fresh contemplation of old 

 problems. These include the annual equation 

 of making receipts equal expenditures, and 

 the new questions of better salaries for in- 

 structors and a new location for the institute. 

 Difficulty appears in keeping some of the best 

 of the teaching force in the face of larger 

 professional opportunities. The margin is 

 frequently too great to be offset by the teach- 

 er's enthusiasm, and an appeal is made to the 

 state to deal more generously with this insti- 

 tution. The present plant is criticized be- 

 cause of the noise, dirt and electrical dis- 

 turbance to which it is subjected. The 

 buildings are scattered and inconvenient and 

 lack dignity. If a removal to some more 

 favorable location is not soon made in ten 

 years it will be inevitable, in the president's 

 opinion, and the longer it is delayed the more 

 difficult will it be to find a suitable situation. 

 — The Boston Evening Transcript. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Consciousness. By Henry Eutgers Mar- 

 shall, M.A., L.H.D. New York, The Mac- 

 millan Co. 1909. 



The intending reader will take this book in 

 hand with a certain feeling of satisfaction due 

 to first impressions. As a piece of book- 

 making it is exceedingly well put together; 

 and the analytic table of contents shows that 

 it is the intention of the author to treat the 

 various problems which he chooses to include 

 under its title in an orderly and systematic 

 way. The promise made by these first im- 

 pressions is in the main well fulfilled. More- 

 over, the style of the book, although it is not 

 always clear and is in spots positively obscure, 

 is uniformly dignified and appropriate — recog- 

 nizing obligations and differing with self- 

 restraint and sobriety, and without resort to 

 those kaleidoscopic turns and twists of argu- 

 ment and tricks of rhetoric which have cost 

 the would-be science of psychology so dearly 

 in this country. 



The author announces in the preface (p. vii) 

 such a " restatement of psychological doc- 

 trine " as shall " bring all related psychic facts 

 into harmony with the theory" which he has 

 defended in some of his previous writings. 

 With the expert student of these facts, such a 

 statement as this is certain to create grave 

 misgivings. For at this somewhat late day 

 in the history of psychology, as of any other 

 of the so-called sciences, the temptations con- 

 nected with the attempt at restatement of all 

 its facts are almost irresistible. Of these 

 temptations the following two are chief: first, 

 the temptation to think that one is saying 

 something new, because one is telling the same 

 old story in a different and not infrequently a 

 more uncouth language ; and second, the temp- 

 tation to force the facts into harmony with the 

 new theory, under cover of a difference in the 

 language used to describe them. Let us not 

 forget, then, that in the development of any 

 science, restatement can not create any new 

 facts or justify any new interpretation of 

 facts already known. At best, it is only a 

 matter of convenience in the method of ar- 

 rangement and exposition. Of late in psy- 

 chology, in our judgment, most similar at- 

 tempts have hindered quite as much as they 

 have helped the discovery and the elucidation 

 of its more fundamental truths. 



Mr. Marshall divides the treatment of his 

 theme into three separate books. Of these. 

 Book I. treats of Consciousness in General; 

 Book II., of The General Nature of Human 

 Presentations, and Book III., of The Self. 

 Each of these books is again divided into 

 parts, divisions, subdivisions, chapters and 

 numerous short paragraphs — giving an ap- 

 pearance to the whole not unlike that of 

 Spinoza's " Ethica." Thus the form of pre- 

 sentation is made to accord quite strictly with 

 the plan which, as we have seen, proposes to 

 restate all the psychic facts in terms of a new 

 theory that shall embrace and explain them 

 all. At this point, the devoted psychologist 

 can scarcely refrain from the prayer : Would 

 to heaven that the attempt might be successful 1 



Before examining any of the particular 

 problems dealt with by the author, it is de- 



