NOVKUIIKB 2, 18H;j.] 



SCIENCE. 



601 



not philosoi>liy, may claim not to be ignored 

 by ilhilosopliy." All this means, if it moans 

 any thing, thai we may expect from Dr. Jfands- 

 ley some results of his experience with the 

 laws of human will, some concrete psychology, 

 — such, for instance, as, in case of certain phe- 

 nomena of sensation and memory-, Mr. (Talton 

 has given us, in the book that we lately re- 

 viewed on • Human faculty.' Mr. flalton's 

 work has been confined mainly to the lower 

 phenomena of mind. How great the gain, if 

 we can get scientific research to give us cor- 

 respondingly fruitful results about the higher 

 phenomena of mind I We hope, of course, for 

 nothing final, or as yet very exact, in this field : 

 I'ut Dr. Maudsley will surely offer us some- 

 thing ; and his announcement is just such as a 

 sober observer of a special class of facts might 

 be expected to make, in case he had found 

 ont something well worth telling. As for the 

 author's denunciation of speculation, we need 

 not be haters of philosophy to overlook or 

 pardou that. The most enthusiastic student 

 of general pliilosophy ought to admit freely 

 the vast importance to him, also, of just such 

 concrete study of mind as Dr. Maudsley an- 

 nounces ; and if Dr. Maudsley has found the 

 heights of speculation barren, then surelj* 

 he will keep off tiiem, and will tell us what he 

 has to tell so much the better. We reserve, 

 then, our own right to study general i)hilosophj- 

 if we find it fruitful ; and we just now follow 

 him eagerly to tlie green pastures of concrete 

 psychology, where he is to give us the result 

 of special study. 



We are doomed to bitter disapiiointment. 

 The book consists of three parts. The first, on 

 ' Will in its metai)hysical aspects,' fills nine- 

 ty-eight pages, and contains a rest.atement of 

 the bare commonplaces of modern thought on 

 the relation of mind and organism, a like re- 

 statement of the oldest and most common- 

 place of the deterministic arguments, a liarren 

 criticism of the oldest and most common|)lace 

 arguments for free will, and finally-, scattered 

 throughout this discussion in all sorts of weari- 

 some digressions, a siring of purely speculative 

 reflections, so confused, so full of contradic- 

 tion, so ill expressed, tliat they would be 

 unworthy- to pass as the thesis of a fairly in- 

 structed student of philosophy in his second 

 year's work. 



The second part of the book (pp. 99-232, 

 with four pages of notes) opens far more prom- 

 isingly, with a good chapter on the ' Physio- 

 logical l)asis of will.' liut thereafter, at once 

 the discussion sinks back into its native con- 

 fusion. We are to learn about the ' piiysio- 



logical, sociological, and evolutional relations' 

 of the will ; and we have a series of the com- 

 monplaces of recent discussion, together with 

 another mass of confused speculations, as full 

 as before of digressions. Mr. Spencer, who is 

 not named, is yat several times referred to verj' 

 severe!}' as a dangerous speculator ; but the most 

 obscure expressions of Mr. Spencer's worst mo- 

 ments are bright sunlight lo the gloom of these 

 long and tedious sentences, and his si)eculafions 

 are sureh' as likel3" to be good as his rival's. 



The third part, at last, on ' Will in its patho- 

 logical relations,' leads us into the light once 

 more. Here, at least, we have a few concrete 

 iustanccs brought together, and generaliza- 

 tions made from facts, and plainly stated. But 

 how little we learn I The space left is short ; 

 and the author's lucid interval ends with the 

 beginning of the last chaiiter. which he enti- 

 tles' What will be the end thereof ? ' and which 

 he devotes to speculations on the way in which 

 human life will degenerate before its final cessa- 

 tion on this planet. 



And so, of the whole, only about one hundred 

 pages, or less than one-third of the book, may 

 be considered as having any real relation to 

 the implied promise of tlie preface. The rest 

 is simply the ■ barren speculation ' which we 

 were to avoid, or else it is repetition in obscure 

 language of what has many times been said in 

 clear language. 



But we must illustrate, for we are aware 

 that a man of Dr. Maudsley's reputation 

 might be expected to do better than we have 

 here represented him as doing. First, then, 

 as to the ' barren speculation.' Surely, if a 

 man desires to let questions alone, he can ver}- 

 easily do so. Yet Dr. Maudsley goes out 

 of his way, in the first part, to write a chapter 

 on the ' Authority of consciousness.' He goes 

 out of his way, we say ; for, in so far as con- 

 cerns his problem of the freedom of the will, 

 the authority of consciousness might have been 

 very brieflj' and specially treated. But, once 

 iiaving determined to take up the question 

 generally, Dr. Maudsley runs on in this wise. 

 Self-consciousness, he first tells us, is no more 

 immediate knowledge thau is the knowledge of 

 external objects tjirough the senses ; since the 

 latter knowledge consists of states of con- 

 sciousness, as well as does the former. This, of 

 course, is Kant's fiimous • IJefutalion of ideal- 

 ism ' in a nutshell. But now, both of these 

 kinds of knowledge being knowledge of facts 

 that are in consciousness, we ask what the 

 truth of tliTs consciousness is, or how we shall 

 lest its truth. We learn something about this 

 matter fart^ier on, on p. A\ . where we find that 



