248 



SCIENCE 



[N. 8. Vol. XLI. No. 1050 



mig-ht be materialized by means of a slightly 

 different sort of symbolism. 



Tbe book does not attempt to give a com- 

 pletely exhaustive account of the subject of 

 functions of curves. It omits notable re- 

 searches by Hadamard, Levy, Frechet, and 

 confines itself rather closely to the personal 

 researches of the author, vcho is of course the 

 inventor of their analysis and the principal 

 source of its development. But if it lacks con- 

 sideration of some of the possible branches, it 

 makes up for the omission by possessing the 

 artistic quality Which is characteristic of uni- 

 fied original work. Moreover, the reader will 

 continually find references to theoretical 

 physics and other branches of mathematics, 

 which, besides illuminating profoundly the 

 matter in hand, testify to a not common com- 

 prehensiveness of thought on the part of the 

 author. 



G. C. Evans 



The Essence of Astronomy. By Edward W. 



Price. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1914. Pp. 



xiv :+ 207. Illustrated. 



The Century Dictionary defines essence as 

 being the inward nature, true substance, or 

 constitution of anything. From the title of 

 Mr. Price's book, therefore, one would expect 

 to find something of the inward nature of the 

 solar system, or true substance of the stellar 

 universe, some hint as to the underlying 

 causes and formations of the heavens. But 

 one who opens the book with such expecta- 

 tions will be most grievously disappointed, 

 for the work is but a compilation of the sim- 

 plest statistical facts; facts which have been 

 compiled and written about over and over 

 again. Further, the book contains some 

 strange and new conceptions: to classify the 

 milky way as a freak, and double and variable 

 stars as oddities, is certainly new, and such 

 classification, itself, might even be called odd 

 and freakish. 



The book is well made mechanically, well 

 printed, with clear and beautiful illustrations, 

 but otherwise it is one of dozens of similar 

 crude compilations. 



Chas. Lane Pooe 



An Introduction to General Psychology. By 



Egbert Morris Ogden. Longmans, Green 



and Co., 1914. Pp. xviii + 2Y0. 



Professor Ogden's text-book is the outcome 

 of a definite abandonment of the purely sen- 

 sationalistic conception of psychology. Dr. 

 Ogden defines his science as " the study of 

 mental happenings." He treats not merely 

 of " mental contents " and their physical con- 

 ditions, but also of the " mental activities " 

 which constitute what he rather vaguely calls 

 the " purposive aspect " of mental happenings. 

 As elements of mental contents Dr. Ogden 

 enumerates sensations, images, thoughts — 

 which he classifies as notions or relations — and 

 affections. Attention, memory, perception, 

 ideation, emotion and reaction are brought 

 together under the heading " The Synthetic 

 Facts of Mind." The concluding section of 

 the book contains chapters on " mind and 

 body," " personality " and " character." In 

 the last of these chapters Mr. Ogden suggests 

 the relation of psychology to logic, to esthetics, 

 to ethics and to religion. Under the second 

 heading he discusses mainly sleep, dreams, 

 hypnosis, multiple personality and insanity. 

 Not all teachers — it may be noted — ^will ap- 

 prove the inclusion of the topics just named 

 in a book of fewer than 300 pages ; and many 

 will regret the brevity with which all topics 

 are treated and the omission of " all diagrams, 

 references to literature and practical demon- 

 strations." 



The writer of this notice is glad to find Pro- 

 fessor Ogden in substantial agreement with 

 Herbert Spencer, William James, Binet, 

 Meinong, the Wiirzbiirg school, and with sev- 

 eral recent American writers in his view that 

 thought-elements as well as sensational and 

 affective elements, should be explicitly ac- 

 knowledged in a text-book of psychology; and 

 she welcomes also his repeated descriptions of 

 consciousness — the relating consciousness (pp. 

 14 ff.), affection (pp. 85 ff.) and wiU (pp. 

 lYl f.) — in terms of the self who is conscious. 

 Occasional artificial constructions and a cer- 

 tain vagueness in the use of the term " mental 

 activity " might indeed have been avoided, had 

 this natural and inevitable point of view been 

 more steadily held. 



