Auaust 4, 1899.] 
chat. Professor Baldwin has escaped both of 
these and has produced a remarkably good 
book, which will certainly hold the interest of 
the lay reader and not forfeit the respect of 
specialists. The serious-minded who glance 
superciliously into a book with such a title will 
probably read far before they lay it down. 
The more important departments of the sub- 
ject are given separate chapters—the mental 
life of children and of animals, physiological 
and pathological psychology, social influences, 
the character of laboratory experiments, and 
other topics, with a brief introductory view of 
the general nature of mind and of psychology. 
The author has not attempted to give the de- 
tailed results in these fields, but has chosen 
some sample problems under the various 
headings, and stated the case according to 
our present knowledge. In selecting these 
he has clearly been guided by his personal in- 
terest, taking preferably those topics to which 
he himself has been an important contributor ; 
and undoubtedly the impression of movement 
and vitality which the book makes is largely 
due to the fact that the author is, in a double 
sense, telling of his own offspring, and can 
hardly conceal, under his cold and studied 
phrases, the glow of parental pride. For this 
reason the various chapters which treat of men- 
tal development and the ramifications of the 
imitative and social instinct are the best parts 
of the ‘story,’ and have a swing and security 
which is scarcely felt in some other portions of 
the book. 
For instance, in the account of the general 
character of our mental processes, the manner 
in which the distinction between sensations and 
their ‘apperceptive’ connection is treated—the 
sensations supposedly coming first and from 
without, while the activity of arranging them 
springs up later and from within—will help to 
postpone the good day when all shall acknowl- 
edge that sensations are as much an ‘inner’ 
affair as is their arrangement or interconnection, 
and that the ‘formal’ and ‘material’ sides of 
consciousness are but abstractions, both of 
which are really present in even the simplest 
mental fact. Consequently they cannot come 
from different sources nor arrive on the scene 
at different times. If for popular and peda- 
‘SCIENCE. 
149 
gogical purposes it seems best to present it 
otherwise, at least some hint might be dropped 
so that the wayfaring man who is wise and dis- 
criminating need not go astray. 
And in the physiological material of the book 
the reader who is keen for such things might 
note an objection here and there in the margin. 
If right-handedness is, as the author admits, 
but a phase of the wider fact of left-brained- 
ness it seems as infelicitous for him to refer to 
a ‘center for right-handedness’ as it would be 
to speak of a center for right-sideness; it is, as 
the author says, a matter of the relation of the 
two sides, and the ‘center’ consequently would 
have to include both halves. And if the ‘cen- 
ter for right-handedness’ becomes later the 
‘center for speech’ the wicked might ask how 
it is that we do not cease to be right-handed 
when once we have learned to talk. 
In another passage the author refers to very 
definite anatomical evidence that children have 
no ‘will in any sense’ until well along in the 
first year, for ‘the fibers of the brain necessary 
to voluntary action,’ he goes on to say, ‘are not 
yet formed.’ In the present state of our 
knowledge as to just what fibers are necessary 
for voluntary action this sounds somewhat 
over-sure; but even though the anatomical 
connections necessary for the voluntary control 
of muscular movements be wanting, this by no 
means makes it certain that ‘will in any sense’ 
is lacking, seeing that even the laziest interest 
or listless preference contains the essential of 
volition, and that the anatomical conditions for 
such a mental state are not necessarily the same 
as those for conscious muscular control. 
In the chapter on the training of the mind the 
familiar classification of persons into those of 
visual, auditory, muscular and other ‘types’ is 
given a wider interpretation than the facts will 
probably allow. Mr. Baldwin seems to assume 
that a person who is put into the ‘motor’ class 
because his mental imagery is predominantly in 
terms of muscular sensations must also be 
‘motor’ in the sense of preferring to act rather 
than to reflect, or of being impulsive rather 
than deliberate. On the contrary, the ordinary 
imagery-type to which a man belongs does not 
seem to give us any certain warrant for saying 
whether he is generally reflective or not, but 
