354 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 62; 



followed, and his Grundziige der physiologischen 

 Psychologie (Fourth Edition, 1893) is the standard 

 compendium. The volume of Prof. Wundt's 

 writings is almost as remarlcable as is their 

 value. He has published large works on phys- 

 iology, physics, logic, ethics and philosophy, 

 and has in preparation a treatise on anthropo- 

 logical and sociological psychology. 



Pkof. Wundt established, in 1883, an Archiv 

 Philosophische Studien for the publication of re- 

 searches in philosophy and psychology, which 

 is now in its twelfth vokime. Last year Prof. 

 E. Kraepelin, of Heidelberg, established a simi- 

 lar archiv and now a third archiv, Beitrdge zur 

 Psychologie und Philosophie has been begun by 

 Prof. Gotz Martins, of Bonn. The first number 

 of the first volume contains a preface and an 

 introduction by the editor and four papers all 

 concerned with the brightness of colors. It 

 may also be mentioned that Prof. Miinsterberg 

 has published his contributions to psychology 

 in the form of Beitrdge, and that there is in 

 Germany an excellent Zeitschrift filr Psychologie 

 u. Physiologie der Sinnesorgane, edited by Prof. 

 Ebbinghaus, of Breslau, and Prof Konig, of 

 Berlin. Ten large volumes of this journal have 

 been issued since its establishment in 1890. 

 These contain full reviews of psychological lit- 

 erature and many important papers, those 

 on vision being probably of greater value than 

 all the papers combined that have been pub- 

 lished elsewhere on this subject. 



The number of the Zeitschrift filr Psychologie 

 issued on January 14th contains an index of 

 psychological literature for the year 1894. The 

 index appears somewhat late, but is very com- 

 plete, especially in regard to publications on 

 the senses. The Psychological Review issued, at 

 the beginning of February, a supplement con- 

 taining a bibliography of the literature of psy- 

 chology for 1895, compiled by Dr. Livingston 

 Farrand, of Columbia University, and Prof. 

 Howard C. Warren, of Princeton University. 

 The index contains 1394 titles, distributed as 

 follows : General, 136 ; genetic, comparative 

 and individual psychology, 238 ; anatomy and 

 physiology of the nervous system, 205 ; sensa- 

 tion, 125; consciousness, attention and intel- 

 lection, 180 : feeling, 91 ; movements and vo- 



lition, 81 ; abnormal and pathological, 338. 

 This index is also about to be issued in France 

 as part oi L' Ann^e Psychologique, edited by MM. 

 Beaunis and Binet. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



CERTITUDES AND ILLUSIONS. 



To THE Editor of Science : In your issue 

 of February 21, in an interesting paper on 

 'Certitudes and Illusions,' Major J. W. 

 Powell has repeatedly referred to an illusion 

 which he describes as a certain tendency to 

 'reify void' — an ancient, and, as Major Powell 

 has very well said, a disastrous tendency of the 

 human mind. This is the tendency to recog- 

 nize mere abstractions as realities, and, in con- 

 sequence, to explain phenomena by referring 

 their source to ' essences' or to some sort of 

 'substrate,' defined as 'some occult existence 

 unknown and vmknowable, which gives to 

 bodies their likeness or unlikeness. ' Major 

 Powell very justly condemns this tendency, ex- 

 emplifies it in a number of cases, suggests ex- 

 planations for its existence, and rightly declares 

 its inevitable outcome to be a bad metaphysic. 

 So far the present writer cordially agrees with 

 Major Powell. 



But, as a humble student of the history of 

 philosophy, the present writer is very sorry to 

 find that Major Powell, influenced by some 

 singular historical 'illusion,' repeatedly refers 

 to one of the best known of modern thinkers, 

 Hegel, as a prominent example of precisely this 

 sort of bad metaphysic. ' 'As the substrate of 

 matter, or reified nothing, is entertained in the 

 minds of some as an entity, so some thinkers 

 make essence a property of this substrate — a 

 nonentity of a nonentity. Chuar (Major Pow- 

 ell's entertaining Indian friend), Hegel, and 

 Spencer reason in this manner." 



Major Powell is no doubt an absolute au- 

 thority as to the views of his Indian friend, and 

 he appears in this particular case to be in no 

 wise unfair to Spencer. But to put Hegel in 

 the same category, to define that lifelong op- 

 ponent of the 'unknowable,' that merciless 

 dialectical dissolver of all the 'essences,' 'sub- 

 strata,' and similar entities of traditional meta- 

 physic, as one who, at least in this sense, 



