Febbtjabt 19, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



299 



uncertainty eoncerning the figures given and 

 their interpretation, and the general difficul- 

 ties attaching to this method of investigation; 

 and then discusses his facts under three head- 

 ings. I., ' General Statistics ' : 183 observa- 

 tions are given, of which 141 were on boys and 

 42 on girls. Children of normal intelligence, 

 of normal height and of good health are sub- 

 ject to anger, in even greater proportion than 

 those less well endowed. Paleness is a fre- 

 quent characteristic of anger, as well as hyper- 

 £emia, a fact neglected by many previous ob- 

 servers. Secretions are augmented sometimes. 

 Innervation of the voluntary muscles is in- 

 creased, but is imcoordinated and spasmodic. 

 Tears appear at the close of an attack in a 

 very large proportion of cases. The malign 

 influence of heredity is very apparent. In all 

 but 20 per cent, of the cases the attacks of 

 -anger have diminished in violence and fre- 

 quency with increase in age. II., ' Different 

 Forms of Anger ; Irascible Children ' : Two 

 fundamental types of anger are distinguish- 

 able, the one defensive and the other oifensive, 

 both connected with the instinct of self-pres- 

 ervation. Considerable space is given to the 

 demonstration and description of the former 

 type, which had not been recognized by M. 

 Ribot. Children of a pronounced irascible 

 type show the influence of ill-health and of 

 hereditary taint more strongly than do the 

 others. Anger is rarely due primarily to ex- 

 ample. III., ' Pedagogical Considerations ' : 

 Hygienic measures are as important as moral 

 ones. The method of cure must be adapted 

 to the individual nature. It is essential that 

 some image, idea or feeling, profoundly in- 

 corporated within the mind and awakened by 

 the very fact of the arousal of anger, should 

 oppose the latter and dominate it. Corporal 

 punishment is often beneficial. The appli- 

 cation of cold water is preferable. In general, 

 motives of an intellectual and moral nature 

 are best of all. 



2. B. Bourdon : ' On the Possibility of Dis- 

 tinguishing the Sensations from the Two 

 Eyes' (pp. 41-56). It is possible to distin- 

 guish which eye receives an impression, when 

 the impressions received by the two eyes 

 differ in intensity, in distinctness or in the 



number of details. The distinction is due to a 

 subjective phenomenon consisting in a sensa- 

 tion of heaviness or constraint in the eye which 

 receives the impression less strong, less clear 

 or less rich in details, and in a feeling of 

 lightness or of facility in the other eye. The 

 author believes, contrary to the opinion of 

 Briickner and Briicke, that these feelings have 

 a peripheral origin, being due probably to sen- 

 sations from the muscles or tendons of the eye- 

 Feebleness of retinal excitations leads to a 

 low degree of innervation of eye muscles, in- 

 volving a greater degree of effort in fixating, 

 hence a feeling of heaviness or constraint. An 

 objective phenomenon, consisting in a shadow 

 accompanying the luminous point, sometimes 

 appears. It can be shown that this it not due 

 to excess of convergence when both eyes view 

 the point, as has been surmised, but that it is 

 closely related to the subjective phenomenon. 



3. A. Binet: 'Writing during States of 

 Artificial Excitation produced by Work of a 

 Graphic Nature ' (pp. 57-78). The author had 

 previously observed in experiments on hys- 

 terical patients that in states of excitation 

 writing became larger and its lines thicker; 

 and in tests on school children that marks 

 made in crossing out certain letters from a 

 printed page became longer, thicker and more 

 inclined when the task was rendered more 

 difficult by habituating them to one set of let- 

 ters and then giving them another group to 

 cross out. He now tries a serit's of experi- 

 ments on normal persons, in which a phrase is 

 first written correctly and then rewritten with 

 the vowels omitted or with other vowels sub- 

 stituted for the correct ones. The change 

 from the relatively mechanical act of normal 

 writing to a task involving a greater degree 

 of attention and effort causes the letters to be 

 written larger, better and often detached from 

 their neighbors. The fact is accounted for 

 probably by a more vivid representation of 

 the letters, by a desire to make the incorrectly 

 written letters legible, and especially by an 

 attendant diffuse excitation of the movements 

 of writing. 



4^9. M. Binet divides his discussion on the 

 ' Measurement of Tactile Sensitivity ' into six 

 separate articles (pp. 79-252). They all to- 



