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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 834 



atic and more adequate understanding of 

 the mental processes. There is little agree- 

 ment as to the best means of accomplishing it. 

 Each in his way assents that such helpfulness 

 must respect the attitude of the student, while 

 yet exercising to the full the privileges of wise 

 and even stern leadership. Any given text is 

 the author's advocacy of the ways and means 

 he regards as best suited to set the youthful 

 mind psychologizing with greatest profit. 

 These platforms differ decidedly, and as Pro- 

 fessor Titchener indicates, are dependent upon 

 temperament. Yet his own classification of 

 texts is more a matter of policy. He notes 

 three types: those that adhere to systematic 

 principles and make much of traditional ob- 

 servation; those that simply compile experi- 

 mental data; those that lean heavily on ex- 

 periment but interpret conclusions in theo- 

 retical analysis. His own text belongs to the 

 last group. 



Objectively it is readily described. The- 

 present volume replaces the " Outlines of 

 Psychology" (1896), shows a thorough re- 

 writing with much use of recent reconstruc- 

 tion, and carries out yet more rigidly the de- 

 termination to " set experimental methods 

 and results in the forefront of discussion." 

 This decision is reflected in the space distri- 

 bution of topics. Two fifths of the text is de- 

 voted to Sensation and assumes a knowledge 

 of the sense-organs. (The functions of the 

 nervous system are omitted as equally to be 

 elsewhere acquired.) Affection together with 

 Attention occupies seventyrfive pages; and the 

 same space is devoted to Perception. Some- 

 thing less than a third of the pages consider 

 Association, Memory, Imagination, Action, 

 Emotion and Thought. The psychology is 

 structural; and construction lines and archi- 

 tectural details are emphasized; the theories 

 of their interpretation professionally dis- 

 cussed; the technique of method expounded. 

 The student is taken in hand as one ready to 

 proceed as far as he can, toward the same kind 

 of insight and interest that the professional 

 psychologist has acquired. There is good 

 precedent for this attitude in the texts of other 

 experimental sciences. No one is better 



equipped to lay out such a course than Pro- 

 fessor Titchener. Those who agree with him 

 that this is the course to be pursued may un- 

 hesitatingly adopt his text as an able, judi- 

 cious and logical guide. Even more may be 

 added : so adequately does this text represent 

 what can and should be done and said and con- 

 sidered in conformity with the fundamental 

 position of the author, that the entire method 

 may be said to stand on trial in this volume. 

 It represents the best products of ripe scholar- 

 ship and of the comprehensive utilization of 

 recent advances. Professor Titchener informs 

 us that the present volume was insistently de- 

 manded by colleagues and pupils and pub- 

 lisher. Let that answer for the service which 

 it has performed and is destined to perform. 

 The present reviewer has no desire to in- 

 trude his personal equation unduly. Though 

 he shares with Professor Titchener the confi- 

 dence in the value of the experimental data, 

 and in the attitude thus enforced, he takes his 

 stand with those who believe that a very dif- 

 ferent kind of text-book will alone serve the 

 pedagogical purposes in view. In the empha- 

 sis of the functional aspects of mental phe- 

 nomena; of their setting in common experi- 

 ence and observation; of the thoroughgoing 

 acquisition of principles (quite enough of 

 which are sufficiently established for the stu- 

 dent's needs) ; of the avoidance of refined 

 details and controversial positions ; of the min- 

 imizing of theoretical dissection; of the pro- 

 vision of a fair perspective of the field of mind 

 as a living, significant part of the world; 

 in all this and much more he takes his stand 

 with the other wing of the psychological party. 

 In an experience with several thousand stu- 

 dents, he recalls but a handful willing or able 

 to absorb such psychological proficiency as 

 they aspired to, through the plans and specifi- 

 cations furnished by this order of text. He 

 believes that psychology presents as character- 

 istic differences from as points of community 

 with the instructional methods of other sci- 

 ences; that the text-book writer may more 

 safely overrate the distinctions than the re- 

 semblances. Both in view of students as they 

 are, and of instruction functionally eonsid- 



