36 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 836 



value of the book lies. The varied informa- 

 tion v^hich it brings together in a compendi- 

 ous form will be found useful by the psycho- 

 logical student and lecturer as well as by the 

 teacher. 



When the writer undertakes to bring his 

 materials together in a systematic review the 

 result is less satisfactory. It is, of course, im- 

 possible to keep clear of theory in any system- 

 atic presentation of fact ; and while the neces- 

 sity for such underlying conceptions may be 

 masked so long as one is concerned only with 

 reporting the results of individual experi- 

 ments, the lack of guiding principles will ap- 

 pear whenever the attempt is made to bring 

 together a group of particulars in a system- 

 atic review. Dr. Arnold's recapitulation of 

 the discussion of attention, for example, suf- 

 fers from the lack of a principle of division 

 distinctly conceived and persistently adhered 

 to. He begins this review by pointing out 

 that " attention must be considered from two 

 points of view," the sensory and the motor, a 

 dualism which is expressed also in the terms 

 " ideal " and physiological. The reader nat- 

 urally assumes that this statement, with 

 which the recapitulation begins, represents the 

 last result of the writer's analysis, that the 

 distinction is fundamental to the phenomena 

 of attention. But Dr. Arnold goes on im- 

 mediately to say that there are two aspects of 

 attention, the subjective and the objective, of 

 which the former includes both the sensory 

 and the motor processes above mentioned. 

 If this be so, it should be pointed out on be- 

 half of the reader that the conditions of a 

 good exposition surely require the more fun- 

 damental distinction to be presented first. 

 That the latter distinction is basal appears 

 from the following page, in which the subjec- 

 tive-objective is made the most general phase 

 of the discussion. 



The schema in question formulates the 

 phenomena of attention in a way which is of 

 permanent value, but as the grouping is not, 

 in strictness, the order followed in the previ- 

 ous discussion, it can scarcely be called a re- 

 capitulation. One must drop the old sub- 

 divisions which he carried in mind throughout 



the reading, and substitute a new — though of 

 course congruous — conception of relations. 

 A question, too, may be raised concerning the 

 propriety of the terms here employed. The 

 aptness of the term " objective " to a sum- 

 marization of the characteristics of clearness, 

 distinctness and persistence may be granted, 

 since these are, properly speaking, attributes of 

 the object before consciousness; but a certain 

 violence is done to a term already too loosely 

 employed when accommodation and fixation, 

 respiration and vaso-eonstrietion, as well as 

 fusion and free association, are made to fall 

 within the field of the " subjective." Still 

 more do the details of the schema reveal the 

 need of logical formulation as well as of full 

 citation of individual fact. The " subjective " 

 aspect of attention, for example, is considered 

 under the two heads, motor and sensory; but 

 under the former appears also a subdivision 

 entitled " motor," comprising the phenomena 

 of innervation, diffusion and control. It is 

 confusing, too, that under this term — which 

 is not only popularly opposed to " sensory," 

 but is also made its logical alternative in the 

 present scheme — there should be made to fall 

 the two subdivisions " sensory " and " motor " 

 as minor terms. There is therefore the 

 further contradiction that the term " sen- 

 sory," which constitutes the basis of the sec- 

 ond general division, should appear also as a 

 special constituent of the first group of phe- 

 nomena. 



In each phase of the discussion Dr. Arnold 

 has added to his description of the phenomena 

 a consideration of their development in the 

 individual mind. This is an important addi- 

 tion to the study which might profitably re- 

 ceive even more space than has been given to 

 it. A series of illustrations is systematically 

 appended to each chapter of the book. While 

 these are in general well chosen, the reviewer 

 finds some of them puzzling; but effective il- 

 lustration is, after all, not only a matter of 

 happy invention in the wi-iter, but also one of 

 idiosyncratic temperament in the reader, and 

 the instances cited may nowhere present such 

 obscurity to another mind. 



Egbert MacDougall 



