1 66 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIII. No. 317 



ideas and sensations in our minds. This theory Mr. Case holds to 

 be contradicted by physical science, which reveals to us certain 

 objects, such as the waves of light, for instance, which are not and 

 never can be objects of sense, but which are nevertheless known to 

 exist. He takes up the works of the leading idealists, and makes 

 an elaborate criticism of their views and of the arguments by which 

 they sought to support them ; and this part of his work contains 

 much interesting and useful matter. He rightly regards Descartes 

 as the real founder of idealism, because he assumed that the im- 

 mediate objects of knowledge are ideas, although he endeavored to 

 reach a knowledge of the external world by inference. This funda- 

 mental assumption of Descartes, which has been repeated by every 

 idealist since, is justly treated by Mr. Case as a begging of the 

 whole question ; and the passages in which he criticises it are the 

 best in the book. He does not confine his strictures to this one 

 point, however, but deals also with Hume's theory of belief and as- 

 sociation, Kant's doctrine of necessary truths, and other topics 

 more or less nearly related to the idealistic view. Some of his re- 

 marks, especially on the subjects of induction and necessary truth, 

 seem to us quite as doubtful as those he criticises ; but the whole 

 of this portion of his work is well worthy of attention. 



Mr. Case has not confined himself, however, to criticism, but 

 has presented a theory of his own in place of the one he criticises ; 

 and with regard to this we are obliged to dissent from him. Re- 

 jecting idealism as he does, he equally rejects the natural realism 

 of the Scottish school, and maintains that the object of sense-per- 

 ception is neither an idea nor a body outside of us, but an affec- 

 tion of our nervous system. " The sensible object," he says, " is 

 the nervous system itself sensibly affected. The hot felt is the 

 tactile nerves heated, the white seen is the optic nerves so colored " 

 (p. 24). And again: "I perceive my nervous system, not so far 

 as it is nervous structure moving, but so far as it is sensibly affected 

 in different parts, the optic nerve so far as it is visibly white, the 

 gustatory nerve so far as it is sweet to taste, and so on " (p. 151). 

 Now, we think most people will deny this assertion outright. This 

 reviewer, certainly, is not conscious of perceiving his own nerves 

 sensibly affected, and it was only by studying anatomy that he 

 learned that he had nerves. Besides, what does Mr. Case mean 

 by calling the nervous system, as he repeatedly does, an " internal " 

 object ? " Internal," with reference to this question, means " in the 

 mind;" and "external," "out of the mind;" and therefore my 

 own nervous system is just as truly an external object as is the 

 farthest star that I can see. For these reasons we cannot think 

 that Mr. Case has solved the problem of perception. 



The Dfvelopmeiit of the Intellect. By W. Preyer. Tr. by H. 

 W. Brown. New York, Appleton. 12°. 



Some weeks ago we referred, on its appearance, to the first por- 

 tion of Mr. Brown's translation of Preyer's great work, " Die Seele 

 des Kindes," and expressed our gratification that it satisfactorily 

 presented to the English reader the results of the Jena physiol- 

 ogist's researches in the field of child-psychology. 



The second part, which is before us, is equally well done, and it 

 fully sustains the reputation of the International Education Series, 

 of which it forms Volume IX. A conspectus of Professor Preyer's 

 results, prepared by the translator, greatly increases the value of 

 the book to the average teacher and to the ordinary reader. 



The author sees in the power of language and its development 

 the safest and best guide to the tracing of intellectual development, 

 and he traces the growth of this power with great caution and ful- 

 ness of knowledge. We cannot in this brief space attempt to 

 condense the argument of the book : we must be satisfied to repeat 

 substantially what we said of " The Senses and the Will : " it is a 

 safe companion for any teacher in her study of the unfolding of a 

 child's mental power, and a stimulus to further research and in- 

 vestigation. 



Political History since i?.\l. By Charles H. Levermore and 

 Davis R. Dewey. Boston, W. J. Schofield. 8". $1.25. 



This book is an abstract of lectures delivered in the Massachu- 

 setts Institute of Technology : hence it is hardly adapted for read- 

 ing, but it will serve admirably as a guide to historical students, 

 and also to refresh the memory of those who have studied. It 



covers the political history of the whole world since the fall of Na- 

 poleon, with the exception of the United States, the history of our 

 own country evidently being a separate study in the institute. The 

 selection and arrangement of topics in the book seem excellent ; 

 and we are particularly pleased with the small attention given to 

 military affairs, which in some books called histories overshadow 

 every thing else. The opening lecture treats of the various races, 

 governments, and religions of the world ; and the remainder of the 

 work presents the recent history of the various nations separately, 

 beginning with England and her empire, and ending with the 

 African continent. The dates of important events are given, and 

 some statistical matter is introduced. A bibliography of the sub- 

 ject is given, and special authorities are cited on all important 

 points. The book is well and carefully printed, and must, we 

 should think, be very useful to students of the field it covers. 



Shall We Teach Geology? By ALEXANDER WiNCHELL. Chi- 

 cago, S. C. Griggs & Co. 12°. $1. 

 In this work Professor Winchell sets forth the claims of his 

 favorite science to a more prominent place than it now holds in 

 general education. He first inquires what education is, and comes 

 to the conclusion that it includes both the training of the faculties 

 and the acquisition of useful knowledge. He has an excellent 

 chapter on the faculties themselves ; and, while admitting that 

 some of them are better developed by literature or mathematics, 

 he insists that no study will develop them as a whole better than 

 geology. Like most physical scientists, he is severe on the study , 

 of languages, especially of Greek and Latin ; and, so far as the 

 mere languages themselves are concerned, we incline to agree with 

 him. But language is the medium of literature ; and Professor 

 Winchell seems to show an inadequate appreciation of literature, 

 and of the moral and intellectual culture that it gives. But the 

 principal defect of his work is its ignoring of the mental and social 

 sciences. He seems hardly aware of their existence ; for he men- 

 tions none of them but history, and mentions history only to slight 

 it, declaring that it trains no faculty but verbal memory. His 

 disparagement of history is peculiarly unfortunate, for history is to 

 the evolution of man what geology is to the evolution of the earth 

 and its flora and fauna ; and it is surely as important for us to 

 know how man has come to be what he is as to know how the 

 earth's crust has come to be what it is. To this reviewer it seems 

 that the most important study at the present day is that of man, 

 his nature, his duties, and his history ; and if this is so, it is hardly 

 possible to give geology so much attention as Professor Winchell 

 desires: for he is not satisfied with a year's study or so, but would 

 have the subject taken up in the primary schools, and pursued 

 every year as long as the student attends school. When we con- 

 sider that geology is only one science out of fifteen or twenty, and 

 when we further consider the importance of literature and the need 

 of learning foreign languages early in life, it is evident that we can- 

 not give so much time to geology alone. Nevertheless, we are 

 glad to see the claims of the Science so well presented, and we 

 hope Professor Winchell's book will be read by educators every- 

 where. 



A Historical Geography of the British Colonies. By C. P. LuCAS. 

 Vol. I. Oxford, Clarendon Pr. 12°. $1.25. 



We noticed some time ago the little volume introductory to this 

 work, and we are now glad to receive the first volume of the work 

 itself. It contains a little less than two hundred pages, and treats 

 of the European dependencies of Great Britain, and the minor de- 

 pendencies in Asia and the Indian Ocean. In preparing the work, 

 Mr. Lucas has had the assistance of various persons connected 

 with the governments of the colonies in question, and the portions 

 relating to Malta and Cyprus have been mainly written by one of 

 his associates in the Colonial Office. The work has been prepared 

 with care, and contains a large amount of information in compara- 

 tively small space. Each dependency is treated separately, while 

 at the same time their relations to each other and to the home gov- 

 ernment, and their importance to the empire, are duly pointed out. 

 The history of each is briefly recorded, and sometimes, as in the 

 case of Malta and Cyprus, it makes interesting reading. Then the 

 main geographical features are described, and an account is given 



