May 4, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



101 



in a more limited sense (barring motor presen- 

 tations). The feeling attitude implies that we 

 are ' pleased or displeased, satisfied or dissatis- 

 fied with ' an object. The term is broader than 

 feeling-tone — which is a '[generic word for pleas- 

 ure and pain' — since emotion involves unique 

 and irreducible feeling attitudes. Finally, the 

 peculiarity of the conative attitude is the "in- 

 herent tendency [in mental states] ta pass be- 

 yond themselves and become something differ- 

 ent. It is the teleological drift of consciousness ; it 

 has a positive phase, 'appetition ' and a negative 

 'aversion.' Conation includes attention as a 

 special case. " Attention is simply conation in 

 so far as it finds satisfaction in the fuller pre- 

 sentation of its object, without actual change 

 in the object." After discussing these ultimate 

 modes, the 'primary laws of mental process ' are 

 given. These laws formulate the manner of 

 going-along and going-together of processes. 

 The chapter includes a group of apparently 

 heterogeneous topics ; relativity, conative unity 

 and continuity, retentiveness, association, re- 

 production, acquirement of meaning, facilitation 

 and arrest, habit and automatism, and phys- 

 iological dispositions. The coherence of the 

 chapter is in several places, doubtful. The 

 most important point in the chapter, both from 

 a genetic and an analytic point of view is, in the 

 writer's opinion, the exposition of 'cumulative 

 dispositions ' : the effect, that is, of an earlier 

 upon a later consciousness without the rein- 

 statement of the earlier experience. It is the 

 problem that Spencer grappled with, by no 

 means successfully, in his general law of asso- 

 ciation, and one which very much needs work- 

 ing out in detail. 



The general analysis closes with a clear, 

 concise statement and criticism of ' faculties' 

 and ' associationism.' The opening of Book II. 

 brings the student to the real subject matter of 

 the science. This Book, which covers about 

 the same number of pages as the preliminary 

 chapters, is occupied with sensation. Sensa- 

 tion is, for the author, a ' special form of con- 

 sciousness' produced by some condition outside 

 the nervous system, i. e., a stimulus. On ac- 

 count of differences in intensity, steadiness, 

 etc., the ' sensory elements' in images are not 

 included in sensation. Sensations are dealt 



with in psychology both as ' psychological 

 states' and as ' vehicles of knowledge.' 



It is to be noted that sensation is not always 

 treated here as an abstraction ; for it is main- 

 tained that ' mere sensation' exists concretely 

 even in adult experience. This is an impor- 

 tant point, because Stout's genetic scheme, as 

 developed later, assumes that sensation is not 

 necessarily something totally distinct from a 

 cognized object or any bit of cognition, as ex- 

 perimental psychology insists, but a concrete 

 kind of consciousness which forms the initial 

 member in the genetic series. 



The ' sensation reflex' (a self-contradictory 

 term !) it is which emerges above the physio- 

 logical reflex and becomes ' the most primitive 

 form of mental life which is distinctly recog- 

 nizable.' The physiological reflex passes into 

 the sensation reflex (1) when a special emer- 

 gency arises, as coughing, e. g., and (2) when 

 the mind is not too much pre-occupied by 

 higher processes. A meagre enough rmson d'etre' 

 for consciousness ? Apart from the difiiculty 

 of tacking consciousness on to a complete and 

 eflicient physiological mechanism, there is the 

 question Tyhy a consciousness thus added should 

 be the same in kind as an ultimate element of 

 the developed consciousness, i. e., sensation. 

 Is it not more likely, as Ebbinghaus remarks 

 {Grundziige der Psychologie, Vol. I., p. 10) that 

 the original consciousness was, like the deriva- 

 tive one, a complex, not a wholly simple one? 

 Stout partly saves himself from confusing an 

 analytic and a genetic simple by endowing 

 the sensation reflex with both ' conative ' and 

 ' hedonic' attributes ; it may include appetition 

 or aversion, and pleasure or pain. But with 

 these endowments does not the sensation re- 

 flex really become an impulse, and would not 

 the type of consciousness be better described as 

 impulsive than as ' purely sensational '? The 

 author does, in fact, go so far as to call it in- 

 cidentally a ' sensational impulse. ' Surely, a 

 better term, especially since he lays so much 

 emphasis on the teleological aspect of con- 

 sciousness. 



With this chapter on the primitive conscious- 

 ness is started the genetic plan. As experience 

 develops raw sensation becomes less and less, 

 meaning, significance becomes more and more j 



