254 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 215 



raphy-lessons, is treating the Caucasus, will no 

 doubt be cheered by the reflection that at the same 

 moment all the geography-teachers in the empire 

 are treating the Caucasus, and, like himself, are 

 calling attention to the points of similarity be- 

 tween the Caucasus and the Pyrenees, the straight- 

 ness of the two mountain-ridges, the low plain to 

 the north of each, the small number of passes in 

 each, and the reach of both from sea to sea." For 

 all this is laid down in the big book of instructions. 

 Moreover, the teacher's expression of countenance 

 must be professional, and not the index of his 

 feelings ; for the regulations expressly provide that 

 " a teacher, on crossing the threshold of th^ school, 

 must exhibit a cheerful and contented counte- 

 nance, to show that he has his work at heart." 

 We cannot imagine any thing much more nonsen- 

 sical or degrading to the teaching profession than 

 this. We believe, as much as any sensible educator 

 does, in organization and method ; but, when it is 

 allowed to proceed to such lengths as the above 

 instances indicate, it is high time to call a halt. 

 Method gone mad is- worse than no method at aU. 



Prof. William James is certainly the pleasant- 

 est and clearest writer we have in this country on 

 psychological topics. His short articles, while 

 never difficult reading, are always worth reading, 

 both from the popular and the scientific stand- 

 point. His latest paper, on ' What is an instinct ? ' 

 in Scribner's magazine, is an excellent example of 

 this. In style and form it closely resembles the 

 same writer's recent paper on habits, to which we 

 called attention at the time of its publication. In 

 each a psychological study is concluded by a 

 pedagogical rule of practice. As in the previous 

 paper Professor James pointed out the impor- 

 tance to the teacher of a knowledge of the psy- 

 chology of habits, so here he says that " to detect 

 the moment of the instinctive readiness for the 

 subject is, then, the first duty of every educator. 

 As for the pupils, it would probably lead to a 

 more earnest temper on the part of college stu- 

 dents if they had less belief in their unlimited 

 future intellectual potentialities, and could be 

 brought to realize that whatever physics and 

 political economy and philosophy they are now 

 acquiring, are, for better or worse, the physics and 

 political economy and philosophy that will have 

 to serve them to the end." Professor James ac- 

 cepts the definition that instinct is the faculty of 

 acting in such a way as to produce certain ends, 



without foresight of the ends, and without pre- 

 vious education in the performance. This is 

 slightly less specific than Mr. Romanes' definition, 

 which is, that instinct is a generic term, compris- 

 ing all those faculties of mind which are con- 

 cerned in conscious and adaptive action, antece- 

 dent to individual experience, without necessary 

 knowledge of the relation between means em- 

 ployed and end attained, but similarly performed 

 under similar and frequently recurring circum- 

 stances by aU the individuals of the same species. 



Professor James prefers to subsume instinctive 

 under reflex actions, though we think Prof. Lloyd 

 Morgan's criticism on so doing deserves considera- 

 tion. Professor Morgan, with Mr. Romanes, de- 

 fines reflex action as non-mental, neuro-muscular 

 adjustment, due to the inherited mechanism of 

 the nervous system, which is formed to respond to 

 particular and oft-recurring stimuli, by giving rise 

 to particular movements of an adaptive but not of 

 an intentional kind. He then asks whether it 

 will not be better to avoid introducing the term 

 ' reflex action ' into the definition of instinct, in- 

 asmuch as a reflex action is a direct response to a 

 definite stimulus, and puts the specific question, 

 Can we call all instincts, for example the mi- 

 gratory instincts of birds, reflex actions? Pro- 

 fessor James sees clearly that the answer to such 

 a question as this must rest upon the extension 

 permitted to the term 'instinct,'. and he himself 

 confines instinct to impulses to act resulting from 

 present sensations. The writer also makes good 

 use of Schneider's ' Der thierische Wille,' but is 

 specially happy in his demonstration of the way 

 in which two scientific principles — the inhibition 

 of instincts by habits and the transitoriness of in- 

 stincts — account for what Mr. Romanes has 

 called 'derangements of the mental constitution.' 

 The paper is a most excellent combination of the 

 scientific and the popular, and we heartily com- 

 mend it to all intelligent readers. 



In the London Journal of education for Febru- 

 ary, the Rev. R. H. Quick has an article on ' Dr. 

 Paulsen and the curriculum of the future,' which 

 contains the surprising statement that the writer — - 

 and Dr. Quick is one of England's best informed 

 educators and educational writers — had not seen 

 or heard any mention in England of Dr. Paulsen's 

 ' History of the higher instruction in Germany.' 

 He then proceeds to paraphrase the major portion 



