March i6, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



i3» 



but is only an accentuation of the sixth, with perhaps a deeper loss 

 of consciousness. Here the mind is reduced to a single point, at- 

 tention is sharpened to the finest focus, and this extreme contem- 

 plation seems to be an exception to the dictum of Hobbes, that to 

 constantly think the same thing is not to think at all. Such extreme 

 ecstasy is a rare phenomenon : Plotinus is said to have attained it 

 only four times, and Porphyry but once. 



The weakening of the attention is seen in an extreme form in 

 mania which presents a general and permanent exalted excitability 

 of the psychic life. The general diffusion of energy is equally ap- 

 parent in the prodigality of movements, with often an insensibility 

 to fatigue. No co-ordination of the mental energy requiring an 

 effort of the attention is possible. The same is seen in hysteria, in 

 sleepy conditions, in drunkenness, in children. These semi-morbid 

 states well illustrate the motor element in attention. The power of 

 directing the delicate movements that accompany attention is lack- 

 ing, and with this the attention itself is weakenetl. One sees in the 

 effects of intoxication the loss of power over the finer muscles, then 

 over the coarser ones, both accompanied by an impossibility to at- 

 tend to thoughtful ideas, and then to mental impressions of the 

 simplest kind. In sleep there is to a slight degree a direction of 

 the attention, for the sleeper is more easily aroused by one kind of 

 stimulus than by another; but in general the power of attention is 

 nearly lost. If we pass from the cases in which the power of at- 

 tention has been lost by disease, to those in which it was never 

 developed, we have a difference of degree alone. Idiots, again, 

 are found incapable of directing their finer muscles, and in ex- 

 treme cases cannot walk ; and the most successful mode of ap- 

 proach to the minds of such defectives has been found to be 

 through the muscles. 



By way of resume, we may speak of attention as a prevalent at- 

 titude of mind. It may be represented by a straight line bifurcat- 

 ing at either end. In the centre we have the average spontaneous 

 attention : as we proceed to the right, the attention increases in 

 intensity, passing into strong spontaneous attention, then into pre- 

 occupation, revery, then into a weak insistent idea. Here the line 

 divides, passing into the two extremes, — a fixed idea on the one 

 side, and ecstasy on the other. Beginning again with the normal, 

 and going to the left, we have voluntary attention as an organic 

 mental habit ; and as this decreases, it is of only average power, 

 then it becomes weak, and finally passes into the extreme loss of 

 attention, which may be temporary and acquired on the one hand, 

 or permanent and congenital on the other. These are simply 

 various types : in reality, all kinds of intermediate forms abound. 



Unconscious Cerebration.— In the Popular Science Monthly 

 for March, Mr. Francis Speir analyzes the returns to a list of 

 questions quite extensively circulated by him, relating to the uncon- 

 scious activity of the mind. The questions ask, for instance, of 

 the power of recalling a forgotten word or sense-impression while 

 thinking of something else, or perhaps in sleep ; of the power of 

 going through a more or less simple logical process under similar 

 conditions ; and of the working-out of original ideas (composition 

 of verses, solution of a problem, new modes of regarding a series 

 of facts, and the like), especially of feats of this kind performed 

 during sleep. The answers unmistakably show that the uncon- 

 scious learns many an art from our conscious selves without the 

 teacher knowing it ; and the relative frequency of really respectable 

 performances going on in sleep is larger than one would, a priori, 

 expect. 



BOOK-REVIEWS. 

 The American Journal of Psychology. Vol. i. No. 2, February, 

 1888. Ed. by G. Stanley Hall. Baltimore, Murray. 

 The coincidence by which this publication and the third part of 

 the Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research 

 (reviewed in the last number of Science) come to hand at 

 the same time suggests a few considerations regarding the growth 

 of the scientific study of mental phenomena in this country. It 

 does not seem at all hazardous to predict that the ' new psychology ' 

 has come to stay, and that nowhere does it give more satisfactory 

 evidence of its power to systematize the various interests of students 

 of mind, and to invigorate with a new life all such topics as had 



relapsed into the blissful slumber of a final settlement, than in this- 

 country. "Wi^ Journal of Psychology comes forth as the distinct 

 organ of the strictly technical and controllable study of all such 

 phenomena as from one point of view are of important interest to- 

 the psychologist. In so doing it may incur the criticism of those 

 who see in this step the incorporation of psychology in physiology 

 and psychiatry ; but apart from the fact that it is at present ex- 

 tremely difficult to foresee what will and should be the boundaries 

 of that science, it is getting more and more generally admitted that 

 a science takes its character quite as much from the point of view 

 from which it regards convenient groups of the facts of nature as 

 from the particular class of phenomena it takes into account. 

 Moreover, by accenting the importance of the ' specialist ' study of 

 psychology, as also by emphasizing the value of a broad view of 

 biological facts for the study of human development, it serves to 

 convince of the error of their ways that throng of dilettanti who 

 regard this as the proper field for their lawless rovings, as well a& 

 to indicate the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of a single instruct- 

 or representing the entire field of philosophical thought. 



The work of the American Psychic Research Society inevitably 

 suggests comparison with that of the English society, devoted to- 

 the same purpose, and bears this test with great credit to itself. 

 Judicious caution, careful reconnoitring of the general field, atten- 

 tion to details, and an appreciation for the extreme ' slipperiness ' 

 of interpretation in this kind of research, characterize the work of 

 the American society. Apart from any interest in the final decis- 

 ion of the questions uppermost in the minds of its members, it is 

 gathering facts of value to the psychologist, and appreciates that 

 its field of work is closely related to that of other specialties, and 

 cannot be carried on without a special knowledge of the possibili- 

 ties of deception, of the mental traits of semi-morbid individuals, 

 and so on. If one considers the wide-spread and intelligent inter- 

 est in psychology represented by these two publications, it seems- 

 very strange that our best educational institutions have made so- 

 little provision for the representation of this branch of science upon 

 their several curricula. 



The opening article in this second number of the Journal of 

 Psychology is by Dr. H. H. Donaldson, and treats of the relation of 

 the recent researches in neurology to psychology. As the anatomi- 

 cal analysis of the nervous system does in some rough manner 

 bring into rational order many of its functions, it is natural to ex- 

 pect that a deeper knowledge will increase the significance of this- 

 co-ordination of structure with function. Again : this co-ordination 

 itself is subject to an evolution, and the anatomical homologue of a 

 certain organ in an animal higher in the scale does not necessarily 

 mediate the same functions as in the lower animal. Man has not 

 only more cortex, but exercises a proportionally larger number of 

 functions with his cortex than other animals. 



A paper of great interest is that by Dr. Edward Cowles, upon 

 ' Insistent and Fixed Ideas.' Under this head. Dr. Cowles intro- 

 duces the detailed and systematic study of the operations of a dis- 

 ordered mind as a worthy object of investigation. The logic that 

 draws conclusions at once analogous and yet opposed to those of 

 common sense ; the peculiar association of ideas that brings into- 

 connection facts and notions normally joined only in the uncon- 

 trolled visions of dream-life or the fictitious world of children ; the 

 strong tendency for abstract notions usually simply allowed to stroll 

 through the chamber of consciousness, and be gazed at as a curi- 

 osity, to lodge themselves there, and acquire a reality that leads to 

 violent and sometimes dangerous action ; and the entire process 

 still appreciated as something abnormal, something to be resisted, — 

 all this is most graphically illustrated in the remarkable case described 

 by Dr. Cowles. It is impossible to outline the histor)' of this in- 

 stance of a ' fixed idea,' as so much of its value depends on the rec- 

 ognition of the gradual evolution of the morbid from insignificant 

 eccentricities. 



The final paper in the series is a detailed criticism, by Dr. Joseph 

 Jastrow, of the methods employed in experimentally determining 

 the accuracy of the several senses. The object of the paper is to- 

 rescue this kind of experimental work from the various loose and 

 uncritical processes which it has of late employed. 



Besides the original contributions, there is a vast number of re- 

 views, abstracts of papers, notes, etc., covering a variety of topics. 



