846 The American Naturalist. [October, 
attempting so to arrive at a view of the order of development of the 
elementary mental functions, with the corresponding progress in brain 
anatomy and physiology. He has published very rich results from 
time to time, and among them is his determination of certain so-called 
“association centres.” He thinks that the much discussed frontal re- 
gion of the brain is the location of associations of a higher and more 
abstract kind; and that in the region back of the well-known “ motor 
region,” extending to the visual centre in the occipital region, is a 
great centre for the associations which bind the sense functions together. 
This in brief, and without the discriminations which an accurate account 
of his views should make. The reason which he gives for these deter- 
minations is that only after some growth, and after the senses are well 
developed, do we find the great masses of connecting fibres which 
traverse these regions forming in the child’s brain. 
Apart from the question of fact, as to which Prof. Flechsig’s rn 
may be considered as being of the greatest (especially when 
we consider his method), it is difficult to see how these h regions can be, 
in any true sense, “association centres;” for, admitting that the con- 
nections between the sense centres run through these regions, the main 
thing about the associations must be the things associated, not the mere 
fact of connections between them. One would hardly call the bunch 
of telegraph wires on the housetop a“ communication centre;” the loci 
of communication are still at the telegraph offices. Without them, the 
wires would be possibly even more helpless than the offices without the 
wires. Prof. Flechsig’s paper was a model for imitation in the manner 
of its presentation, and its interest was enhanced by slides showing the 
infant’s brain, in sections illustrating the periods of its growth. 
Another contribution to the understanding of the relation of psychol- 
ogy and brain physiology was that of the well known neurologist, Prof. 
Edinger, of Frankfort, on the question, “Can Psychology make use of 
the results so far attained in Brain Anatomy?” He did not confine 
himself to anatomy, but presented a series of interesting notices on the 
development of the nervous system in the scale of life, and made a 
strong plea for a corresponding genetic study of comparative psychol- 
ogy. Genetic psychology, he says, is so far behind analytic psychology 
because psychologists have confined their attention, on the anatomical 
side, to the cerebral hemispheres, while what they should do is to study 
the evolution of the nervous system all the way up, and see the progress 
of consciousness with it. “Gerade auf diesem Gebiete miissen anato- 
misch-physiologische und psychologische Studien durchaus Hand in 
d gehen.” All this is true and remarkably opportune, I think, 
