1884. | Fsychology. 317 
gique.” The same line of reasoning advanced by Owen applies 
to the origin of Aptornis and Dinornis. The bottle-nosed 
whale is discussed by W. H. Flower and also by Captain Grey 
in the same journal, which also contains a figure of a new species 
of zebra (Equus grevyi) recently described by A. Milne-Edwards, 
from equatorial Egypt. 
PSYCHOLOGY. 
Tue DISEASES OF THE WiLL.'—In the Humboldt Library Mr. 
Fitzgerald places before the public the results of the latest thought 
and labor of the scientific world, in a series of 8vo pamphlets 
costing fifteen cents apiece. This enterprize cannot be too highly 
commended from the standpoint of the public instructor and lover 
of knowledge. If the masses are ever to become acquainted with 
the laws of their being, such a publication as the Humboldt 
Library will prove a powerful agency in accomplishing the de- 
sirable result. 
M. Ribot has the merit of stating, in clear and comprehensible 
language, the facts, doctrines, and hypotheses of modern meta- 
physics, so that the average reader may be easily introduced to 
perhaps the most important of all sciences. In this, and other 
essays on these subjects, M. Ribot pursues the inductive method, 
studying the mind as it is exhibited in the normal and abnormal 
types which are accessible everywhere. The important aid to be 
derived from pathology in mental science is well known. M. 
Ribot arranges the diseases of the will into several heads, viz: 1. 
lack of impulsion, as seen in irresolution; 2. excess of impul- 
Sion; 3, impairment of voluntary intelligence; 4, caprice; and 
5, extinction of will. Under the last head he treats of ecstacy, 
mrvana, hypnotism, etc. The author shows the intermediary 
Character of the will, that it is not only a cause, but also an 
, thus denying the ordinary form of so-called “freedom of 
the will.” It is difficult to perceive the utility of the word will 
in this doctrine. As the outcome of a stimulus which has passed 
through more or less complex emotive or ratiocinative processes, 
action is only the movement of the last ball in a series in which 
U one has been struck a blow. At best the word can only 
used to represent a convenient fiction, supposing this doctrine 
to express all there is of will in the human mind. 
Ta short paragraph expresses incidentally the author’s views as 
the origin of the mechanism whose action expresses human 
motives and human intelligence. I quote it as being in con- 
šonance with views often expressed by the present writer, but 
Opposed to those held by many of the physiological metaphysi- 
cans of the present day: “The will has for its basis a legac 
n down from generations innumerable, and registered in 
lated be tenet ey Me By Th. Ribot. Humboldt Library, No. 52. Trans- 
