Jaxi ary 20, 19C.J.] 



SCIENCE. 



90 



of Ritsc'lil. It is to be regretted that no 

 more time was allowed for the discussion 

 of these papers. 



The first paper in the joint session with 

 the Psychol ugical Association, presided 

 over by Professor W. James, was a criti- 

 cism of Wundt's theory of feeling by Pro- 

 fessoi* I\r. F. Washburn, of Vassar. The 

 main point of the criticism was that the 

 complexes of strain, excitement, etc., as- 

 sumed l)y Wnndt as feeling fusions really 

 belong to an intermediate realm between 

 sensation and feeling, and only ordinarily 

 go nnanalyzed because the organism has 

 never needed to analyze them ; but prac- 

 tical introspection reveals them as com- 

 plexes of organic sensations. Two papers 

 followed, one by Dr. D. S. Miller with the 

 title, 'The Isolation of Minds,' the other 

 by Professor Woodbridge on 'The Nature 

 of Consciousness,' which had this in com- 

 mon, that conscioiisness, as distinct from 

 what we are conscious of, was regarded as 

 merely a relation of contents. But while 

 in the one case this conception was elab- 

 orated to show' that the co-experienced 

 group of elements which constitute the con- 

 tents of a consciousness at any moment 

 had nothing in common with those belong- 

 ing to any other consciousness, which lat- 

 ter, whether attributed to myself or an- 

 other, were for the former only e.jects, in 

 the case of Professor Woodbridge it led 

 to a suggestion of a realistic metaphysics 

 hardly distinguishable from that which has 

 commonly been called 'naive.' Professor 

 Ladd reported a ease of nerve anastomosis 

 in which the distal end of the facial nerve 

 was united w-ith the central end of the 

 accessory nerve of the shoulder. By per- 

 si=-tent efforts at voluntary control the sub- 

 .iect was abl(> at the end of about nine 

 mriiths to control the movements of the 

 face without associated movements of the 

 shoulder or contraction of other facial 

 muscles. Analysis of the phen(miena was 



hi'ld to contribute additional evidence dis- 

 crediting both the idealistic and the psy- 

 chophysical parallelistic theories of the re- 

 lation of body and mind and confirming 

 the theory of interaction. Professor Miins- 

 terberg gave an outline of the 'System of 

 Values' wdiich he is intending to elaborate 

 in a book. The aim was to classify our 

 absolute values and to see whether one 

 principle controls the w'hole system. The 

 values themselves w-ere classified as valid- 

 ity, perfection, achievement and complete- 

 ness, each relating to a particular sphere 

 of experience and subdivided according as 

 the value is given or created and refers to 

 the outer world, to fellow-men or to self. 

 The one category common to all these 

 classes of value v^•as found to be the cate- 

 gory of identity. This paper, of which it 

 is iiupossihle to give here any but the 

 barest suggestion, was generally felt to be 

 the most important contribution to philcis- 

 (iphy made at the meeting. It was so large 

 in scope, implying, as it did, a whole sj's- 

 tem of philoso]>liy, and so novel in matter 

 that only the finished book itself can lead 

 to a just appreciation of its significance, 

 while it is certain that when the book does 

 appear, it will provoke widespread interest 

 and discussion. 



Of the other sessions it is enough to 

 speak briefly. At the opening session four 

 papers were read of logical import, one by 

 Dr. Marvin, limiting the field of epistemol- 

 ogy to completely rationalized knowledge ; 

 one by the Rev. E. S. Steele, finding in 

 judgment the unit of thought rather than 

 in the idea, which was treated as only one 

 of its elements ; one by Dr. G. R. ]\Iont- 

 gomery, applying the mathematical notions 

 of calculus to represent the mobility and 

 functional interdependence of concepts, 

 and one by Dr. W. II. Sheldon, defining 

 the universal as a concrete fringe of the 

 image or response suggesting fui'ther sim- 

 ilar images or responses. In the afternoon 



