No. 514] NOTES AND LITERATURE 



631 



tropisms, phenomena of sensibility to differences, associative 

 phenomena" (p. 241) (he might have added others). "It is 

 very possible that the nervous system and the sense organs lend 

 their help and facilitate the processes of which the tropisms 

 are the consequence" (p. 124) ; the tropisms are variable (p. 



"It is often said that the tropisms are irresistible movements, 

 but this applies of course only to the case where the tropisms 

 are of an intensity sufficient to overwhelm the animal: to annihi- 

 late its other motor manifestations" (p. 132). A similar state- 

 ment could of course be made for any cause of movement what- 

 ever. Bohn's definitions of the tropisms seem on the whole such 

 as to command assent, though I reserve certain criticisms in de- 

 tail, such as the strange bringing f the will into the definition 

 of an objective phenomenon (p. 117, etc.). 



As to the views attributed to me, Bohn says "for him the 

 tropisms would be the result of an apprenticeship : of long series 

 of trials" (p. 137). In this and similar passages the author 

 follows his usual plan of making a positive statement without 

 citation of his basis for it. I am not aware of ever having ex- 

 pressed any such view as is here attributed to me. On the con- 

 trary. I have said that the method of trial and error "is in com- 

 plete contrast" with the tropisms, 26 while on the same page (and 

 elsewhere) I have said that behavior of the stereotyped char- 

 acter of the tropisms occurs also. 



3. As remarked above, Bohn assumes that it is necessary to 

 correct my account in detail as well as in principle. His usual 

 method, as we have seen, is to give the same explanation that I 

 had already given. Either a feeling that nothing good could 

 come out of my work, or his natural habit of mind, has led him 

 in other cases into extreme carelessness of statement. One or 

 two examples must suffice. On page 190 he says, in discussing 

 my account of reactions to light : 



There is a factor of which Jennings has not taken account, it is the 

 factor of time. A certain time is necessary for orienting itself. 



Compare the following from Jennings : 



Thus the orientation is gradual and for a certain stretch after the 

 fairly strong light however, & the period of time required for complete 

 The Method of Trial and Error," Publ. Cam. Inst., 16, 1904, p. 50. 



