514 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII. , No. 174 



on this particular ceremony, but on serpent- 

 worship in general. The rites connected with 

 this form of worship have always been secret, — 

 secret even in the tribe where it is found. And 

 while the worship of the serpent has been asso- 

 ciated with some of the highest conceptions of the 

 barbarous and semi-civilized minds, — with, for 

 example, the principles of reproduction and of 

 the immortality of the soul among the Hindoos, 

 and with the idea of divine wisdom among the 

 Egyptians, — and while it has been so widely dis- 

 tributed, in one form or another, that there is 

 hardly a nation or tribe which does not carry 

 traces of it in its history, but little is known about 

 its details or origin. The performance takes 

 place every second year at the village I have 

 named, and is ostensibly, as I have before said, 

 for the sole purpose of procuring rain. I have 

 been assured by several of the old men in Moki 

 that this dance has never failed to do this ; and, 

 in fact in the present instance, it was preceded 

 by several months of the dryest weather known 

 in that country for years, and w-as succeeded, on 

 the very day of the dance, by such copious and 

 prolonged showers, that many of the Mokis lost 

 their crops by washouts. 



Kosmos Mendelieff. 



THE ARTICLE ' PSYCHOLOGY' IN THE 

 < ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA: 



Tn the eighth edition of the 'Britannica' the 

 article on metaphysics covered seventy-four pages, 

 and there was no article on psychology at all ; in 

 the ninth edition the article on psychology covers 

 fortj-nine pages, and that on metaphysics is re- 

 duced to twenty -three pages. This change in the 

 apportionment of space to these two topics is a 

 reflection of the change of base which has oc- 

 ( urrcd in the study of the philosophical sciences 

 w it Inn the last few decades. Psychology has 

 become, or at least has plainly declared that it 

 intends to become, strictly scientific ; and meta- 

 physics has withdrawn to a field of its own. 



In an encyclopaedia article on such a topic the 

 author has ;i bewildering choice of possible modes 

 of treatment. The average reader, referring to 

 an article on psychology, will perhaps expect a 

 general statement of the results obtained in the 

 different departments of psychological research, 

 treated from a broad modern point of view, and 

 perhaps some account of the history of past 

 doctrines, and explanations of the similar topics. 

 Such a reader will be disappointed in Mr. Ward's 

 article on psychology. The article is a very 

 puzzling one for a reviewer. To find fault with 

 it, is simply to say that it is not the kind of an 



article which he himself would have wished for 

 or have written, and, on the other hand, shows a 

 neglect for the very learned and bright treatment 

 which the subject receives at the author's hands. 

 On the other hand, he cannot refrain from ex- 

 pressing the very unsatisfactory impression which 

 the reading of Mr. Ward's work leaves upon him. 

 In analyzing this disappointment, one would lay 

 the blame either on the fact that the reader's ex- 

 pectation was wrongly founded, or that Mr. Ward 

 had chosen to wTite an article which did not have 

 practical utility as its chief aim, or more probable, 

 perhaps, than either of the above two, that the 

 present condition of psychology is reflected in 

 this unsatisfactory, rather scattered treatment. 

 Perhaps, after all, this is the real appearance of 

 a cross-section of the science at the present mo- 

 ment. 



Beginning with the argument that the peculiar- 

 ity of psychology rests, not in its subject-matter, 

 but in its point of view, he proceeds to develop 

 a theory of presentations which is fundamental to 

 his whole treatment. Then, under seven or eight 

 headings, he treats such subjects as perception, 

 imagination, association, feeling, self -conscious- 

 ness. But under each section the reader finds 

 himself at once in medias res. No general outline 

 of the topic is given, or of its connection with 

 other subjects. The author is evidently perfectly 

 at home in the literature of the topics ; but only 

 here and there, by way of illustration, are the 

 results of recent experiments in this field brought 

 in. The section on feeling is recommended as 

 especially well treated. 



He then develops the theory "that there is 

 pleasure in proportion as a maximum of attention 

 is effectively exercised, and pain in proportion as 

 such effective attention is frustrated by distrac- 

 tions, shocks, or incomplete and faulty adapta- 

 tions, or fails of exercise, owung to the narrow- 

 ness of the field of consciousness, and the slow- 

 ness and smallness of its changes." 



In a general review of this volume of the en- 

 cyclopaedia a writer referred to the article as the 

 most abstruse article in the volume. This ab- 

 struseness seems to come from the fact that the 

 author has given a series of minute dissections, 

 but neglected to give the relation of the different 

 parts which were under the knife. He has used 

 the microscope without describing the naked-eye 

 appearances. 



The replacement of a diseased eye by the 

 healthy eye of an animal has now been done five 

 times, with one success, says the Medical record. 

 In the four cases the cornea sloughed ; in two 

 however, firm vascular adhesions took place. 



