REVIEWS. 
97 
careless reader’s mind the notion that the author hardly understood what he 
was aiming at. This is very much to he regretted, as it tends to make 
the work unintelligible to the general public. If the author had clearly 
expressed his opinion, and followed his expression up by a categorical list of 
aronments in its favour, he would have done far more to advance his views 
O' 
than by writing a dozen treatises like the present. The statement of his 
theory, which we have given, is the only one which we think adapted to 
non-physiological readers. For the benefit of those specially interested in the 
question, we quote Mr. Abbott’s own words, which, we confess, do not impress 
us satisfactorily. Speaking, as we take it, of the perception of distance, he 
goes on to observe : — 
“ We have found that the conditions of the perception in question, its 
range, errors, and perfection, correspond, with the utmost accuracy, with the 
laws and conditions of certain unfelt and involuntary motions in the eye, 
which have been shown to be determined exclusively by visual sensations. 
What these sensations are we cannot indeed affirm positively, but we know 
that in their case there can be no question of association, since when an 
object is distinctly seen and attended to, they have already produced their 
effect as regards that object, and have ceased to be.” 
We think Mr. Abbott might have been a little more explicit ; for it cer- 
tainly requires no mean powers of concentration to associate the ideas deve- 
loped by the foregoing passages. 
OEGANIC PHILOSOPHY.'^^ 
"TTYHEN Mr. Lillyvick’s barber declined to shave the chimney-sweep, 
’ * although, according to the declaration of that worthy, he had been 
accustomed to perform that useful office for the baker, he intimated the ne- 
cessity for a standard in all branches of life, by observing, “We must draw 
the line someweres.” We are impressed forcibly with the truth of this 
maxim, and, without desiring to institute invidious comparisons, we would 
merely observe that our line is drawn very far above works like the present 
one. We frequently find American books with loud-sounding titles, and, 
whose letterpress is in the main composed of newly-coined terms, but in 
which there is very little philosophy after all. We do not often meet the 
like in England ; but Dr. Doherty’s treatise is an admirable specimen of the 
class of literature we refer to ; that is to say, it is an excellent instance of a 
very worthless description of book. It is, above all, an ambitious volume, 
for, if we have understood it rightly (no easy thing to accomplish), its aim is 
to expose a grand code of laws which govern the phenomena appertaining 
to every known branch of science. In our humility, we had imagined that 
such an exposition was beyond the grasp of any individual human being, or 
that, at all events, if attempted, it should be by one whose connection with 
science proved him to possess some capacity for the task. It seems we were 
mistaken ; Dr. Doherty, a gentleman whose name we certainly have never 
* “ Organic Philosophy, or Man’s true place in Nature.” Vol. I., Epicos- 
mology. By Hugh Doherty, M.D. Pp. 339. London : Triibner & Co. 186k 
VOL. lY. NO. XIII. H 
