CONTENTS:

M. Tarde finds M. Lombroso too severe and at the same time too kind towards the spirit of conservatism. Too severe in terming it misoneism and too kind in regarding it as the only normal condition of societies. The hospitable reception given to novelties is an equally normal function, although intermittent. If instead of making all his sociological ideas circle round the idea of the new, and creating an unfruitful antithesis between the love and the hatred of novelty, he had taken as his central notion the idea of imitation, and proved the universal distinction between the imitation of the new and the imitation of the old, M. Lombroso would have escaped many errors. In all of us, caprice exists by the side of habit, due to physiological misoneism; and the conflict between them goes on in each individual throughout our life. Caprice triumphs at the commencement, but the contest is terminated in old age by the definite victory of habit. It is the same in the social life. The inclination to adopt new ideas is due to the law of imitation, which is a more important factor in great social movements than misoneism.

M. Belot remarks that he would not dare to write the title Une théorie nouvelle de la liberté if it referred to a theory of his own. Under it he criticises the theory advanced by M. Bergson in his Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience; according to which freedom belongs, not to the empirical personality of the superficial ego, but to the deeper ego, the subjectivity itself, the alteration of which through the laws of thought and exigencies of science gives rise to the former. According to M. Belot, on the contrary, the will and freedom are shown in the forcing back of the lower ego, which comes to the surface, and its impulses by enlightened ideas. To act in harmony with these is freedom, which is not inconsistent with determinism in the proper sense. Determinism becomes freedom in becoming intelligent. Until then we obey concealed impulses, which may belong to our parents, our ancestors, or our social surroundings, and therefore we are not free.

By an excellent series of experiments, M. Féré has demonstrated that in attention all the qualities of movement are modified; its rapidity, its energy, and its precision, the physiological condition of the process being a general tension of the muscles. It is an error to suppose the intervention of arrestive action, of inhibition, in the physiology of attention. Voluntary immobility results from very intense muscular activities, and has for its physiological condition the general tension of the muscular system, which places the subject in such a condition that he can react in the quickest and most energetic manner possible to an excitation from whatever point it may come. This is the physiological condition of attention. The exercise of immobility is the most favorable to the development of intelligence, while the relaxation of the muscles which results from the removal of the tension tends to the suppression of attention, and of the psychical activity. Excitations of the skin determine exaggerated reflex activities, more rapid and more energetic movements. As intelligence is developed, the reflex movements become less imperious, the multiplicity of motives of action gives the illusion of freedom of choice. When the excitable centres are incompletely developed, as with women and children, and especially with degenerates, the impulsions and the reflex activities generally, of which the centres are better developed, are more violent and more uncontrollable. (Paris: Félix Alcan).

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE. Vol. I.
Nos. 4 and 5.

ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.

REVUE DES PERIODIQUES ETRANGERS.