The Editor of The Monist has collected and collated in this book the results of the work done in the field of psychology and its auxiliary sciences. The author's philosophical standpoint is characterised in the first chapter where he contrasts feeling and motion. Feeling is defined as the subjective aspect of certain processes which, viewed objectively, appear as motions, and it is described as a state of awareness. Feeling originates from the simpler elements of subjectivity and becomes naturally representative, i. e. it acquires meaning. Mind is an organised totality of meaning-endowed feelings. The author reconciles from his standpoint idealism with realism. He shows that "the fulfilment of mind is truth…. Mind expands in the measure that it contains and reflects truth" (p. 46). The question of telepathy is touched, yet telepathy has here a different meaning from mystic thought-transference without any means of communication. Every sensation is a "far feeling" in the literal sense of the word, for "we do not feel our sense-organs but in and through our sense organs objects outside of us are felt. In and through our eyes most distant stars are seen…. What is the soul but a telepathic machine?" (p. 44) In the chapters following are described the characteristic features of organised life and its rise from non-organised life. The physiological part of the book treats of the soul-life of plants, then of animals, and gives by the aid of profuse illustrations an account of the evolution of nervous systems up to man. The chapter on the seat of consciousness proposes a new theory which will be of interest to physiologists as well as psychologists.
The recapitulation of the present state of experimental psychology presents the most telling facts of hypnotism, compares them with their correspondent normal states of soul-life, and explains them from the standpoint of the author. The conclusion of the book is devoted to the ethical and religious application of this conception of psychology. The practical importance of the new truths in the psychological field is vigorously maintained, but at the same time it is shown that the old conceptions psychological as well as religious are by no means worthless. They contain great truths and cannot be discarded offhand. In this sense are discussed among others the problems of Freewill and Responsibility, of Immortality and of the God-idea.
PERIODICALS.
MIND. April, 1891. No. LXII.
CONTENTS:
FREE-WILL: AN ANALYSIS. By Shadworth H. Hodgson.
THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. By G. F. Stout.
THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. By Alexander F. Shand.
ARNOLD GEULINCX AND HIS WORKS. By Professor J. P. N. Land.
DISCUSSION: 1) On Thought-Relations. By Arthur Eastwood. 2)
Notes on Volition. By Professor A. Bain. 3) On Psychology and
Metaphysic. By J. S. Mackenzie.