Part 15

The plan of the investigation undertaken by Mr. _Walter Smith_ in his _Methods of Knowledge_[36] is, first, to give a definition of knowledge. The methods are then considered by which men have thought it possible to attain knowledge of the self on the one hand, and the not-self on the other. The common view of philosophers and men of science that truth is given in general concepts, or universals, or categories, is taken up, and the special form of the doctrine given in empiricism is considered and found to be a doctrine wanting in all its forms. Yet it is pointed out that the concept has its uses in the mental economy. The method is then expounded of knowing the not-self as being gained by sympathetic imitation. It is then determined wherein self-knowledge consists, and the bearing of this theory on the philosophical problem and on certain practical questions is indicated.

[Footnote 36: Methods of Knowledge. An Essay in Epistemology. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 340. Price, $1.25.]

In _The Philosophy of Memory and Other Essays_[37] Dr. _D. T. Smith_ develops a theory of mental action, the basis of which is the setting up in the cells of the gray matter of the brain, and possibly of the spinal cord, of orderly grouping of waves or vibrations among certain atoms or molecules by whatever may affect any of the senses; that these undulations are realized first as sensations, and then group themselves so as to form perceptions, ideas, emotions, etc. They rise in succession into the scope of consciousness. After a time the effect of these vibrations in consciousness is weakened, without perhaps utterly passing away, and retains the possibility of being re-enforced by kindred vibrations in harmony with it. This is memory.

[Footnote 37: The Philosophy of Memory and Other Essays. By D. T. Smith. Louisville, Ky.: John P. Morton & Co. Pp. 203.]

In _The Psychology of Reasoning_[38] M. _Alfred Binet_ makes reasoning a process of the formation of mental images. He finds no decided difference between perception--the cognizance of sensations and assignment of them to their source--and logical reasoning. "The two operations are both reasonings, transitions from the known to the unknown"; "the two extremes of a long series of phenomena." A premise is "a judgment, an association of images," and a conclusion that follows from the premises is "an association of images produced by other associations." The theory of three images--the two premises and the conclusion--"is applicable to reasonings of every kind, and therefore constitutes a general theory of reasoning.... If it be recollected that images are fragments, residues of former sensations; that they spring from the place where former sensations have been received, in the sensory centers of the cerebral surface layers, it will be understood that the purpose of these images in grouping themselves in reasonings, according to the laws of their affinity, is to replace the absent sensations. Such is therefore the function of reasoning; it enlarges the sphere of our sensibility, and extends it to all objects which our senses can not know directly. Thus understood, reasoning is a _supplementary sense_, which has the advantage of being free from those strict conditions of time and space--the two enemies of human knowledge." In memory, "the suggested image is projected and localized in the panorama of the past, of which it appears to be a fragment." Imagination is "a faculty of creating assemblages of images which do not correspond to any external reality."

[Footnote 38: The Psychology of Reasoning. Based on Experimental Researches in Hypnotism. By Alfred Binet. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company. Pp. 191.]

The idea of preparing _Who's Who in America_[39] was suggested by the success of the English book, Who's Who? now in its fifty-second year, and the work has been prepared on similar lines. Its purpose is to supply information concerning living American men and women who have achieved distinction, who hold recognized public positions, and who have contributed so as to have it talked about to the growth, development, knowledge, and civilization of the country. Eight thousand six hundred and two such persons are represented in this book, including, _ex-officio_, all members of the Fifty-sixth Congress, Governors of States and Territories now in office, United States, State, and territorial judges of courts of high jurisdiction, persons of other prominent official classification, national academicians, members of the National Academy of Sciences, heads of the larger universities and colleges, and a few others chosen on similar arbitrary lines. Special effort has been made to include all living American authors of books of more than ephemeral value. The data for the book have been obtained from first hands, except in a very few cases, where the modesty of the subjects made it necessary to supply the material from other sources, when the articles were submitted to the subjects for revision.

[Footnote 39: Who's Who in America. A Biographical Dictionary of Living Men and Women in the United States, 1899-1900. Edited by John W. Leonard. Chicago: A. N. Marquis & Co. Pp. 822.]

In _The Dawn of Reason_[40] Dr. _Weir_ has provided a most interesting book for the unscientific reader as well as for the comparative psychologist. He traces the gradual unfolding of conscious mind in animal life from the actinophryans which discriminates between the grains of starch and sand, and the Stentor which changes its position to catch a ripened spore, to the higher forms that decorate their homes, exhibit parental affection, exercise mathematical faculty, and extricate themselves from unforeseen dangers. As the field of observation of the senses of touch, taste, and smell has been so thoroughly worked by Lubbock and other naturalists, special attention is paid by the author to the senses of sight and hearing, in regard to which he furnishes new and valuable data. In addition to these he claims to establish the fact that tinctumutations and "homing" are auxiliary senses--not instincts. He located the center of color changing in the frog exactly below the optic, and by artificial stimulation produced the alteration in tint, and by excision, or treatment with atropine, destroyed the chromatophoric function. By experimentation upon snails he found the center of the sense of locality at the base of the cephalic ganglion, and, removing it, rendered them unable to return to their homes. Many anecdotes are given showing that the lower orders of animal life exercise conscious determination, and that among those with more complex nervous systems there is a mind akin to that of man. Not only do animals remember friends, strangers, and events, but they love, hate, and fear. They evince æsthetic feeling also when the spider ornaments its web with logwood flakes, the dog howls in harmonic accord with the church bell, and salamanders assemble at the sound of a piccolo. Still higher psychical attributes are those of animals that show parental affection or ability to count, like the mason wasp, which provides invariably five spiders for the male larva and eight for the female; or the harvester ants that plant their grain, weed and winnow it. Examples are cited of the capacity of the elephant to form abstract ideas and of the dog to indulge in brown studies. The author scouts at the theory that "specialized instinct," or "intelligent accident," prompts actions in animals which in man would be ascribed to reason. "Instinct," he writes, "is the bugbear of psychologists," and thereupon he differentiates sharply the two sadly confused functions.

[Footnote 40: The Dawn of Reason. By James Weir, Jr., M. D. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 234. Price, $1.25.]

In the thesis entitled _A Step Forward_, _F. Theodor Kruger_ proposes, as a measure of possible social reform, placing the medical and legal professions wholly under the direct control of the civil authorities, to be exercised through duly constituted boards or departments of the several communities.

In his study of _Centralized Administration of Liquor Laws in the American Commonwealths_ (Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law) _Clement M. L. Sites_ finds that widely variant policies are followed by the several States in the regulation of the liquor traffic, all based upon the broad powers of taxation and police. While we hear much of characteristic plans of regulation, little is said about characteristic systems of administration. This is because the liquor laws are administered incoherently. There is no consensus, even within the Commonwealth, in standards of administration. Each community practically determines for itself how the law shall be enforced, and we have all degrees of enforcement, from rigid severity to none. The various plans of regulation are classified by the author according to the dominant aspect in which they regard the liquor traffic. It has been treated as an open traffic, subject simply to taxation and reasonable safeguards; as a necessary but dangerous business, to be limited to approved persons and places and surrounded by special safeguards; as a criminal enterprise, to be suppressed, like highway robbery; and as a subject of legal monopoly. It is the purpose of Mr. Sites's essay to follow the developments of centralized administration that have taken place in recent years in each of these spheres, and in that of the institution and maintenance of judicial proceedings. The phases of current development that seem to merit special note are the substitution of the liquor-tax system for the license system, the extension and elaboration of local option, the contingent central control of city police administration, and the recognition of the general province of administration. The author's study shows that these developments accord in general with the laws of evolution, each representing some special aspect of the differentiation. In considering the "dispensary" plan, illustrated in South Carolina, a significant contribution to current thought is remarked in the approval it gives to the use of liquors as a beverage, while their abuse is disapproved in an equally marked degree, a distinction being attempted here, with correspondingly different methods of treatment between those who can be trusted with liquors and those who can not.

_The Report of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries_ for the year ending June 30, 1898, represents that the operations of the division of fish culture were in some respects more important during that than in any preceding year. This was owing in part to the natural growth of the work, and in part to greater efficiency in dealing with the various questions and problems that came up for consideration. The propagation and distribution of food fishes exceeded by about forty per cent the work accomplished in any other twelve months. The steady increase in the catch of shad is cited as being conclusive evidence of the value of artificial propagation. The constant decline in the lobster fishery accentuates the necessity for increased work in that line. The efforts to acclimatize food fishes in waters to which they are not indigenous have been continued. The special papers published in connection with the report relate to mackerel investigations, the alewife fisheries, the oyster beds of Louisiana, the shad fisheries of the Atlantic coast, reports of fishes obtained in sea explorations, a list of publications, and a report of the exhibit at the Tennessee Centennial.

_The Tenth Annual Report of the Interstate Commerce Commission on the Statistics of Railways in the United States_ covers the year ending June 30, 1897. The year is characterized as having been for the transportation industry one "of deferred expectations." While the years from 1890 to 1893 each closed with increased gross earnings as compared with the preceding year, 1893-'94 was disastrous, showing a large decrease; no recovery took place in 1894-'95, but an increase took place in 1895-'96. A downward turn came again in the year of the present report, with no revival till the last month of the twelve. The total increase in mileage for the year of the report was only 1,651.84 miles, the smallest increase and the smallest percentage of increase noted in any year since 1890. "In many States," says the report, "railway construction seems to have been practically abandoned. Especially is this noticeable in the more populous districts of the country--a result which is not entirely due to the general commercial depression, but to the marvelous increase in electric railways for suburban and short-distance traffic. The influence of electric construction upon steam transportation is noted in certain of the reports of State railway commissions for the current year." These are only two of the numerous interesting facts presented in the report.

_Small Accumulators, how Made and Used_, is the first of a series of popular scientific handbooks for students and engineers. The particular subject has been selected for beginning the series under the suggestion of a large number of requests for advice which the author, _Percival Marshall_, had received in his capacity as editor of the Model Engineer and Amateur Electrician. The work is intended to be an elementary handbook--"a practical and trustworthy guide"--for amateurs and students. The theory of the accumulator is explained, directions are given for making them, types of small accumulators are illustrated, the charging and use of accumulators are explained, and the applications are shown. Useful receipts and a glossary of technical terms are given. (The book is published by Spon & Chamberlain, New York. Price, 50 cents.)

In his _Better World Philosophy--a Sociological Synthesis_ (Chicago: the Ward Waugh Company), _J. Howard Moore_ utters a protest against the egoism or selfishness of our day, and suggests an ideal scheme. The problem of life is defined as being the relation of each individual to the rest of the universe, and is peculiarized by the existence of the social problem involving relations of individuals to each other different from those sustained to the impersonal universe. There are in the nature of living beings the egoistic element, which impels action in behalf of self, and the altruistic element, which prompts or prevents movement out of consideration to others. At present the egoistic element predominates, with results that make a picture far from bright. In the social ideal the strong should supplement the weak as they would like to be supplemented if they were weak; individuals not unequal but diverse may mutualize their efforts to the advantage of all; and each individual should perform in the social economy that function for which he is best fitted, and should receive in return "a graceful equity in the means for satisfying his desires."

Among the books announced for issue soon by Henry Holt & Co. are _The Book of Vertebrate Zoölogy_, by Prof. _J. S. Kingsley_, author of The Elements of Comparative Zoölogy, published by the same house, which can be used as a companion to McMurrich's Invertebrate Zoölogy; _Elementary Studies in Chemistry_, by Prof. _Joseph Torrey_, of Harvard, which, while it is characterized by the emphasis laid upon quantitative laboratory work in general chemistry, will be a comprehensive text-book on the whole subject; and _Moulds, Mildews, and Mushrooms_, a guide to the systematic study of the fungi and _Mycetozoa_ and their literature, by Prof. _Lucien Underwood_, of Columbia University.

Miss Cornelia E. Horsford, being interested in the question of the origin of certain ancient ruins situated on the Charles River, Mass., and elsewhere in America, which were discovered by the late Prof. E. N. Horsford and were believed by him to be relics of the settlements formed by the Norsemen in the tenth century, commissioned Mr. Thorstein Erlingsson to examine for comparison certain ancient dwellings in Iceland, in the summer of 1895. The inquiries assigned to him related to the method of construction of the long houses, square buildings, hillside cots with pavements, mounds, things and doom rings, irrigation and drainage, ditches, river dams, hithes and ship docks, or _nauts_, grave-hills, and forts. The results of the study are given, with illustrations, in a small book, _Ruins of the Saga Times_, by _Thorstein Erlingsson_. (Published by David Nutt, London.) Mr. Erlingsson's report is supplemented by an outline of already ascertained knowledge regarding early Scandinavian home building, derived from previous excavations and investigations furnished by F. T. Norris and Jön Stefánsson, and a summary in French by M. E. D. Grand.

_The Quarterly Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland_ was issued during the thirty-seven years from the beginning of 1871 in the form styled demi-octavo. The small pages of this size entailed some inconveniences, especially when ample plates and tables were needed for illustration. With the double number (August and November, 1898) a new series was begun, in the form styled imperial octavo, with a page considerably larger than in the old form and corresponding in size with the important publications of some of the continental societies of Europe. This number contains the proceedings of seven meetings of the society and important anthropological articles, some of them on American subjects. Among them is a criticism, by Prof. W. Z. Ripley, on Deniker's Classification of the Races of Europe.

In _How to Swim_ (Putnams, $1) Captain _Davis Dalton_, Chief Inspector of the United States Volunteer Life-Saving Corps, gives a practical treatise upon the art of natation, together with instruction as to the best methods of saving persons imperiled in the water and of resuscitating persons apparently drowned. The treatise covers every branch of the art, and abounds in cautions in connection with nearly every topic, against the mistakes that may arise from timidity or the carelessness of over-confidence. The author holds that swimming is an art to be acquired and learned like other athletic arts, although it depends upon natural principles. The best movements for taking advantages of the physical laws involved in it have been studied by competent men, and a brief and clear presentation of them is attempted here. First, we have the lessons for the beginner, who must, before all things, "have confidence." The different strokes are described in detail and illustrated; the different modes of swimming and the postures, swimming in clothes, taking off clothes in the water, diving and swimming under water, swimming in waves, and other features are explained; and, finally, the life-saving directions are given, and public education in swimming is insisted upon.

_The Southern Magazine_ is a new monthly, published at Manassas, Va., by the Southern Publishing Company, of which we have the third number, that for August. It has a definite flavor of the old South, for which we find no fault with, for there was much about the old South which ought to be preserved, and no little that was too precious to be lost. Among the matters of special interest in this number are the Sketch of Sidney Lanier, by Ellen Manderson, with selections from his writings; The Last Meeting of the Confederate Cabinet (held, by a curious coincidence, at Abbeville, S. C., where secession was started), by Walter L. Miller; an account of the University of Virginia, by John S. Patten, which appears to be the first of a series on Southern Educational Institutions; and an article on South Carolina in Letters, by Colonel J. P. Thomas.

The fifth yearly number of _L'Année Psychologique_ of MM. _Alfred Binet_, _H. Beaunis_, and _Th. Ribot_ is a volume of 902 pages, of which 591 pages are included in the first part, devoted to Original Memoirs and General Reviews. The papers are nineteen in number, on such subjects as muscular fatigue, the foreshortening of objects rising from the horizon, stereognostic perception and stereoagnosy, suggestibility, applications of the calculation of probabilities to psychology, colored audition, mental labor and nutritive changes, measure of mental fatigue, sensations of smell, phonographs and the study of the vowels, cephalometry, pedology, volume of the arm and muscular force, chronophotographic and other apparatus, and muscular sense; and the authors are MM. Van Biervliet, of Ghent; Blum, of Nîmes; Bourdon, of Rennes; Claparède, of Geneva; Clavière, Delage, Demeny, Druault, Mlle. Joteyko, MM. Larguier, Manouvrier, Marage; Marbe, of Würzburg; Obersteiner, of Vienna; Tscherning and Zwaardemaker, of Utrecht. M. V. Henri's paper on Muscular Sense would make a volume by itself. The second part--Analyses--consists of reviews of psychological publications entered under ten headings. The Bibliography contains 2,558 titles, and the index of authors fills upward of seventeen double-columned pages. (Paris: Scheicher Frères.)

Valuable papers on Comparative Tests of Bituminous Steam Coals, by John W. Hill; the Artificial Preservation of Railroad Ties by the Use of Zinc Chloride, by W. W. Curtis; and the Theory of Concrete, by G. W. Rafter, are given in the _Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers_ (vol. xxv, No. 4, April, 1899), together with discussions respecting street grades and cross-sections in asphalt and cement and to loads and maximum stress on members of a bridge truss; also biographical sketches of D. L. Barnes and W. R. Michie.

A valuable addition to D. Appleton and Company's International Education Series, and a sprightly book in itself withal, is _Montaigne on the Education of Children_, a volume of selections bearing on the subject from the writings of the quaint old Frenchman, translated and annotated by L. E. Rector. The significance of Montaigne, as the editor of the series observes in his preface to the volume, lies chiefly in his protest against pedantry, and the translator finds Montaigne's modernity shown in his attempt to degrade men learning from the first place, and to lay the emphasis on fitness for practical life, ability to use one's judgment, and morality and virtue. While Montaigne had limitations and defects in his educational views, such as are pointed out by Dr. Harris, he still appears to have been far in advance of his own time, and in some respects of the present time as well. The solution of the human problem, success in dealing with one's self and his fellows, was his ideal. The translator shows how Locke and Rousseau, and, of course, all educational writers who have built upon these, drew from him. The subjects of the selections given here are the Education of Children, Pedantry, the Affection of Fathers, Liars, Physiognomy, Anger, the Art of Conversation, Idleness, Experience, and History.

An essay on _The Object of the Labor Movement_, by _Johann Jacoby_, translated by Florence Kelley, and published by the International Publishing Company, advocates co-operation, demands that the employer recognize the laborer whom he employs as a being fully his own equal and treat him accordingly, and claims of the State an especial consideration of the working class as an act of reparative justice.

The _Transactions of the First and Second Regular Meetings of the Wyoming State Medical Society_, May 13 and November 1, 1898, shows that that body is vigorous and active, and that the doctors of Wyoming are interested in maintaining the dignity and reputation of their profession. It is represented that fully fifty per cent of the regular physicians of the State have already been enrolled as members of the society.