Part 16

A considerable portion of the second and principal part of this work is occupied with the psychology of attention and of the related subject memory. The latter is defined by M. Hirth as “a sum of states of perception gradually accumulated by the various organs of sense,” and it is thus not a special faculty of the mind. The mental condition which results from the action of memory is what is known as _disposition_. This disposition is transmitted from one generation to another, and becomes innate as the memory of the species. But it is intimately connected with the nervous system, and with the brain regarded as the electric storehouse of memories. It is in accordance with these ideas that the author explains the transmission of hereditary qualities, the problem which is at present engaging so much attention. The innate organisation is a conservation of nervous quality or temperaments associated with the anatomical disposition of the nervous system, and a certain condition of electrical tension among the cerebral molecules. The transmission of ancestral qualities depends, however, on the vigor and good condition of the germ, and as the organisation received from our earliest ancestors is the most persistent, the primitive “disposition” will subsist even without exercise whilst nutrition and circulation assure the continuance of molecular growth.

It is with the visual memory that the author is chiefly concerned, and he affirms that the optical phenomena referred to in the Introduction compel us to admit the existence in the brain of a central organ, which he terms the internal eye. In order to determine the position of this organ, which is the real seat of visual perception, to the exclusion of the retina, whose function has been overestimated, M. Hirth considers the anatomical and physiological aspects of the question, and he accepts the conclusion arrived at by H. Munk in his _Functions de l’écorce cerebrale_, that perception is the function of a particular portion of the cerebral cortex. There thus exist two visual centres or “internal eyes,” one in each convexity of the occipital lobes, as shown in Plate V. of the present work. Munk’s researches would seem to prove, moreover, that not only is there a general localisation of visual memories, but that each memory is fixed in a precise and determined place. The centres of memory and the centres of perception, which M. Hirth supposes to be simply a phase of memory, are the same. Moreover attention is connected with perception, but it is an imperfect state of memory. Attention requires the expenditure of force, while perfect memory acts spontaneously; and it is only in this form, “exempt from fatigue, that it becomes the passive servant of our instincts and sensations, of our voluntary acts, of our labor.” Memory when perfect is automatic, and according to the theory of M. Hirth, who does not accept M. Ribot’s monoideistic theory, it is accompanied with automatic attention, which is the result of a gradual transformation of “energetic” attention, and attains in a normal adult an incredible development both in quantity and quality. This _latent_ attention is required by the existence of latent memory, which is properly spoken of by M. Hirth as an organic attribute of the highest moment, seeing that it forms the basis of all individual acquirements. It would seem to answer, however, to what is often spoken of as the subconsciousness.

We can understand how this doctrine of latent memory and latent attention can have an important bearing on the question of the origin of the artistic sense, especially as each brain centre may be supposed to have its own memory, and each fundamental memory its special temperament. The activity of such centres is due in great measure, as pointed out by M. Ribot, to nutrition and blood-circulation but M. Hirth adds a third factor, electrical tension. According to his theory, cerebral activity rests ultimately on electricity, the invisible currents of which, maintaining the whole system in a state of tension, are “the inferior currents of the latent memory,” the brain centres being electrical accumulators. This idea, which the author applies also to the explanation of colored visual memories, is open to strong critical objections. In relation to the particular subject of art, the author shows that the hereditary transmission of talent depends on the active maintenance of the special temperament of certain fundamental memories and their associations, and talent itself therefore depends on the existence of such a temperament. We here come in contact with M. Lombroso’s theory of the physiological degeneracy of genius, which M. Hirth opposes with much force, and we think on the whole with success. This discussion occupies the last chapter of a work that, as our readers will be able to judge from the glance given here at some of its leading topics, has a scientific value quite apart from the special subject of art which it is intended to illustrate, and which it goes far towards establishing on a physiological basis.

Ω.

LES ALTÉRATIONS DE LA PERSONNALITÉ. By _Alfred Binet_. Paris: Félix Alcan 1892. Pp. 323. Price, 6 fr.

In the present work, the accomplished director of the laboratory of physiological psychology at the Sorbonne has brought together and systematised all the most reliable phenomena bearing on one of the most curious subjects of inquiry now engaging attention. Notwithstanding the disagreement between different experimenters as to particular facts, all have arrived at the conclusion that, under special conditions, the normal unity of consciousness may be broken, and that then there is the production of several distinct consciousnesses “each of which can have its perceptions, its memory, and even its moral character.” No one is better fitted than M. Binet to perform the eclectic work he has undertaken of discussing the recent researches on the alteration of personality, without regard to the special views of particular schools.

The subject is considered by him under the three heads of Successive Personalities, Coexisting Personalities, and The Alterations of Personality in the Experiences of Suggestion. The two first parts deal chiefly with phenomena presented by somnambulic and hysteric subjects. In the third part M. Binet applies the fact of the duplication of personality to the explanation of the phenomena of spiritism, the term he very properly gives to so-called spiritualism. He regards the supposed spirit agent as the subconscious personality of the medium acting under the influence of suggestion, a view which undoubtedly meets most of the actual facts of spiritism.

Notwithstanding the divisibility of the ego, there can be no doubt of the unity of the personality under normal conditions. The question is as to the nature of this unity, and the author follows M. Ribot in affirming that it consists in the coördination of the elements which compose it. He repudiates the idea that memory is the sole foundation of consciousness, as not only may one memory embrace different states, but the same individual may have several memories, several consciousnesses, and several personalities. For the opinion of M. Binet on other points we must refer our readers to the work itself, which forms an important addition to the International Scientific Library.

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L’HOMME DANS LA NATURE. By _Paul Topinard_. With 101 Illustrations in the text. Paris: Félix Alcan. 1891. Pp. 350. Price, 6 fr.

The present is the third work in which Dr. Paul Topinard, the well-known pupil and successor of M. Broca, the founder of French Anthropology, has given to the public his general ideas in relation to the science of which he has made so profound a study. In 1876 he published his _Anthropologie_, which reflected in great measure the teaching of his master, Broca. Ten years later, in 1886, appeared his larger and more important work, _Eléments d’anthropologie générale_, which treated of the history and methods of anthropology, with various other subjects. Now Dr. Topinard gives us his matured ideas on “Man in Nature,” by which is meant physical nature, the object of the present work being to show the place that man occupies physically among animals, and his probable origin or descent. It is not surprising that a writer who was the pupil of Professor de Quatrefages as well as of Professor Broca should declare himself a supporter of the principle of unity of composition, formulated by M. Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, from which flows that of evolution, that is the natural derivation of beings from one another. As to the means by which this is brought about, the author reserves his opinion until the publication of a further work which he has in preparation.

Dr. Topinard devotes the second chapter of the present work to a consideration of the position to be accorded to anthropology in relation to the other sciences. He declares it to be a pure, concrete science, essentially anatomical and observatory, and thus distinguishes it from ethnography, which has to do with peoples under all their aspects. Both alike are branches of the science of man in its broadest sense. If anything can be added to the author’s explanation, it is that anthropology has to do with mankind as a series of _individuals_, while ethnography is concerned with the _groups_ into which such individuals are collected. This is not inconsistent with Dr. Topinard’s definition of anthropology as the science “which studies human races, the human species, and the place of man in the classification of animals.” For all the facts on which it is based are derived from the observation of individuals, and when races are compared with each other, they are compared as ideal individuals, formed by a generalisation of certain prevailing qualities, just as mankind by a similar process becomes an ideal individual, a scientific Adam, who is compared with other animals. There is an apparent difficulty in relation to psychology which Dr. Topinard claims entirely for anthropology, but it disappears when we see how closely he associates psychology with physiology. He says, and we quite agree with him, that “characters of a psychological nature, reduced to their most simple expression, whether attributed to human races, or to the general human type, belong to ordinary physiological characters; the corresponding anatomical part takes its place by the side of other physical characters; the theory and explanation of intellectual operations, of feelings and volitions, belong to the special physiology of man and to the application of the ideas of general physiology.”

While accepting as correct the division of anthropology, in its restricted sense into general and special, as proposed by Broca and Bertillon, the author thinks it does not conform to the plan which should be adopted if it is desired to proceed, by the method of analysis and synthesis, from the known to the unknown. The plan adopted by Dr. Topinard is, by analogy with the procedures of general zoölogy, to begin by recalling the general notions applicable to his subject as to the distribution of animals by groups of varying values, the choice of characters on which they repose, and the differences between the race, the species, the family, and the order, these last forming the pivoting point of his views as to the place of man in classification. Then commences the study of characteristics, the mode of ascertaining them, of putting them to use and of appreciating their value, accompanied by examples, drawn from special anthropology, proper to illustrate the methods employed. Finally, a parallel is drawn between man and animals, that a conclusion may be arrived at as to the place of man in the series of beings, and his probable genealogy.

All these points are carefully considered by the author, who has framed a canon of the medium adult man of the European type, a figure based on which forms the frontispiece to the work. The proportions of this figure are derived from a comparison of all the most authentic published measurements, and the canon framed from them conforms closely to that recognised in artists’ studios, except that in the latter the arm is too short and the neck too long.

The most generally interesting subjects discussed by the author are those connected with the relationship of man to other animals, and particularly the structure of the brain. Dr. Topinard makes a careful comparison of the cerebral convolutions of various animals and man, with numerous illustrations, and he arrives at the conclusion that none of the characters said to distinguish man from the anthropoid apes are absolute; all are reducible to a question of degree of evolution, the superior degree being sometimes found among the anthropoids, and the inferior degree with man. The cerebral type of the anthropoids is a human type not completely developed, or the cerebral type of man is a developed simian type. Man thus undoubtedly belongs to the order of the Primates. After considering the form and volume of the simian and human brains, the author remarks that “man alone has a frontal lobe developed in all its parts, and filling up a large, concave, and deep frontal shell which externally gives place to the forehead, one of the characteristics of man.”

Connected with the form and volume of the brain is the transformation of the animal skull into the human skull, and the relation of this transformation to the facial characteristics of man. These points, and also various questions connected with the bipedal or quadrupedal attitude, and with the attitude and function of prehension, are treated in detail, as are certain other distinctive simian and human characters. A chapter is devoted to a consideration of the important subject of retrogressive anomalies and rudimentary organs. In his concluding chapter Dr. Topinard points out the place of man in animal classification, and refers to the questions of his single or multiple origin, his genealogy and his future. In connection with the subject of classification, the author dwells on the fact that man is not the only relatively perfect animal, and yet that none of the mammalia, which we admire for their beauty or for their usefulness, equal the monkeys in the possession of a brain approaching the human type. The brain, the hand, and the attitude are the three characteristics which especially connect man with the monkey, and particularly with the anthropoids, and the question has long been agitated whether in these particulars the last named is allied more closely to man or to the other monkeys. Dr. Topinard affirms that in all these particulars the anthropoids should be classed with the other monkeys, and therefore that man stands alone.

As to the descent of man, the French anthropologist would seem to agree with M. Vogt that the type from which man has developed was also the source of the monkey and anthropoid types, and that it first appeared at the commencement of the Miocene period, when the earliest monkeys succeeded to the Lemurian of the preceding Eocene epoch. Dr. Topinard remarks that this conclusion is agreeable to that of the eminent American palæontologist, Professor Cope, who makes man descend directly from the Lemurian without passing through the monkeys and the anthropoids, basing his opinion chiefly on dentition. The question of the descent of man is connected with that of the singleness or multiplicity of his origin, and on this point the author does not express a decided opinion. He says that all existing types of humanity could be reduced to three, the Europo-Semitic, the Asiatico-American, and the Negro; if not to two, the White and the Negro. He adds that, nevertheless, “in losing oneself in the depths of time, we can conceive the Negro, born the first, giving birth successively to the Australoid with frizzled hair, to one of the forms of the Brown stock with straight or wavy hair, and finally to the white European.” Probably his actual opinion is to be gathered from his final statement when comparing the order of the Primates to a tree, that the Lemurians are its roots giving birth to several stems, of which one is that of the monkey, from which branched the anthropoids, and another, whose point of contact with the first is unknown, gives the actual human branch, which runs parallel to that of the anthropoids without being connected with it, and goes beyond it.

As to the future of the human race, Dr. Topinard affirms that the volume of the brain will notably increase, that dolichocephaly will give place to a universal brachycephaly, and that the cellules of the brain will be perfected in quality. As the human brain is being thus perfected, the animals nearest to the human type will disappear, and then man will really think himself the centre round which the universe gravitates, the sovereign for whom nature has been created. But even then the anatomist will bring him to himself by uttering the words of Broca, “Memento te animalium esse.” This work, which forms volume seventy-three of the International Scientific Library, is sure to be widely read, and it will be indispensable to the student of anthropology, who will find in it all the information he requires on the methods of the science.

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DIE URHEIMATH DER INDOGERMANEN UND DAS EUROPÄISCHE ZAHLSYSTEM. By _Johannes Schmidt_. Berlin, 1890. Pp. 56.

This essay is an important contribution to the problem of the place of origin of the Indo-Germanic languages. The author is confident that while nothing certain was known before, he has established at least one fact which will give us a clue to the solution of the problem. This fact is the interference of the duodecimal system with the decimal system. The former is of Babylonian origin, but its effects are noticeable upon almost all the Aryan tongues. The duodecimal system is not original with the Goths or with any of the Teutons, which can be proved by the fact that 60 or a _Schock_ was a round number, but not twelve, the etymology of twelve (_twa-lif_) being two above a _lif_, which latter means a certain set. Thus when the Gothic hundred as a rule meant 120, when for a long time they distinguished between great hundreds (i. e. 120) and small hundreds (i. e. 100), this was due to foreign influence. For if twelve had been the basis of their number system, a _lif_ would have meant twelve and the numerical arrangement would have progressed not in 10 × 12 but consistently in 12 × 12 or 144. Everything points to the supposition that the Babylonian _sossos_ is still preserved in the German _Schock_ (60). Accordingly, says Schmidt, the Europeans must have been exposed to a strong influence of the sexagesimal system; they must have been nearer to the centre of Babylonian civilisation than are the valleys of the Indus and the Eastern Iran. Professor Schmidt considers Penka as refuted and also all those who regard Europe as the home of Indo-Germans.

We have to add that the eminent philologist when, discussing the problem of the cradle of the Indo-Germanic languages does not touch upon the other problem of the home of the Aryans, the latter being mainly an anthropological question. Schmidt says (p. 13): “I do not intend to enter into the problematic domain of anthropology. The original race-characters of the Indo-Germanic nations, their causes and the home in which they were moulded, also the physical conditions and mixtures of the races which speak our languages, undoubtedly can be treated with success only by the representatives of physical anthropology. But exactly so the problem of the cradle of the original Indo-Germanic speech and the evolution of its several languages, as they are known in history, can be solved only by philologists.”

This is very true. Perhaps we shall approach the subject with better success if we learn to distinguish between the anthropological problem of the origin of the Aryan race and the philological one of the origin of the Aryan languages. A European origin of the one might not exclude an Asiatic origin of the other, and it still remains possible, that European Aryans when migrating south and east developed through their intercourse with semitic and other races the beginning of a civilisation which powerfully affected all the Aryans, since there is ample evidence that even in olden times a lively commerce took place between them. When Prussian amber is found in Pelasgian graves, why should not the sexagesimal system of the wealthy nations of the south have spread over northern countries?

κρς.

LEHRBUCH DER HISTORISCH-KRITISCHEN EINLEITUNG IN DAS NEUE TESTAMENT. By _Heinrich Julius Holtzmann_. Dritte verbesserte und vermehrte Auflage. Freiburg, i. B.: J. C. B. Mohr. 1892. Pp. 508. Price, 9 M.

It has been said that the scientific purpose of an academical text-book should be to educate the student to scientific independence, and its practical purpose to make it available for the adherents of all parties and denominations; and these two purposes are the surer attained the less the author represents his own conception as that which alone can be justified. This is the principle according to which Professor Holtzmann’s _Lehrbuch_ has been written. That he has fully attained his aim, will not be doubted by those who know his previous and painstaking labors, in which he proves himself as a theologian fully imbued with the spirit of science and scientific critique.

The first edition of this work appeared in 1885, the second in 1886, and the present and third edition can make the just claim of being carefully revised and perfected in every respect, so that it is to be regarded as a comprehensive, concise, and clear review of the critical materials of the New Testament. There is no doubt that the work as it now stands will remain the best book for reference of its kind.

Professor Holtzmann in a brief introduction of seventeen pages sketches the history and literature of New Testament criticism. The book is divided into two parts, the first treating the subject in a general way, the second entering into its several details. In the first part the author presents us with a history of the text and of its traditions, explaining the causes of the alterations that were introduced either unintentionally or by mistake; he reviews the critical apparatus for text-revision and also the history of the printed and revised editions up to the present attempt at emendation. Then a history of the canon is given, from the oldest Christian literature down to the radical criticisms of the present time. In the second and special part we find a careful compilation of all the criticisms concerning the single books and epistles of the New Testament. The first chapter treats of St. Paul’s epistles to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, to Philemon, the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, the pastoral epistles; further, the epistle to the Hebrews, which is non-Paulinian, the two epistles of St. Peter, the epistle of St. Jude, and that of St. James. The second chapter introduces us into the historical books of the synoptic gospels and the Acts, where, in a brief review of fifty-seven pages, we find the same data presented which are more fully explained in another publication of our author, reviewed in _The Monist_, Vol II, No. 2.