Part 34

Widely as we disagree on the grounds stated with the conclusions of Professor Royce’s work, it is undoubtedly a valuable contribution to the discussion of the world-problem. Its description of the characteristics of the philosophy of Kant and of the German idealists is clear, though not intended to do more than exhibit the spirit of their teaching, and it is written in a style which renders it easy reading. It is a pity, therefore, that it is disfigured with such colloquialisms as _you’ll_, _isn’t_, _can’t_, _don’t_, words which neither sound well, nor look well in print.

Ω.

DIE ARISTOTELISCHE AUFFASSUNG VOM VERHÄLTNISSE GOTTES ZUR WELT UND ZUM MENSCHEN. By _Dr. Eugen Rolfes_. Berlin: Mayer & Müller. 1892.

This book is a scholastic “survival.” The author believes that Zeller’s interpretation of Aristotle is wrong, and in five formal theses he endeavors to prove _secundum artem_ that the philosopher was a theist who taught the creation of the world from nothing, and the immortality of the soul. In the defence of his theses he manifests some ingenuity and industry, but no criticism. The work has no scientific significance.

P. S.

MAX STIRNER UND FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. Erscheinungen des modernen Geistes und das Wesen des Menschen. By _Robert Schellwien_. Leipsic: C. E. M. Pfeffer, 1892. Price 2 m 60 pf.

Individualism is the spirit of the age, and among all the champions of individualism the most original, the most consistent, the boldest, are perhaps Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche. Robert Schellwien, in sketching their views in great outlines, partly admires these courageous thinkers who dare to draw the consequences of their principles to the very last even though they will appear absurd to the world, partly censures the rashness with which they arrive at, and the superciliousness with which they sometimes state, their opinions. Upon the whole the author succeeds in impressing the reader that there is in these two peculiar geniuses a gigantic strength, and that their views of truth, morality, and justice deserve a greater attention than they have received. The reviewer is no admirer of either Stirner or Nietzsche; he believes nevertheless that a careful analysis of their erratic minds and lives will be very instructive. It will be first of pathological and then even of more than pathological interest. The actual objective value of the ideals truth, morality, and justice, will be best illustrated by showing all the consequences of a consistent individualism. We hope that this pamphlet will grow into a more comprehensive work; and in that case we should advise the author to add short biographies of his heroes.

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THE SOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT OF KANT’S TELEOLOGY. By _James Hayden Tufts_. Chicago: University Press. 1892.

This little tract is an inaugural dissertation presented by Mr. Tufts to the University of Freiburg for the attainment of the doctorate of philosophy. It is written in English. Mr. Tuft’s dissertation is wholly historical. He simply seeks to expound Kant’s true views. In this respect the work bears the marks of much research and of a thorough exploitation of Kant’s works. Mr. Tuft’s concluding words are that “with every new discovery of science, every advance in the ideals of art and of the conduct of life, every development in religious faiths, comes anew the task for philosophy to criticise, and through criticism to make a fresh attempt to interpret from the unity of reason the manifold of life.”

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DISTINCTION AND THE CRITICISM OF BELIEFS. By _Alfred Sidgwick_. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1892.

This work might be described as an inquiry into the conflict between philosophy and common sense, and its central idea as the continuity of nature. What bearing this idea has on the inquiry is shown by the statement, that the distinction between philosophy and common sense is only one of degree. And yet, regarded as methods, or attempts to follow ideals, they may be sharply contrasted. This implies the existence of distinctions, and hence arises the question how far distinction is consistent with continuity in nature. The recognition of such a continuity requires the admission of the unreality of distinctness, but this fact is not inconsistent with the use of rough distinctions, which give rise to what the author terms effective ambiguity. Here we have the field of the operation of common sense, which exhibits itself as tact in the use of rough distinctions, while, on the other hand, philosophy may be said to be concerned with the continuity which, from a superficial glance, might be supposed to stand in opposition to distinction.

The ultimate result which Mr. Sidgwick has in view is the reconciliation of philosophy and common sense, although it is incidental to his main purpose, which is the discussion of the best way of dealing with ambiguity, that is, of using rough distinctions. The improvement suggested is the substitution of “reasoned discrimination” for “haphazard tact,” and it is based on the doctrine that “the validity of all distinctions is relative to the purpose for which they are used at the time.” This cannot mean that distinction is merely relative, as it is said that there is no distinction which is quite safe against being broken down. The implication is that a safe distinction is possible, although difficult to find, and consistently with that view, the doctrine has the double aim of repressing excessive belief in distinctions which are, at least for the moment, invalid, and, on the other hand, of “enabling us to justify for a passing purpose, distinctions which are faulty on the whole.” The justification here arises from the use, and not from the distinctions themselves, although it is evident there must be some basis for them, or they would be invalid. The element of truth is derived from the continuity of nature, with which philosophy is concerned, and hence the improvement in the method of common sense is to be effected through its regulation by the method of philosophy.

The justice of this view may be tested by its consequences, which are stated by the author in reviewing the chief incidental aims of his book, as being those which have to do with controversy, the faults of language, and the conflict between the rival ideals, faith and doubt. “Philosophy,” we are told, “is doubt, just as science is knowledge,” (a description which like many other things in this book we cannot endorse,) and the true centre of philosophical interest in regard to rival ideals is “to harmonise the dispute by seeking how to limit each ideal by its opposite.” This is the aim of all real philosophy, which recognises that every ideal has an element of truth. Philosophy is thus explanation, and Mr. Sidgwick avers one of the great dividing forces in philosophy has always been “the rivalry between two opposite methods of general explanation—that which explains small things by great ones, the part by the whole, the many by the one (e. g. all earthly facts as related to their one cause and substance); and that which explains great things by small ones, the whole by its parts, the one by the many (e. g. the system of nature as a ‘concourse of atoms’).” Thus regarded, the distinction between philosophy and common sense is simply one of method; and it may be said to consist in the use by the former of rational doubt based on scientific knowledge, as distinguished from the belief founded on popular wisdom which distinguishes the latter. Both alike, however, are the fruit of observation, pushed further, nevertheless, in the one case than in the other, which is practically the view expressed by the author.

In considering the nature of philosophy, we have given the gist of Mr. Sidgwick’s reflections on controversy, which is treated as the opposition of ideals. This conflict is kept alive chiefly by doubt as to how abstract notions should be applied in concrete cases, and largely owing to “the absence of that kind of sharp distinction which is applicable, not only to the notions themselves, but to the actual facts to which they pretend to refer.” This view is ably enforced, as well as the necessity of applying to the conflict between ideals the rule laid down as to the purposive validity of distinctions. The operation of this rule would be attended with concession instead of assumption, there being, however, the admission, which is equivalent to an assumption, that neither side of any ideal dispute is devoid of some truth as well as some error. This is really required, if not by the continuity of nature, yet by continuity in our interpretation of nature. This is continuity in thought, and hence arises the difficulties connected with language which it is one of the author’s incidental aims to point out. He supposes that language acts as a drag on the progress of knowledge, owing to the _clumsiness_ of words arising from the fact that “things spoken of are always more full of change and movement than the words we can use in speaking of them.”

Mr. Sidgwick insists upon continuity, yet change itself may be evidence of at least partial discontinuity. Our author remarks, in an appendix note on the continuity of nature, that every change, as such, is a _saltus_, however small it may be, and that the same is true of any gap between the two extremes of nature and the intermediate region. That such an intermediate region exists, is required by the continuity of nature, which again is evidence of change, on the principle that every chain is made up of a series of links. But as in the chain there is no real gap between the links, so there is no actual discontinuity consequent on change in nature. The two extremes may be regarded as prolongations of the intermediate region, and the changes to which such prolongation is due may so occur that there may be discontinuity between certain parts, as between the fibres of which a hempen rope is made, and yet there be a perfectly continuous whole. We have an example of such a discontinuous _continuum_ in a beam of ordinary light, which presents not the slightest gap, and which yet is made up of numberless undulations in different ratios representing the six spectrum colors, each of which is, moreover, spread throughout the whole of the beam. Here we see that continuity is quite consistent with distinction. The latter may be regarded as discrimination of the various phases of the former, and the distinction remains valid or otherwise according to the accuracy of the discrimination or not. But constant change of distinction is required by progress in knowledge which may be regarded as a thought representation, by discontinuous steps, of the continuity of nature.

As to the conflict between faith and doubt, the author considers the function of scepticism as the search for grounds of belief, and thus doubt is said to be “rather a friend than an enemy to those who remember that there is still some truth, on any subject, for fallible men to learn,” as well as to those who are more interested in the discovery of truth than in supporting their own beliefs.

Ω.

VORLESUNGEN ÜBER GEOMETRIE, unter besonderer Benutzung der Vorträge von Alfred Clebsch. By _Dr. Ferdinand Lindemann_. Leipsic: B. G. Teubner. 1891.

This first part of the second volume of Alfred Clebsch’s Lectures has been arranged and treated by Professor Lindemann in the same way as the first, except perhaps that the editor has extended his independent investigations rather further than before, owing mainly to the fact that he had in addition to his own notes when attending Professor Clebsch’s lectures in 1871-1872, only five folio pages of the late master’s manuscript at his disposal. The present volume is divided into three parts. I. The Point, Plane, and Straight Line. II. Surfaces of the Second Order and of the Second Class. III. Fundamental Conceptions of Projective and Metrical Geometry. Historical notices and references are added in foot-notes. Considering the prominence of the editor as a mathematician, it would be a presumption on our part to praise his work.

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AN INTRODUCTION TO GENERAL LOGIC. By _E. E. Constance Jones_. London: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1892.

This work is another witness of the great interest now being taken in all that pertains to the methods of knowledge.

Miss Jones, the author, is lecturer on logic at Girton College, Cambridge. During an experience of several years in teaching, certain difficulties have very forcibly pressed themselves upon her attention. She hopes by her book to aid in removing these difficulties.

It is certainly a good augury for women when their intellectual representatives begin to show the disposition to turn towards the “dry light.” Logic and mathematics are “dry” to be sure; that is, they are very apt to be _found_ dry, very dry, by beginners, and always by those who lack that real intellectual robustness which is alone fit to meddle with fundamental problems. Hence these sober and severe disciplines find little favor among those who seek merely for “showy” attainments, those to whom whatever is “uninteresting” is intolerable, and those who regard obscurity as inseparable from profundity. When then we find scholarly women manifesting a real relish for this “dry light,” it gives promise of a coming day when the intellectual appetite will rise above the level of mere entertainment, the level of the playhouse and the circus, and take kindly, and perhaps zealously, to real edification.

Miss Jones makes but very modest claims on behalf of her treatise. She has not undertaken to innovate to any great extent upon the regular scheme. If in her changes there is that which might especially provoke criticism, it is perhaps in the nomenclature which she adopts. The traditional logic forms a system which has its own proper merits and defects. It is of great historical interest, and its regular terminology is almost indispensable for the proper illustration of its doctrines.

We think also that the author fails to state the case in all its amplitude, when, she lays it down as one of the most absolute and ultimate of all logical principles that the self-evident ought to be believed. The truth is, as we conceive it, that the self-evident is sure to be believed, and that in the face of any proposition that truly bears its own justification along with it, any doctrine of logic is either useless or impertinent.

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HYPNOTISMUS UND SUGGESTION. By _W. Wundt_. Leipsic: Wilhelm Engelmann. 1892.

A Greek student translates κλεινός ‘small’; “You are thinking of the German _klein_,” says the teacher quickly. Another renders ἡμείς γὰρ ἁγνοί, ‘we are lambs,’ misled by a chance cross association with the Latin _agni_. Every careful self-observer knows that there is no combination of memories, images, and resultant incipient acts too absurd for some moments of confusion and mental fatigue. We account for such confusions of thought by citing parallel cases and adding generally that normal associations are liable to disintegration and abnormal recombination in fatigued or excited conditions of the brain. If we seek a causal scientific explanation, two methods are open to us: (1) we may attempt to map out in detail and describe for all similar cases the pathways of association, or (2) we may endeavor to define their physiological conditions and accompaniments in the nervous system. The first leads us at once into the metaphysics of the unconscious. The second method, when we attempt to pass from a general to a specific correspondence, leads to a hypothetical restatement of the observed psychological facts in terms of the latest cerebral anatomy and physiology Now all serious scientific thinkers are fast coming to the conclusion (on which Wundt’s book is based) that the phenomena of dreams and of hypnotism are to be explained by the general laws of association as revealed especially in the confused and obstructed associations of the normal state. The critical and destructive part of Wundt’s sensible and timely work has two aims: (1) to discriminate the attested phenomena of hypnotism from the alleged phenomena of thought-transference, telepathy, and “possession” on which no serious student will waste his words; and (2) to point out the confusions of thought in current explanations of hypnotic phenomena, which either confine themselves to restatements of the observed facts in terms of a hypothetical anatomy, or at any rate in Wundt’s opinion base their physiological hypotheses on an inadequate psychological analysis. His own constructive work is an attempt to supply the missing analysis and accompany it with the most plausible physiological theory that our imperfect science allows. Dreams and the illusions of the hypnotic subject are doubtless explicable generally as derangements of the associative machinery. But they are specific forms of abnormal association, the special characteristics of which we wish to define. Suggestion, Wundt says (with James), is association accompanied by a “limitation of consciousness to the images aroused by the association.” The scientific problem is: _Wie entsteht die Einengung des Bewusstseins?_ This narrowing of consciousness manifests itself in a diminished sensibility to all impressions outside of the suggestions. Dreams show the same features, accidental impressions of sense or changes in the nutritive processes here taking the place of direct suggestions from without. But in sleep and dreams the limitation of consciousness is conditioned by general fatigue of the nervous system. In the hypnotic state it results not from fatigue, but from neuro-dynamic and vaso-motor changes in the distribution of tensions in the brain. Hence the superior intensity and vividness of the presentations that are allowed to develop themselves. This altered equilibrium of the forces of the brain is brought about by the suggestions of the operator, which are generally guided by him to a more or less definite end. The resulting derangements of normal associations are consequently less lawless than is the case in dreams. On these principles Wundt explains the chief facts of hypnotism as follows: Automatic obedience to the commands of the operator results simply from the fact that every idea tends to realise itself in action, is an incipient act; and in the narrowed consciousness of the hypnotic subject the idea suggested by the operator finds no competitors in the struggle for existence as a reality. This explanation (which is really as old as Spinoza) accounts also for positive hallucinations—there are no reductors, as Taine would say. Negative hallucinations (the non-existence of an existing door) may be explained sometimes by a contradictory positive hallucination (as of a curtain covering the door) more often in the same way as hypnotic analgesia by the familiar analogy of our insensibility to the toothache when the attention is elsewhere strongly engaged. This is favored by the generally diminished sensibility of the hypnotic subject. Post-hypnotic suggestions are associations depending on partial memories, such as we have in the normal state when we merely recall an image or an object without time-and-circumstance localisation. The subject who is to execute a post-hypnotic suggestion at 7 o’clock is reminded by the striking of the clock of an image of a thing to be done which the original command of the operator associated with the stroke of seven. All else is forgotten. When the time limit is not thus definitely marked, the process must be analogous to that whereby some persons are able to waken at a predetermined hour in the morning. A latent association is aroused into full activity by naturally recurring conditions of internal physiological processes or external surroundings. Courtesy or prudence are perhaps all that prevent the best explanation of certain extreme cases being the old one: “the boy lied.” Wundt rejects the claim that suggestion is the experimental method in psychology _par excellence_, for the very sufficient reason that the phenomena experimented with are only very partially in the control of the operator and are furthermore mainly pathological. He is far from disputing the practical efficacy of hypnotic therapeutics in functional disorders, but he regards the hypnotic sleep as a dangerous remedy, the employment of which should be limited to trained practitioners. The subjection of the hypnotic subject to the will of the hypnotiser is _a priori_ an immoral relation to obtain between man and man unless justified by superior medical necessities, but, quite apart from _a priori_ ethics, indiscriminate hypnotisation is to be discouraged as a direct cause of nervous degeneration. The book closes as it began With a dignified but severe reprobation of those thinkers who in the interests of occultism magnify the psychological significance of hypnotism and disseminate superstition in the name of science.

PAUL SHOREY.

DER HYPNOTISMUS IN GEMEINFASSLICHER DARSTELLUNG. By _Dr. Hans Schmidkunz_. Stuttgart: A. Zimmer (E. Mohrmann). 1892.

This book (266 pp.) is a popular compendium of hypnotism. The author, beginning (I) with the hypnosis of common life, goes over the whole field as follows: (II) the phenomena of hypnosis, (III) its application, (IV) the “beyond” of hypnotism, (V) the conceptions of hypnotism, and (VI) its dangers. The seventh and last chapter is a short history of the subject.

Dr. Schmidkunz, Docent of philosophy at the University of Munich, is one of the few who believe that there is a “beyond” in hypnotism. He says on p. 65: “A hypnotised person was led through a room while sleeping. The experimenter made a few passes over his head and then violently whirled his arm around in a vertical direction before his subject. When the subject approached the marked place, he recoiled from it crying with pain.” Our author asks, “what is this magnetic wall to be regarded as? As a charm, as an obstacle of occult power, from which the body recoils as from a wall of stone? If not, was it the subject’s soul that recoiled? Was it the hypnotised person’s belief which created the wall?” etc. The two interpretations, the one attributing the effect to a magnetic power, the other to suggestion are typical. The former is bolder: he goes “beyond” hypnotism.

Our author is one of those who go beyond hypnotism, and is not satisfied with the theory that suggestion explains all. We may add that he regards telepathy as a sufficiently established fact. Telepathy finds little support among scientists in Germany, and Dr. Schmidkunz complains, in a circular letter to “Professor Wundt’s and other Savants’ Critical Saltomortales” of the cool and depreciative treatment which his book _Psychologie der Suggestion_ received at the hands of men of science.

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L’HYPNOTISME DEVANT LES CHAMBRES LEGISLATIVES BELGES. Par _J. Delbœuf_. Paris: Félix Alcan. Pp. 80.