Part 35

In a recent number of _The Monist_ Prof. J. Delbœuf gave the reasons which have induced him to come to the conclusion that “persons in an hypnotic condition preserve at least a sufficient portion of their intelligence, their reason, together with freedom of action, to prevent them from committing deeds that neither their conscience nor their habits approve of.” This opinion is entertained by many other hypnotists, but the more general opinion is that “suggestion” may be made use of for criminal purposes: Such is the case especially in France and in Belgium; and acting on that supposition the medical faculty of the latter country promoted in the legislative Chamber a law interdicting public hypnotic séances, and reserving the practice of hypnotism as a therapeutic measure exclusively to medical men, as well as the treatment of insane persons and those under twenty-one years of age. Professor Delbœuf, who is not a medical man, naturally objects when those who but a few years ago would have classed him and his fellow hypnotists as charlatans, seek without reason to reserve for themselves the promising field of labor opened up by the researches of others. He maintains that men are born hypnotisers as they are born artists, and therefore to exclude all but medical men from the application of the hypnotic power will often prevent its use for curative purposes. Moreover it is a serious question for those who possess this natural gift. They might perform the most praiseworthy actions and yet be subjected to a legal penalty. Professor Delbœuf states that by hypnotism he cured a youth eighteen years of age of a mania for stealing (_la manie du vol_), and thus saved him from unmerited dishonor. On another occasion he had charge of a young wife who was possessed with the idea of murdering her children, and after all other means had failed he was able to remove the idea by suggestion extending over a period of eight days. He properly asks whether the performance of such actions ought to be treated as criminal.

The real question to be considered, however, is whether the practice of hypnotism is likely to be made use of for criminal purposes if it is permitted to every one. We much doubt whether any actual case of such an abuse has been legally established, or whether suggestion could lead to the perpetration of a criminal act unless there was a predisposition in that direction. Professor Delbœuf makes use, however, of an apparent paradox which would seem to render abortive any such law of prevention as that above referred to. It is that there is in reality no such thing as hypnotism. M. Bernheim writes in a letter given in the present work, “for my part, in the thousands of hypnotisations I have practised, I have never seen the least inconvenience result. Undoubtedly very impressionable subjects can, under the emotional influence of auto-suggestion, present certain nervous troubles; but these a prudent operator can always calm by suggestion.” Professor Delbœuf relates several cases of this kind within his own experience, which shows that severe nervous pain can be removed by simple assertion that it does not exist. He affirms that “the so-called hypnotic sleep is only a sign of suggestibility, and that it is not at all necessary to suggestive therapeutics.”

We may conclude this notice of a very interesting contribution to the discussion as to the true nature and operation of hypnotism, by quoting the conclusions arrived at by the author as to the proper mode of regulating its practice. He suggests that representations of hypnotism should be permitted subject to the measures which regulate public spectacles; that any one should be allowed to become a hypnotiser, as he can become a shampooer or a truss-maker; that the hypnotist who gives remedies should be punishable, since he exercises the art of curing without a diploma; that he should not be allowed to hypnotise minors without the consent of the family; and that he should be forbidden to treat a sick person without the written authorisation of a medical man and under his direction. This rule Professor Delbœuf, although he disapproves of the law which forbids the practice of medicine to those who have not a diploma, has always acted on. He thinks that if medical men then studied hypnotism and practised it themselves, hypnotisers who had no diplomas would soon have nothing to do. This spirited defence by Professor Delbœuf of his views will be widely read. Not the least interesting portion of it is the criticism, with which it ends, of “the affair of the brothers Vandevoir,” where we read that he is designated by his opponent M. Masoin “_doux et bon vieillard_” and “_l’homme cheveu_”!

Ω.

UEBER DEN HAUTSINN. By _Dr. phil. et med. Max Dessoir_, Privatdocenten an der Universität zu Berlin. Separat-Abzug aus Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie. Physiologische Abtheilung. 1892.

This pamphlet, a reprint from the _Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie_ of 1892, is an elaborate and careful investigation into the _modus operandi_ of skin sensations. The first part is a discussion of the theory of sensation in general containing (1) an analysis of the ideas _Gefühl_, _Empfindung_, and _Wahrnehmung_, (2) a critique of Johannes Müller’s doctrine of specific energies, (3) an exposition of the objectification of sensations. Feeling (_Empfindung_), according to the author, is, no magnitude, its main feature is intensity, quality becomes important only in sensation (_Wahrnehmung_). For the psychology of skin-sensations, we have to note the great influence of accompanying feelings (_Mitempfindungen_). The second part is devoted to the author’s investigations of the sense of temperature. Dr. Dessoir rejects Blix’s point theory; he regards the idea of two different end-apparatuses for warm and cold sensations as an unfounded assumption, and claims that the temperature sense is one mode of sensation possessing two qualities. The intensity of temperature sensations depends not only upon the _vis viva_ of the heat in the stimulus; but also upon five other factors (1) the size of the surface affected, (2) the duration of the affect, (3) the thickness of the epidermis, (4) its conductibility, and (5), last not least, its temperature.

κρς.

RECHERCHES D’OPTIQUE PHYSIOLOGIQUE ET PHYSIQUE. By _Clémence Royer_. Brussels Imprimerie Veuve Monnom. 1892.

The first part of this brochure consists chiefly of an examination of the theories of M. M. Hirth and Chauveau on chromatic sensation. The talented authoress disagrees with the view entertained by M. Chauveau, that the sensations of contrast which are fused cerebrally, so as to give, when viewed with both eyes, a white image, are subjective in an intellectual sense. The result is purely physico-physiological, as it is even assuming the intervention of M. Hirth’s _interior eye_. Mad. Royer regards the eyes organised so as to effect a fusion of the colors and forms depicted on the two retinas, and she accepts the conclusion of M. Hirth, that they lessen the real polychromism of objects, the inability to perceive the infra-red and the ultra-violet rays concealing from us a considerable part “of the palette of nature and of its chromatic scale.” The authoress refers with approval to the theory of M. Charpentier that the complementary colors correspond to inverse undulatory phases, which are destroyed by interference in the field of vision.

The second part of Mad. Royer’s pamphlet is devoted to a consideration of the photography of colors, and the theory of light. It points out that the photography of colors, which has been effected to some extent by M. Lippmann, must be a physical and not a chemical process. It is the result of the periodic compressions of the sensitised silver-surface, due to the shocks it receives from the light undulations of the ether, which so modify the surfaces of the silver atoms that they reflect colored rays identical with those received from the object photographed. With reference to the propagation of light, the authoress affirms that the atoms of matter, as well as those of the ether, which differs from matter only in being imponderable and without inertia, are centres of emanation of a continuous and impenetrable fluid, which is however indefinitely expansible or compressible. The size and form of atoms will thus depend on the compressions they receive, and they will be able to accommodate themselves to the spaces to which they are confined by the resistance of the atomic groups by which they are surrounded. But the world may be regarded as consisting of three sorts of atoms: (1) those of the ether which possess their primordial unity of expansive force and are endowed with perfect elasticity; (2) those of ponderable matter, which have lost a portion of their expansive force and elasticity; (3) those which are called vitaliferous, because they have regained their expansive force, and are thus capable of autonomous movements necessary to resist the compressions of the ether and to oppose the inertia of matter. They thus answer to the cell-souls of Haeckel.

Ω.

DIE BEWEGUNG DER LEBENDIGEN SUBSTANZ. Eine vergleichend-physiologische Untersuchung der Contractionserscheinungen. By _Max Verworn_, Dr. med., Privatdocent der Physiologie an der Universität Jena. Mit 19 Abbildungen. Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1892.

The mechanism of muscle contraction and expansion and the motions of amœboid substance have been recognised as one and the same problem; and several naturalists, foremost among them Hofmeister, Engelmann, and Edmund Montgomery have investigated it, fully aware of the enormous importance of the subject. The present pamphlet is small, it contains only 103 pages, but it contains the statement of the problem, a description of the author’s experiments, and his solution so lucidly that one cannot read it without great satisfaction. Both processes, expansion as well as contraction, are, according to Verworn, spontaneous motions, and both are to be explained by chemotropy. Expansion, i. e., in amœba the protrusion of pseudopodia, is due to the plasma’s hunger for the oxygen, which is contained in the surrounding medium. Every irritation (electric shocks, concussions, injuries etc.) causes a chemical decomposition of the oxygenised plasma; it loses carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, (as we know from the waste products, carbonic acid, creatine, lactic acid,) and these substances are exactly those which are most prominent in building up living substance. Irritations without exception cause the plasma to return to the nucleus. The chemical change in the plasma makes it hungry for the nuclear substances. The vital process, accordingly, is an interaction between the nucleus, the plasma, and the medium, so that in the constant exchange of materials the old structure is preserved; and the fundamental features of the vital process are first the plasma’s chemotropy for oxygen, causing centrifugal motions, and then its chemotropy for nuclear substance, causing centripetal motions. The plasma saturated with nuclear substances, shows a chemotropy for the oxygen of the medium; it moves in a centrifugal direction, and the oxygenised plasma has become so unstable that it breaks down on the slightest provocation. The decomposed plasma exhibits a chemotropy for nuclear substance and thus returns in contripetal motions to the centre. Without entering into details we may mention that this accounts also for the fact that dying protoplasm always assumes a globular shape, until it crumbles to pieces. The _rigor mortis_ is the last vital action of living substance. The plasma seeks once more the nuclear substance, but not finding sufficient material for being built up again into a substance endowed with a chemotropy for oxygen remains rigid until it decays.

The author finds his theory to hold good for the actions of the striated and nonstriated muscles, and also of ciliated tissues. Having shown that the vital functions are due to the same forces that are observable in the retort of the chemist, he adds: “The savage accordingly was not quite wrong when he drew no distinct line, considering everything moving as alive. Life is motion. That old poetical view of all nature being animated with life throughout was in possession of a germ of truth, and our proud civilisation has actually made a retrogressive step in abandoning this view.”

κρς.

GRABER’S LEITFADEN DER ZOOLOGIE FÜR DIE OBEREN CLASSEN DER MITTELSCHULEN. Vienna and Prague: F. Tempsky. 1892. Price 1 fl. 60 kr.

We had occasion in a recent number of _The Monist_ to review an excellent text-book of physics published by this same house. The present work on zoology is in its second edition, and is intended, like the above-mentioned work of Professor Mach’s, for high-school instruction. Professor Graber, its author, died before the completion of the second edition, and the work was finished by J. Mik.

Graber’s Zoology is unique in its class; it covers, within the restricted limits of two hundred and sixty-one pages, the whole field of elementary biology, human physiology, and zoology, as it is usually exploited in such books, and thus combines in a single volume what is usually contained in two or three. The human organism (Part 1) is made the starting-point of study in the work, and the explication of the physiological and mechanical functions of animals are thus all grouped about this central figure. In a concise form (55 pages) this book contains about all of human anatomy and physiology that is usually learned in high-schools. Part 1 also contains, at the end of the discussions, brief dietetic suggestions. “Systematic Zoology” is taken up in the Second Part. This part is well analysed and arranged. The cuts are also excellent. Attached to the book is a “Picture-Atlas.” This atlas contains a number of colored plates, which depict various physiological and anatomical organs, and also four beautiful representations of scenes from the Naples Aquarium. Although this book will not be used by English school-students, it may be recommended to students of scientific German who wish a good introduction into the technical vocabulary of German biology and zoology, which to the foreigner is very difficult.

μκρκ.

L’ANTHROPOLOGIE DU BENGALE. By _Paul Topinard_. Extracted from _L’Anthropologie_ for May-June, 1892. Paris: G. Masson.

The present contribution to the science of Anthropology by the Editor of _L’Anthropologie_, is based on the anthropometric inquiries of Mr. H. H. Risley made under instructions from the government of Bengal. The conclusions deduced by Dr. Topinard from the large mass of material brought together by Mr. Risley, and which relates to members of all the castes to be met with in Bengal, are of great interest. He finds that the populations are much mixed, but that they may be divided into three types, one tall and dolichocephalic, that of the Aryans; another short and brachycephalic, derived from northern Asiatics; and the third short and dolichocephalic, or that of the native blacks. India is a world by itself, and most of its inhabitants belong to races of which there is no specimen in Europe. Dr. Topinard naturally attaches more importance to physical than to ethnographical characters as evidence of anthropological descent, and he is justified by Mr. Risley’s researches, of which he speaks very highly; although he thinks they would have been more fruitful if the anthropometrical instructions prepared by the French Anthropologist had been more strictly adhered to. That they were not so is the more surprising as Mr. Risley’s work is dedicated to Dr. Topinard himself.

Ω.

UEBER SITTLICHE DISPOSITIONEN. By _Dr. Anton Oelzelt-Newin_, Privatdocent an der Universität in Bern. Graz: Leuschner & Lubensky. 1892. Price Mk. 2 70 Pf.

The main idea of this book is to prove that there are certain innate dispositions forming the elements of morality. The elements of morality are according to Dr. Oelzelt-Newin the attitudes of fear, anger, love, sympathy, shame, and pride. Conscience is a complex which has developed from these six dispositions. Having stated sufficient evidences for the heredity of moral dispositions and illustrated the parallel phenomena of bodily states in their reference to moral alienation, the author treats the six elements of morality in single chapters, explaining their causes and the influence of conditions under which they develop either into virtues or crimes. The essay (92 pp.) is a contribution to that ethical determinism which regards evil as the necessary result of given factors. “Religious people should say: Not Only the stone which falls from the roof and kills a just man, but also the will of a criminal and the punishment of the judge are inscrutable ordinances of God. That alone is a true theodicy.” As an optimist the author trusts that the evil of the world will be conquered with legal means and enjoins priests to revise in this sense their creed, jurists their law, and all men their love of mankind.

κρς.

THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE. And the Wonders of the World We live in. By Sir _John Lubbock_. New York: Macmillan & Co. 1892. 429 pages. Price $1.50.

NATUR UND KUNST. Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Kunst. By _Carus Sterne_. Berlin: Verein für deutsche Literatur. 1892.

The first of these two books is a delightful compilation by Sir John Lubbock. It is another addition to that series of popular works which this well-known naturalist is now giving to English-speaking peoples. It makes no pretension of being scientific: it simply takes the world which science has revealed and shows us its wonders and its beauties. Yet it insinuates many a scientific fact and inculcates many a moral lesson. No one will regret the few hours that can be spent in its perusal, and the stimulus derived from it will heighten the pleasure which every religiously-minded heart takes in the contemplation of natural grandeur and truth. In the main, it is intended for unscientific readers. It requires hardly any preparatory knowledge to be understood; yet it sometimes touches on a truth that even great thinkers overlook. Thus, _à propos_ of the capacity for intact divisibility which some life-forms possess, Sir John remarks that these considerations introduce “much difficulty into our conception of the idea of an Individual.” “In fact,” he says, “the realisation of the idea of an individual gradually becomes more and more difficult, and the continuity of existence, even among the highest animals, gradually forces itself upon us. I believe that as we become more rational, as we realise more fully the conditions of existence, this consideration is likely to have important moral results.” The work is divided into the following chapters: “Animal Life,” “Plant Life;” “Woods and Fields,” “Mountains,” “Water,” “Rivers and Lakes,” “The Sea,” “The Starry Heavens.”

The second of the two books that head this review is by Carus Sterne. Few men possess the wide technical knowledge and the same command of the historical literature of his subject, that this investigator and writer possesses. Carus Sterne unites with a rigorous scientific training the rare qualities of philosophical insight and sound erudition. He possesses the scientific facts on which to base valid judgments, and he deduces from these facts the inferences that affect the most important problems of life—its culture and morality. We have had occasion before, to refer to these phases of Carus Sterne’s activity as an author.

In the present work the author of _Werden und Vergehen_ discusses the relations which obtain between nature and art. Here is not the place to give even a synopsis of the great wealth of material which this book of 395 pages contains; we are allowed simply to hint at its purport and methods. Carus Sterne defines the artistic impulse in man to be a longing of the mind to rise above the ordinary routine of physical existence. It is a lifting ourselves out of our every-day life. This cannot be accomplished by the simple reproduction of the things of nature; such reproductions have not in themselves an elevating effect. Art is not imitative, art is creative. It uses color, form, space, merely as a means to give “local habitation” to an idea. The imitation of actually existing things is the beginning of art; but it is its lowest stage. Nature must be our guide, our norm, not our model. Here the middle road is taken between the old and the new idea of art. That was ultra-idealistic, this is ultra-realistic. The author then proceeds to discuss the notion of beauty in art and nature (Part I) and finally takes up generally (Part II) the subject of the artistic contemplation and reproduction of the world. All these topics, with their many subdivisions, are treated in Carus Sterne’s best and most fascinating style. The work is well illustrated, and all interested in the natural history of art will find in it a storehouse of valuable material.

μκρκ.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] Cf. Ward, _Encyclopædia Britannica_, Vol. XX, p. 44.

PERIODICALS.

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE.

CONTENTS: Vol. IV. No. 3.

UEBER DIE SOGENANNTE CONSCIENCE MUSCULAIRE (DUCHENNE). By _A. Pick_.

EINE NEUE THEORIE DER LICHTEMPFINDUNGEN. By _Christine Ladd-Franklin_.

LITTERATURBERICHT. (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.)

Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin (a contributor to this number of _The Monist_) is one of those few women who have actually won a well deserved reputation as a thinker and scientific worker. She is an American by birth and the wife of an American savant. It is pleasant to find her name in a German periodical among whose editorial writers are men so prominent as Ebbinghaus, König, Exner, Helmholtz, Hering, Kries, Lipps, G. E. Müller, Pelman, Preyer, and Stumpf. Mrs. Ladd criticises Helmholtz and Hering, and thinks that the theories of Donders (in Gräfe’s “Archiv,” 1884) and Göller (in Du Bois-Reymond’s “Archiv,” 1888) have not received sufficient attention. In accord with their propositions, she sets forth an exceedingly simple hypothesis which attempts an explanation of the three main colors by atomic motions in the three different dimensions of space.

PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE.

CONTENTS: Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 9 and 10.

UEBER DIE GRUNDFORMEN DER VORSTELLUNGSVERBINDUNG. Psychologische Studie. (Concluded.) By _M. Offner_.

DER BEGRIFF DER VERSCHMELZUNG UND DAMIT ZUSAMMENHÄNGENDES IN STUMPF’S “TONPSYCHOLOGIE,” BAND II. By _Th. Lipps_.

WERKE ZUR PHILOSOPHIE DER GESCHICHTE UND DES SOCIALEN LEBENS (Third Article: _J. S. Mackenzie_, An Introduction to Social Philosophy; _J. H. Ferguson_, The Philosophy of Civilisation; _W. A. Macdonald_, Humanitism). By _F. Tönnies_.

CONTENTS: Vol. XXIX. No. 1 and 2.

DIE MODERNE ENERGETIK IN IHRER BEDEUTUNG FÜR DIE ERKENNTNISSKRITIK. By _K. Lasswitz_.

DIE SITTLICHE FRAGE EINE SOCIALE FRAGE (I). By _F. Staudinger_.

RELIGIONSPHILOSOPHISCHE THESEN. By _E. von Hartmann_.

LITTERATURBERICHT. (Berlin: Dr. R. Salinger.)

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PHILOSOPHIE UND PHILOSOPHISCHE KRITIK. Vol. 101. No. 1.

CONTENTS:

PSYCHOLOGISCHE APHORISMEN. By _Otto Liebmann_.

UNTERHALB UND OBERHALB VON GUT UND BÖSE. By _Eduard von Hartmann_.

JAHRESBERICHT ÜBER ERSCHEINUNGEN DER ANGLO-AMERIKANISCHEN LITTERATUR AUS DER ZEIT VON 1890-1891. By _Friedrich Jodl_.

ZUR BEGRÜSSUNG DES ZWEITEN HUNDERTS DER BÄNDE DIESER ZEITSCHRIFT. By _Prof. Dr. Rud. Seydel_.

RECENSIONEN. (Leipsic: C. E. M. Pfeffer.)

THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. October, 1892. Vol. V. No. 1.

CONTENTS:

DISTURBANCE OF THE ATTENTION DURING SIMPLE MENTAL PROCESSES. By _Edgar James Swift_.

PSEUDO-CHROMESTHESIA, OR THE ASSOCIATION OF COLORS WITH WORDS, LETTERS, AND SOUNDS. By _William O. Krohn_, Ph. D.

REPORT ON AN EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF MUSICAL EXPRESSIVENESS. (Part II.) By _Benjamin Ives Gilman_.