Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/181

Rh of nearly all the leading articles in the Pedagogical Seminary during the last two years, including volumes 14 and 15.

After describing in his general introduction the evolution of psychiatry its difficulties, the prejudices that hamper it, and breadth of knowledge needful the author passes first to the psychological problems and stresses the need of distinguishing direct from indirect results of primary disturbance; discusses parallelism, dualism, etc.; is himself a realist; discusses the applications of psychology to the analysis of mental states of the insane and its difficulties. The anatomical problems are then taken up with a good account of Cajal and others. Then follow problems in pathogenesis, etiology and nosology, with a final practical chapter on treatment, asylum problems, relations to crime, etc. The author bases largely on his own experience and has not emerged from the influence of the Kraepelin school.

The first article, 94 pages, is by Binet and Simon on the development of attention in children during successive years. Then follows one by Houllevigue on the physical ideas of matter; another by Souriau on sentiment and aesthetics; then follow articles by Borel, on the calculus of probabilities; an inquiry on the history of the methods of teaching philosophy, by Binet; on professional surveillance, by Imbert; on morals and biology, by Rauh; then a criticism of Poincar^ by Goblot entitled Mathematical Demonstration; another article by Binet and Simon, on language and thought; hygiene and pedagogy, by Chabot; pragmatism, by Cantecor; and Binet on experimental chiromancy. The bibliography is less extensive than usual.

The best part of this pamphlet is devoted to the study of brain weights of men and women, ordered according to age, height, and weight. There are also statistics concerning the brains of suicides, those that have met with accidents, and those who have suffered other forms of death. The relation of brain weight to different callings in life and the results of all these tabulations are brought together at the end. The author thinks that the most important result of his statistics is that the brains of lowest weight that have nothing abnormal about them belong usually to day laborers; and here the lightest were some 1,120 g., while the lightest academic brain weights were 1,140 g. The author believes that brain weights can be established below which no individual of a certain grade or class ever sinks.

Essai sur la Psychologie de la Main, par N. VASCHIDE. Marcel Riviere, Paris, 1909. 504 p. (Bibliothdque de Philosophic Expe'rimentale.)

This essay, with thirty-seven full-page plates, is a posthumous work of the brilliant young author who died prematurely two years ago at the age of forty years. It is both comprehensive and unique. Beginning with chiromantic divination, the author proceeds to consider the chirognomy and physiognomy of the hand, from antiquity to the present time; the artistic canons concerning it; he then presents the