Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/711

 REVIEWS 695

experience. Involuntary attention is merely the case in which the deeply rooted primitive forms of reaction assert themselves in spite of the presence of later acquired tendencies. The brief duration of attention has its functional significance in the fact that attention is the conscious phase of some particular adaptation which as a single act could last but a short time. Since only one situation at a time can be dealt with, attention must be a unified function. Genuine distribution is impossible, but the situation may be a complex one, involving a complex state of consciousness. Finally, the intimate relation between attention and the processes of discrimination and association is brought out by showing that they are merely the analytic and synthetic phases of the act of attention.

The treatment of cognition begins with sensations, including a description of the sense-organs, and then passes on to discuss per- ception in general, perceptions of time and space, imagination, mem- ory, conception, and reasoning. The separate treatment usually accorded to association in this connection is omitted, because associa- tion itself is regarded as one of the aspects of attention, while its results are merely neural habit. Its function is explained in con- nection with each of the cognitive processes in which it plays a part. The distinctive feature in these chapters is found in the application of the functional standpoint from which the book is written to each of the forms of cognition. While the purely content analysis is not in the least neglected, there is in addition a functional explanation in terms of the particular sort of need on the part of the organism which called each form into existence. The chapters on conception and reasoning go more deeply into the problem of the nature of the judgment, and its relation to conception and to inductive and deduct- ive inference, than is usual in an introductory textbook. While these portions would doubtless be somewhat difficult for the beginner, they form a valuable introduction to the problems of logic.

The discussion of the affective processes is becomingly conserva- tive, in view of the chaotic condition still existing in the psychologi- cal formulations of affection. The view presented is the one which has the largest following at present: that affection is a content element of consciousness having but two qualities, agreeableness and disagreeableness. There is, however, no dogmatizing on the subject. The author frankly states that he is following " the indication of the facts best established today, with a mental willingness to rehabilitate the conception whenever it may become conclusively inadequate" (p. 260).