Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/123

 CHARLES A. MERCIEE, Psychology Normal and Morbid. 109 But I would not take leave of Mr. Hobhouse in a spirit of dis- agreement with his work. It is a good honest and straightforward work, full of careful analysis and well-digested synthesis. It will well repay reading and re-reading ; for there are many good points, well taken and well put. And, certain modes of statement apart concerning which there may be differences of opinion, its conclu- sions are in my judgment sound at the core. C. LLOYD MOKGAN. Psychology Normal and Morbid. By CHARLES A. MERCIER. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1901. Pp. 512. Price 15s. OF the general aim of this book every psychologist will heartily approve. Dr. Mercier tells us that his purpose is to deal with normal psychological processes in the way that shall be most helpful to students of the abnormal, because " Insanity is no ex- ception to the rule which requires a knowledge of the normal as an indispensable preliminary to a knowledge of the abnormal ". He tells us also that "The reason why the contrary opinion has been maintained with such vigour, and the contrary practice so generally followed, has seemed to me to be the absence of any work in which normal psychological processes are dealt with from the point of view and for the purposes of the alienist ". We may be allowed to question the sufficiency of this reason for the unsatisfactory state of the study of insanity in this country, and to believe that its causes are less simple and somewhat deeper lying and that a complete remedy will hardly be effected by the publication of this book, admirable though it is in design and in execution. There are those who believe that the only way by which improvement can be brought about is by some change of sys- tem that shall make it worth the while of a considerable number of medical men to become thorough students of psychology both normal and morbid, and that the most important step towards this end would be the institution of a diploma in psychiatry by some body of the highest academic standing, such as the University of London. The way in which such a diploma may be expected to effect this much-needed reform cannot be set forth here, and it must suffice to point to the very great improvement in the study of sanitation that has resulted of late years from the institution of the Diploma of Public Health. This book gives us the mature reflexions of an able and inde- pendent thinker upon an immense range of subjects treated under the headings Sensation, Thought, Volition, Memory, Pleasure and Pain, Subject-consciousness. Although, as we have seen, it is designed to remedy the scanty psychology of the average alienist of this country, it may also be regarded as a symptom of the unsatisfactory state of psychological study in general. The pre- sent reviewer has heard it said by a very distinguished continental