Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/420

 406 NEW BOOKS. principle, though to me more purely physiological interpretations of colour contrast seem better. " The perception of a word requires one act of attention, the percep- tion of a letter requires another and different act of attention " (p. 59). All this section must prove of great value to teachers, and a full grasp of it would have prevented the rather disastrous blunder in vogue in elementary schools during the last few years, namely, that to read words enough and often enough would suffice in time to produce accurate spelling. To look at a design attentively and to successively observe its com- ponent parts is called its " exploitation ". Much of this section is good r but is there not some tendency to make our spatial estimates dependent upon our estimates of time of movement ? Space judgments with young children are much more accurate than time judgments and, we should suppose, precede them. Doubtless we cannot rule out the influence of " exploitation " in visual illusion, bi we must remember that with instantaneous illumination, which allows no time for movement, many, if not all, of these illusions persist. There seems some confusion between Visual Images and Objects. "Visual Images are therefore seen as though projected outward into space." True, but these are not the visual objects. It is not projected Visual Images which are associated with other mental contents to form the objects of daily life. You can, for example, project the image any- where, and its size will vary accordingly ; but you do not mistake it for the object. And there is good reason to believe that perception of distance is prior to imagery altogether. Inhibition is described as a failure to give attention ; but is it not a positive process ? We can sit still for two reasons, (1) because we do not want to move, (2) because we do not permit our desire for movement to pass into action. It is the second case in which inhibition comes into play. The treatment of specific nervous energy is particularly good. The dictum that " we feel our nerves and not the external stimuli " is rightly criticised, but the antagonistic doctrine, that our nervous reactions are completely determined by external stimuli, is also controverted. On the whole this book furnishes a suitable introduction to psycho- logical work, superior from the practical point of view to those treatises which deal with experiments requiring elaborate apparatus, surcharged, as they often are, with premature mathematical formulae. W. H. WINCH. Psychopathological Researches : Studies in Mental Dissociation. With Text Figures and ten Plates. BORIS SIDIS, M.A., Ph.D., Director of the Psychopathological Laboratory. New York : G. E. Stechert, 1902. Pp. xxii., 329. This volume, which is edited by Dr. Sidis, contains papers by the editor, Dr. W. A. White, and Dr. G. M. Parker, giving a record of work done in connexion with the psych opathological laboratory. Dr. Sidis states in the introduction that they have tried to avoid theories and principles and give simply a resume of the facts and experiments, the general conclusions and principles being left to a future work with the title Principles of Psychology and Psychopathology. The authors however have not by any means succeeded in avoiding theories ; in fact one of the prominent features of the volume is the constant recurrence to the prin- ciples of explanation adopted by Dr. Sidis and the other contributors.