Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/425

 NEW BOOKS. 411 acquaintance with the arts stands him in good stead. It is perhaps to- be regretted, however, that for the illustration of the various problems he confines himself almost exclusively to one or another of the arts, and does not appeal equally to all : the general validity of his conclusions suffers in consequence. One feels especially that poetry does not receive her due weight as a witness. Another criticism which suggests itself in reading these studies is that the long and frequent quotations are detrimental to the unity and continuity of the argument. However, one must, perhaps, not expect too methodical a treatment in a work whose chief aim is evidently to stimulate and to suggest rather than to con- vince. And there are few readers who will not find stimulation in one or another of these essays, which embrace so wide a range of problems, and variety of opinions. J. SHAWCEOSS. La Logique Morbide : I. U Analyse Mentale. Par N. VASCHIDE and A. VURPAS. Paris : Societ d'Editions Scientifiques et Litteraires r 1903. Pp. xxviii., 268. Price 4 fr. M. Vaschide's attention, we are told in the introduction, was drawn to this subject by his experimental researches on dreams. The present volume is the first of a series which will be devoted to the analysis of pathological logic. It is dedicated to the famous psychologist M. Eibot, who prefaces it with a few pages of commendation. He has indeed mis- givings about the title of the work. It might have been better named a " study of pathological reasoning processes " ; and we quite agree that from a certain point of view " pour la psychologic, il n'y a pas de raison- nements bons ou mauvais, mais des precedes discursifs de 1'esprit qu'elle doit etudier ". Kibot and Vaschide think, however, that it would be mere hair-splitting to mark out the scope of such descriptive analysis of processes by which conviction is actually reached to define the relations between this and normative logic. The hair, of whose existence M. Eibot seems rather uncomfortably conscious, proves really upon inspec- tion to be as thick and many-stranded as a trans-Atlantic cable. We note the omission, and call the attention of the analytical psychologist to the problem. The authors have described four cases in which mental analysis, a con- tinual pondering of somatic sensations, or of abstract ideas, or of external events, has resulted in the production of different kinds of delirium. The first case is one of so-called delire de negation ; the second one of Mlire du scrupule. The third case, the description of which is all the more valu- able for being founded upon a lengthy communication written by the patient herself, is called by the authors ' Extrospection delirante '. The fourth is less detailed and decidedly less interesting than the other three. It is a case of "metaphysical delirium". It is a record of the incoherent speculations of a degenerate about the sun, the fixed stars, and other astronomical facts of which he knew little, understood less, and could hardly be said to reason about. Nor do the authors claim that there was even the appearance of cogency in the processes by which he reached his conclusions. The interest of the other cases, on the other hand, first consists in the fact that, owing to a habit of morbid self-analysis, certain elements in the patients' coenesthesia, or in their general external experi- ence, were singled out, intensified, exaggerated, and distorted. These experiences provided the premisses for conclusions which were reached by processes of argument acknowledged by the physicians to wear no slight appearance of cogency. In the case of Charlotte R. who fancied