Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/248

 234 CBITICAL NOTICES : scope and methods of psychology, the relations of soul and body, and the nature and general analysis of consciousness (pp. 1-166). Psychology is defined as " the natural science of the forms and laws of the normal movement of the phenomena of conscious- ness ". Objection, I think, may rightly be taken to the introduc- tion of the word " normal " in the definition, for while it is, of course, true that normal psychology constitutes the main trunk of the science, it does not constitute the entire psychological tree. The author explains the limitation by saying that psychology is related to psycho-pathology much as descriptive and topographi- cal anatomy is related to pathological anatomy. But pathologi- cal anatomy is still a branch of anatomy, and the conception of psycho-pathology is perhaps not quite the same as that of patho- psychology. Greater difficulty confronts us in dealing with the conception " phenomena of consciousness ". What are pheno- mena of consciousness ? Are they phenomena we are conscious of ? or are they the ways in which we are conscious ? Will they include, as Wundt suggests, along with feelings, emotions and volitions, a book, a tree, a stone, provided only we view these latter objects in a certain way, viz., as " immediate experience " ? or will they include, not the " whats," but only the "hows"? Or, since it is evident that there can be no consciousness which is not a consciousness of something, will they include the rela- tions of consciousness to its content ? I find no clear answer to these questions. On the one hand, we are told that psycho- logy reflects on the phenomena of consciousness, the forms and laws of the play of its processes, regardless of the content repre- sented in these forms (p. 4) ; on the other, we find more than a fourth of the book occupied with the discussion of sensations, which no one probably would deny to be conscious co'ntents, how- ever else they may be regarded. Similar uncertainty prevails as to whether the process of consciousness is to be viewed anatomi- cally as structure or physiologically as function. The whole ques- tion as to the original elements to be distinguished in the process depends on this and on the determination of what it is we are analysing in psychology. I do not particularly complain of Prof. Jodl for not having carefully discussed these questions in the form here presented ; obscurity in these matters is the common failing of psychologists. It cannot be said that even yet the field of psychology has been accurately delimited, and that the concep- tions in this department content, function, process, etc. have been scientifically fixed. But when the phenomena of conscious- ness are marked off from physical phenomena by the outworn categories of " inner " and " outer " (p. 4), it is time to protest, particularly when " inner " is taken to mean, not merely having reference to a subject, but "absolutely unspatial ". How can the phenomena of consciousness be absolutely unspatial when, as we are told, the visual sensation contains space of three dimensions ? The various methods of psychology are critically treated with