Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/577

 PHILOSOPHICAL PERIODICALS. 563 constituent after-image processes to rods and cones. An excellent paper : too detailed for summary.] L. Hellwig. ' Ueber die Natur des Erinnerungsbildes.' [If we accept the amoeboid-movement theory of the dendrites of the nerve-cell, we can explain the memory image. Stimulation of the cell lengthens the dendrites. Two dendrites, brought into contact by the stimulated activities of two cells, remain stuck together ; the cells are permanently combined, and therefore conjointly excitable on the mental side.] C. Stumpf. ' Ueber den Begriff der Gemiithsbewegung.' [(1) We need make no distinction between Affect and Gemiithsbewegung. (2) The emotion, unlike the simple feeling, is based on judgment. The moods are limiting cases between emotions proper and simple feelings. Emotions are acquired ; the new-born child shows only a reflex correlation of movement with unpleasant sense- feelings. The judgment of emotion may be in terms of ideas only, not necessarily in terms of perception ; and the character of emotion changes, as the present is reinforced by the ideas of past and future. Provisional analysis of the aesthetic emotions. Desire refers to a Should-be, emotion to an Is. The term passion covers habitual states, acquired dispositions of feeling or desire. The peculiar quality of an emotion is indescribable ; but the intellectual elements are parts of its substance, not merely con- ditions of its origin. (3) Critique of Ribot's theory, that there is only a difference of degree between emotion and sense, pleasure and pain. (4) The James-Lange theory contrasted with the ' orthodox ' view of emotion. (5) The theory rests on two main arguments : (6) that if all the ' con- comitant ' organic sensations are taken from an emotion, no emotion is left ; while cases of anaesthesia show a dwindling of emotion propor- tionate to the disappearance of the organic sensations ; and (7) that emotions can be set up (by drugs, in certain diseases) under conditions where ideas of object are wholly wanting. Neither can hold its own against criticism. Moreover (8) the basal ideomotor law neglects the fact of the limen. The experiments in support of it are, also, open to objection ; and there is evidence against it. Further, when all is granted, the ' reverberation ' need not be sensed. (9) Arguments against the theory. The definition of emotion is not convertible. And there is not the requisite intensive, qualitative and temporal correlation between emotion and organic sensation. (10) The emphasis laid on organic sensations may assist in later description and classification. (11) The theory will almost certainly be of service in disentangling the conditions of origin of emotion. The facts of apathia are especially deserving of study.] C. Stumpf. ' Beobachtungen iiber subjective Tone und tiber Doppelthoren.' [A careful record of subjective tones, constant and variable, of rhythmical intermittence of tones and noises, and of diplacusis. The observations begin with the year 1875.] Besprechungen. Literaturbericht. PHILOSOPHISCHE STUDIEN. Bd. xv., Heft 1. E. Buch. 'Ueber die Verschmelzung von Empfindungen, besonders bei Klangeindruecken.' I. [Definitions of fusion (Stumpf, Cornelius, Kuelpe, Wundt) all tend to express the fact that simultaneously present sensations are less clearly apprehended than isolated sensations. Preliminaries to an examination of the concept : ' sensations ' are always conscious phenomena ; ' fusion ' is determined by the effective co-operation of a plurality of stimuli ; we must set out with the conditions of clear apprehension, and work from them to the conditions of fusion. The first such condition is attention, consisting essentially of an inhibition of disturbing impressions at large and of our own movements in particular, but containing also in cases a direct predisposition or adaptation of the sense-organ to a given impres- sion, and implying interest, immediate or mediate, in the result of mental