Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/147

 PHILOSOPHICAL PERIODICALS. 133 in Instinct mid Recuon as an instinctive check to individualistic action is too narrow for psychology and sociology, Religion has primarily a direct function, as a method of reciprocity with superiors ; later an indirect positive function, as emphasising habits of dependence and obedience.] Psychological Literature. New Books. Notes. Psychological Index, No. ."). 'A Bibliography of the Literature of Psychology and Cognate Subjects for 1898.' By H. C. Warren and R. S. Woodworth, assisted by N. Vaschide and B. Borchardt. [Issued March, 1899. Two thousand five hundred and fifty eight titles. Omissions appear to be less frequent than in previous years.] Vol. vi., No. 4. W. L. Bryan and N. Hartcr. ' Studies on the Telegraphic Language : the Acquisition of a Hierarchy of Habits.' [Need for a psychology of ' occupation '. Tests on students for rate of receiving letters not making words ; same, letters making words but not sentences ; same, words making sentences. Answers to questions addressed to telegraphers : direction of attention, ' copying behind ' in receiving, receiving of disconnected words or figures. Conclusion and discussion : the hierarchy of habits, and the order of their acquisition ; plateaux ; effective speed and accuracy. " There is no freedom except through automatism." We cannot use "the higher language units until the lower have been so mastered that the attention is not diverted by them " ; at all stages, however, there should be " prac- tice with the highest language-units ". The plateaux of a curve are thus measures of the difficulty of making lower-order habits sufficiently auto- matic to allow the attention freely to attack the higher-order units. " Automatism is not genius, but it is the bands and feet of genius."] ' Communications from the Psychological Laboratory of Harvard Uni- versity.' Xi. M. Solomons. 'Automatic Reactions.' [Reaction to sound under distraction by reading of light literature. Three types of subjects : auditory type, slow in becoming automatic ; visual-motor type, quickly automatic ; intermediates. First begin to react automatically at about 290 a- ; new type of reaction begins at 230 IT. Second react ' impersonally ' at 180 a- ; between 230 and 180 a- come the ' simul- taneous ' reactions. Theoretical analysis of times : " when the sensations from an arm-movement are preceded by a discharge of the corresponding motor cells of the cortex, they are felt to be personal ".] Q-. V. N. Dear- born. ' Recognition under Objective Reversal.' [" An object is recog- nised more readily when inverted than in either of the two intermediate positions of quarter-reversal, and more readily than in the erect mirror- position or that position inverted." Explanation by habit.] Shorter Contributions and Discussions. E. E. Slosson. ' A Lecture Experi- ment in Hallucinations.' [Distilled water poured out ; odour suggested. But a lecture-room has real odours !] H. Muensterberg. ' Professor Hyslop on Mysticism.' C. B. Bliss. ' Psychology and Life.' [Reply to Muensterberg.] E. Thorndike. ' A Reply to " The Nature of Animal Intelligence and the Methods of Investigating it ".' [I.e., to Wesley Mills.] J. M. Gillette. ' Notes on After-images.' [Enhancement of after-image by temperature, etc.] Psychological Literature. New Books. Notes. Monograph Supplements. Vol. ii., No. 5. OK V. N. Dearborn. ' The Emotion of Joy.' [Introduction : relation of emotion to pleasant- ness-unpleasantness ; acceptance of kinsesthetic theory ; importance of parallelistic work. Definition : emotion is " a temporal portion of excited sentient experience wherein the subjectivity and the psyscho- physical attention to the object, real or ideal, are heightened with or without a tone of pleasantness or of unpleasantness, and wherein the feeling and the bodily position or movement are or tend to be character-