Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/427

 M-.W HOOKS. ||:i describe in wluit should by its form be a dry statement of essential facts the mysticism of Sebastian Frank as 'sacrilegious ' fp. 4:i7 or Giordano linmo as Tinfame et deloyal persi'euteur ' of his abandoned r> p. 4 17 i. is in a historian of philosophy worse than puerile. CLKMKNT ('. .1. WEBB. /., g ( ',1,1.11 x Sn,-i(ili' N ,/, In A'o/;V. Par G. L. DUPRAT, Dootenr eg lettres, t'rofesseur de philosophic au Lyc<$e d'Alencon. Paris: F. ALCAN, 1900. Pp. 202. Price 2 fr. 50 c. Tliis eminently lucid and readable little book does not aim so much at providing novel facts or propounding novel theories as at emphasising the admitted influence of social conditions upon various kinds of mental Disease; and it has a practical as well as a scientific end in view. The psychological standpoint assumed by the author is that of his previous work ' L Instability Mentale ' reviewed in MIND, Oct., 1899). Social forces, he now tells us, may produce or develop mental instability (1) by direct action on the nervous system ; (2) by indirect action on the nervous system through the medium of consciousness ; or (8) by direct action on the mind, a somewhat unsatisfactory method of classification. More important is the division by results: the influence may show it-elf in the aspect of the mental trouble or in its formation and essential nature. The variations of aspect e.g. in megalomania are disposed of in a single chapter. The author then clears the way for the main question by dismissing the vague term ' degeneration ' from the etiology of insanity ; ' pathological hereditary ' is to be preferred, and it is mainly due to social causes. In chapters iii. and iv. it is shown that, though madness is essentially the same at all times, the predominant species varies with social conditions ; characteristic of the present day is general paralysis, the product of many social evils (overstrain, luxury, alcoholism, etc.) that differ in relative importance in different countries, but have a common root in excessive competition. Chapter v. deals with ' Idees de grandeur : due to unbounded ambition and with the persecutcs-persecuteurs ' ; chapter vi. with religiomania and its varying character among Mohammedans, Catholics and Protestants. Chapter vii. attempts to show that pathological states of instability and dis- iiggi-egation can be ascribed to the body social, and that criminal insanity is their characteristic product ; and the work ends with a few hints towards a ' social therapeutic,' in the course of which the author pleads for a more practical treatment of the insane, for a more virile system of education, and for the prohibition of unhealthy marriages, etc. ' Bref, il faut prtfparer une heredite biologique et une heredite sociale favorables a la sante morale.' The chief defect of the book seems to be the absence of a proper preliminary classification, distinguishing between more im- mediate and more remote causes of disease. Obviously the marriage of unhealthy persons and a tendency to unbridled ambition cannot be placed side by side in an etiologinal scheme. Further, it is not made sufficiently clear whether any given social influence religion, for example itself produces mental instability or whether it is merely 'like the match to tinder, the disorder being rooted in other causes ' (Savage). Of details to which exception may be taken only two can be mentioned here. The author inclines to M. le Bon's unguarded habit of describing as a 'crowd' any number of persons (e.g. a sect) united by a common interest, and this leads to several dubious statements. Secondly, the application to the community of pathological terms borrowed from the individual is in some respects a confusing use of analogy ; for the