Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/570

 556 NEW BOOKS. Ideal world was the real world, that the phenomenal world was the explicandum, and that the real crux was to explain how the Idea became tarnished and dimmed in its multiplied reflexions in a spatial ' not- being'. Under the circumstances it is not perhaps surprising that Prof. Windelband should make little way with the problem of the Parmenides. Sometimes, indeed, he seems disposed to give it up by decreeing the unauthenticity of the dialogue, and yet he fully feels the unanswerable cogency of the literary grounds for asserting its authenticity. But, then, who has ever made much out of the Parmenides f F. C. S. SCHILLER. Dan Lokalinationsgesets : Eine psychophysiologische Untersuchuny. Von I. USCHAKOFF. I. Leipzig : Otto Harrassowitz, 1900. Pp. ii., 205. The author wishes to formulate and prove a ' Hauptgesetz ' for the rela- tion of ' Psychomes ' and voluntary movements to cortical nervous pro- cesses. ' Psychom ' is suggested by him as ' a common simple term ' for all phenomena of consciousness, 'psychosis' having a double meaning. The first chapter deals shortly with the finer structure of the nervous system, the nature of nervous processes, etc. In the second chapter the law is formulated " Sensory psychomes" (including perceptions and ideas) " or voluntary movements of more or less qualitative unlikeness " that occur in one individual at different times " are based on nervous processes in more or less different neuron-complexes, quite disparate ones on pro- cesses in quite disparate complexes ". But when the qualitative unlikeness is very slight, the difference of neuron-complexes cannot be definitely asserted. In cases of qualitative sameness the neurons concerned are more or less, and in cases of qualitative and quantitative sameness, mainly, if not quite, the same, so far as perceptions, ideas, and voluntary move- ments are concerned ; and this is also true of auditory sensations. The author then brings together the varying views of many authors, and though he cautiously refuses to give a definite opinion on most special questions, he finds the usual arguments which go to support his law rather unsatis- factory. Accordingly he attempts in the third chapter to base it upon certain general considerations, deductions chiefly from the phenomena of memory and habit. Here he shows at times a tendency to beg the question, and it is not easy to discover the superiority of his general arguments over those based upon actual research. Various special questions are to be dealt with in a second part. T. L. RECEIVED also : N. C. Macnamara, Origin and Character of the British People, London, Smith & Elder, 1900, pp. xiv., 242. T. J. Hudson, The Divine Pedigree of Man, London, Putnam's Sons, 1900, pp. 379. Alice Gardner, Studies in John the Scot (Erigena), London, H. Frowde, 1900, pp. xi., 145. J. P. Gordy, New Psychology, sixth edition, New York, Hinds & Noble, 1899, pp. 402. G. A. Hubbell, Horace Mann in Ohio, New York, Macmillan, 1900, pp. 70. Journal of Mental Science, July, 1900.