Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/455

 442 CRITICAL NOTICES : sufficiently disposed of under the first head of Knowledge. This, however, amounts to saying that the account of elements and processes is of general psychological import, and is best presented in one division apart of General Psychology, as in the scheme of treatment which Prof. Clark Murray in his Handbook (see MIND x. 611, xi. 25) has the credit of first giving currency to in English. Prof. Dewey could, with mere trifling changes of detail, have so set apart his chapter on Sensation, with that on the general prin- ciples of mental synthesis which he calls " Processes of Know- ledge " ; and the gain in expository clearness would, I think, have been undeniable. There are many points of doctrine set forth in the book which, if space permitted, there would be pleasure as well as profit in examining at close quarters. Whether one agrees or not with the author, it is impossible not to recognise his freshness and in- dependence of view and telling vigour of statement. In parti- cular, his analysis of the " Processes of Knowledge," involving his account of Association, Attention and other topics now so much to the front, may be commended to the notice of psychological workers. One aspect of Knowledge, as it happens, is treated by him in the present No. of MIND at greater length than was possible in the text-book, and a ready opportunity is thus afforded of gauging his manner of thinking on the subject. While in close touch with all the later German and English work in psychology, he is here no simple repeater of other men's doctrine. With even more independence of gait, there is manifest the like intimacy with the best recent inquiry in the very interesting chapters on the upward " Stages " of knowledge. Nor at another point, it may also be remarked, does his exposition come all too short of what in present circumstances may fairly be expected I mean the reference to physiological conditions. At first, indeed, it seems as if he were ready to go very far in appeal to these. He does not hesitate to lay it down (p. 8) that the Introspective Method fails even to classify the facts of consciousness, much more to explain them : explanation must be sought first of all from the Experimental Method (in physiological psychology), and next, more completely, from the Comparative Method in its various applications. Accordingly, he refers freely enough to neurological facts at the stage of sensation, and even includes some short account of psychophysical procedure. It is very well ; but, if students are to profit by such reference, it would seem necessary, in a text-book, to give, once for all, however shortly, a clear and distinct view of the relation of nervous to mental process and a summary of the really important and relevant phy- siological data. Prof. Bain's example in this matter was worthy of closer imitation than it has received in any of the later manuals for students. It is easy of course, and in a way creditable, to protest against an infusion of physiological smatterings ; it is also conceivable that a complete psychological theory, including even