Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/614

 602 G. H. SCHNEIDER'S FREUD UND learn that cultivated persons could be in doubt as to which of two notes forming an interval of a third and even a fifth, and lying in the median region of the scale, was the higher. Most important is the result that the degree of trustworthiness is in general least in the lower region, reaches its maximum at some point in the median, and falls off very slightly in the upper. From a consideration of the effects of practice in different regions, the author argues that these differences of objective credibility are due not to unequal subjective credibility but to unequal discriminative sensibility, which, according to him, reaches its maximum at some point higher up than that of maximum objec- tive credibility. This conclusion is naturally turned against the application of Weber's Law to tone-qualities. The fact that tones are well discriminated high-up in the scale, though ill recognised in respect of absolute pitch, is used as an argument against Prof. Bain's doctrine that retentiveness varies as discrimi- native power. Finally, the fact that discriminative sensibility is most perfect at a point higher-up than that of the average level of the human voice gives rise to some curious speculations, calcu- lated to delight the evolutionist if they were only put forward more seriously, respecting the gradual lowering of the pitch of the voice during the development of the race. The concluding section on the judgment of intensity is as full and interesting as that on the judgment of quality. Here too the conditions of credibility are clearly set forth. The difficult question of the lower limit or liminal value of intensity in its connexion with the nature of silence or stillness is handled in a fresh and suggestive way. A good many readers may be surprised to learn that, according to Dr. Stumpf, we are able not merely to say that one distance or degree of difference in respect of intensity is greater than another, but that one tone-sensation is twice or thrice as strong as another. All that is needed here is a distinct reproduction of a starting-point, namely, a sensation of minimum intensity, and the capability of estimating distances from this. This section, again, closes with an exceedingly curious account of individual differences in respect of sensibility to tone- intensities and acuteness of hearing and of abnormal disturbances of sensibility and imagination among musicians. JAMES SULLY. Freud und Leid des Menschengeschlechts. Eine social-psycholo- gische Untersuchung der ethischen Grundprobleme von G. H. SCHNEIDER, Dr. phil. Stuttgart : E. Schweizerbart, 1883. Pp. 380. That the Ethical Science of the future will be a very different thing from the "Moral System" of the past must be evident to those who have noted the recent course of inquiry in this depart-