Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/328

312 older psychologists are supplemented by the addition of the development factor. "Pleasure is the conscious effect of that which makes for the continuance of the bodily life or its advancement" (p. 126), 'life' being here equivalent to life-development as well as to simple life. This, of course, is a statement of the objective conditions of pleasure; what it is psychologically remains unanswered. In the section on Ideal Feeling, interest, reality, and belief are discussed. In marking off 'reality feeling' from belief, the author introduces a new distinction into Psychology. "The phrase 'reality feeling' denotes the fundamental modification of consciousness which attaches to the presentative side of sensational states — the feeling which means, as the child afterwards learns, that an object is really there" (p. 149). Belief is more representative, and "indicates the amount of assurance we have at the time that an object is there." The distinction is new, though the facts had been noticed before, particularly, as the author notes, by Bain. We have not space to discuss this highly interesting subject in full, but we cannot agree with the author in identifying reality feeling with passive consciousness; to say that existence (at the dawn of consciousness) is simply presence, that presence is existence and that whatever is in consciousness is real (p. 150), seems simply a matter, not of fact, but of dialectics. Preyer's child, on the first day of its life, changed its expression when its face was shaded from the light. Here it seems to us that the reality feeling was present, i.e. not in the passive consciousness, but in the reactive sense, consciousness containing as a germ the element of volition, which later on forms an essential part of belief.

Following German classifications, the author divides the special ideal feelings or emotions into emotions of activity and emotions of content, but under the heading of 'emotions of relation' we find a new point of view in the treatment of 'conceptual emotions,' i.e. emotions accompanying those processes of thought which just fall short of judgment.

The discussion of the will proper is preceded by a section on the motor consciousness. We wish, here, that the law of 'mental dynamo-genesis' had received full illustration, as again we wish that more facts had been adduced to show "there is often attention which gives us knowledge by simple reflex stimulation" (p. 293). In calling attention to 'suggestion' as a motor stimulus, a valuable contribution is made to Psychology, but in terming instinctive action 'reflex' the popular conception of the mechanical precision and invariability of instincts is made too prominent. In the fiat of voluntary action Professor Baldwin finds seven distinct elements, and in the 'neget' of negative volition the element of 'conflict' in addition. Volition in muscular action is marked off from the volition of attention and it is shown that the two forms may often be distinguished in consciousness. As of these two the act