Chapter IX: Conclusion (4)

Professor Holtzmann in a brief introduction of seventeen pages sketches the history and literature of New Testament criticism. The book is divided into two parts, the first treating the subject in a general way, the second entering into its several details. In the first part the author presents us with a history of the text and of its traditions, explaining the causes of the alterations that were introduced either unintentionally or by mistake; he reviews the critical apparatus for text-revision and also the history of the printed and revised editions up to the present attempt at emendation. Then a history of the canon is given, from the oldest Christian literature down to the radical criticisms of the present time. In the second and special part we find a careful compilation of all the criticisms concerning the single books and epistles of the New Testament. The first chapter treats of St. Paul’s epistles to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Corinthians, Romans, to Philemon, the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, the pastoral epistles; further, the epistle to the Hebrews, which is non-Paulinian, the two epistles of St. Peter, the epistle of St. Jude, and that of St. James. The second chapter introduces us into the historical books of the synoptic gospels and the Acts, where, in a brief review of fifty-seven pages, we find the same data presented which are more fully explained in another publication of our author, reviewed in _The Monist_, Vol II, No. 2.

A new period in the development of Christian literature begins with all those writings which go under the name of St. John. A discussion of these books is contained in the third chapter, which treats of the apocalypse, the fourth gospel, and St. John’s epistles. Not the least interest attaches to the fourth chapter, the subject of which is the vast domain of the apocryphal books of the New Testament, the number of which has, of late, been greatly increased by several new discoveries. The subject divides itself naturally into apocryphal gospels (Chap. II), apocryphical stories about the lives and deeds of the apostles (Chap. III), apocryphical epistles (Chap. IV), and apocryphical apocalypses (Chap. V).

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SAMMLUNG VON POPULÄR-WISSENSCHAFTLICHEN VORTRÄGEN ÜBER DEN BAU UND DIE LEISTUNGEN DES GEHIRNS. By Professor _Theodor Meynert_. Vienna and Leipsic: Wilhelm Braumüller. 1892. Pp. 253.

This latest publication of Professor Meynert’s was mentioned in the last number of _The Monist_ by Mr. Christian Ufer, in the department “Literary Correspondence.” Since its appearance Professor Meynert has died. His name has stood foremost for a great number of years in the ranks of psychiatrical investigators, and his contributions to the science to which he was devoted, have, perhaps more than those of any other, tended to its permanent advancement. The activity of his life has extended over a great number of years, and his labors have not only been applied to the theoretical interests of his science alone, but have also been directed—and this is the most important part of every scientist’s work—to bringing the results of his investigations into connection with the great body of knowledge at large, and especially to putting in popular form, and bringing within the reach of the general reader, the facts of the science which he contributed so much to establish.

The present lectures date from the year 1868. They owe their origin to the identification in later years of the interests of medicine with the interests which every human being has at heart, of resolving the mysteries of mental operations generally. Their main subject is the description and investigation of the structure of the cerebral organs; and the elucidation in the light of such description of the psychical operations of the brain. The fundamental facts of this province are not difficult. The main thing required is to free ourselves from the impediments which artificial thought on this subject has at all times imported into the consideration of intellectual facts. Our knowledge in this domain is founded on observation and introspection; not upon dialectics. Phenomena, simply, are presented to observation, and not the ultimate essences of forces. So, too, the apparatus of observation and introspection give only their own phenomena. Their contents are the animated external world as it affects conscious beings, and involves, besides intuition, the facts of memory. Unpersonal inherited memories, which take the form of instinct, are not forthcoming. The present lectures do not pretend to give instruction in the anatomy of the brain _per se_, but simply in so far as it is necessary to the understanding of the brain’s mechanism. All things viewed, all things intuited are contents of consciousness, which in its limitations to the sense-impressions of the individual being, we term the ego, or _I_. In so far as the external world is the intuited contents of consciousness, the extent of the latter is increased, the ego, the _I_, expands into the secondary ego, or _I_. In this doctrine of a secondary ego the problems which grow out of the behavior of individuals towards the external world are resolved in the single explanation that the ego of each particular group of things seeks to preserve itself by internal and external motions. The ego is simply in the possession of itself in every extension which it acquires; if such extension consists of a common possession, its desire and tendency to preserve such is simply explained by the fact that such possession is the ego itself. Amongst the intuited objects of the ego are to be classed also as component parts of the secondary ego of every individual, the other living individualities of the world. From the point of view of this fact, the ego appears in its social rôle. The present lectures consequently extend to the consideration of the interactions of brains in society, to culture and civilisation, and seek to establish the phenomena of these domains as facts of physical knowledge. The method of physical inquiry is that of comparison by the alteration of the attendant circumstances in which the psychical mechanism acts. Physiology bases it on experiment. Nature also supplies experiments with the results that also embrace phenomena of culture. In the directions indicated here, the diseases of the mind afford a comparative means for the investigation of the phenomena of consciousness, a doctrine of natural cerebral experiments, and a foundation for a knowledge of the phenomena of mind.

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PERIODICALS.

ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PSYCHOLOGIE UND PHYSIOLOGIE DER SINNESORGANE.

CONTENTS: Vol. III. No. 5.

UEBER EIN OPTISCHES PARADOXON. By _Franz Brentano_.

“FLATTERNDE HERZEN.” By _Adolf Szili_.

UEBER BEGRÜNDUNG EINER BLINDENPSYCHOLOGIE VON EINEM BLINDEN. By
_Friedrich Hitschmann_.

BEMERKUNGEN ÜBER DIE VON LIPPS UND CORNELIUS BESPROCHENE
NACHBILDERSCHEINUNG. By _Otto Schwarz_.

CONTENTS: Vol. III. No. 6.

BEITRÄGE ZUR DIOPTRIK DES AUGES. By _M. Tscherning_.

OPTISCHE STREITFRAGEN. By _Th. Lipps_.

CONTENTS: Vol. IV. Nos. 1 and 2.

UEBER DIE SCHÄTZUNG KLEINER ZEITGRÖSSEN. By _E Schumann_.

ZUM BEGRIFF DER LOKALZEICHEN. By _C. Stumpf_.

ZUR KENNTNISS DES SUCCESSIVEN KONTRASTES. By _Richard Hilbert_.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

The first article is on an optical paradox. Let two equal parallel lines be drawn, as in the cut below; then let two small straight lines be drawn from the extremities of these in such a way that in the first they form acute angles with the line and in the second, obtuse angles. The first, it will be seen, appears shorter than the second. What is the explanation of this phenomenon?

The author’s answer is, that this phenomenon is a consequence of the well-known fact that we overestimate small angles, and underestimate large ones. The presence of the lines has nothing to do with the optical illusion, as the inserted cut, in which the lines are omitted, shows. (Cut 2.) The optical illusion is also not present when the lines are rectangularly attached, as is Cut 3. These facts prove that angular _inclination_ is the decisive factor. The following cuts show this, the first in a more and the second in a less marked degree. (Cuts 4, 5.) The simplest case in which the explanatory factor of this phenomenon is involved, is that of the estimation of the distance of an isolated point from the extremities of a short straight line. The estimation of this distance is dependent upon our estimation of the angle made by lines drawn from the point to the extremities of a short line. If this estimation is false, it produces by an exact trigonometrical law, an error in the estimation of the corresponding distance. This explains all. In our first figure the factor of illusion is eight times presented: hence its marked character.

The second article consists of a rather long series of experiments on the so-called “flatternde Herzen” by Adolph Szili.

The third article is on the foundations of a psychology of the blind, by a blind man, Friedrich Hitschmann, of Vienna. This article contains a number of interesting facts concerning the sensory, intellectual, and emotional life of blind people, and affords a great many valuable hints for the development of the special psychology which the author has in view.

The first article of No. 6 of the _Zeitschrift_ is a very exhaustive one, some sixty pages in length, filled with special and technical investigations concerning the dioptrics of the eye. When light passes from one refracting medium into another it is partially reflected at the dividing surface, and transmits by reflection the objects from which it has proceeded. This is also the case with the human eye, which is itself a lens. The refracted pictures are the only pictures of importance to the possessor of the eye; but just as in the construction of optical instruments, the reflected or “lost” images are of supreme importance to the optician in the determination of the properties of his productions, so these same pictures in the human eye are of supreme importance to the physiologist and the psychologist. This is the subject of Dr. Tscherning’s researches.

In the second article Dr. Th. Lipps discusses some mooted questions of optics. The first part of the article is a reply to Schwarz’s criticism in the preceding number of the _Zeitschrift_. The second part is a review of Franz Brentano’s explanation of the optical paradox, discussed in the second paragraph of this notice. Lipps declares, that, though there is some truth in Brentano’s explanation, it is nevertheless an error to believe that acute angles, _as such_, are overestimated, and obtuse angles, as such, are underestimated. On the contrary, every time such errors in estimation occur, there exist particular reasons for it, the character of which renders the attempt impossible to derive the estimation of distance directly from the estimation of angles. Lipps supports his position by actual facts. His chief and most philosophical remark is, that it is a perilous and improper thing to do to explain isolated optical illusions by isolated and independent hypotheses; optical illusions are not exceptions: they constitute a class of phenomena in themselves, and they should be considered in their natural and logical connection. (Hamburg and Leipsic: Leopold Voss.).

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VIERTELJAHRSSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE PHILOSOPHIE. Vol. XVI. No. 3.

UEBER REAL- UND BEZIEHUNGS-URTHEILE. By _J. v. Kries_.

WAS IST LOGIK? By _A. Voigt_.

ZUR PSYCHOLOGIE DER LANDSCHAFT. By _R. Wlassak_.

DES NIC. TETENS STELLUNG IN DER GESCHICHTE DER PHILOSOPHIE. By
_M. Dessoir_.

The articles of this magazine are usually very rigorous and learned; and the contents of the present number are in keeping with its reputation. Prof. J. v. Kries discusses in an essay, evoked by the recent articles of Riehl, the subject of “real and relational judgments”; his object is to establish a classification, and display the logical connection, of judgments generally. Real judgments are predications concerning reality or actual facts; relational judgments predicate simple relations of concepts, etc. The first requisite of a scientific exactness of thought, says Kries, is the distinction and determination in any given case of judgments which are real and judgments which are relational. In the second article, which is long and exhaustive, Dr. Voigt endeavors to determine the characters and functions of the different kinds of logic. In view of the great prominence into which algebraical logic of late years has come, this article is one of considerable interest. Voigt defines the pretensions and powers of the two opposing systems of philosophical and algebraical logic, and attempts to set forth the justification of each. Voigt, as opposed to Husserl, cordially recommends the study of algebraical logic to philosophers, that both disciplines may profit by the intercourse. (Leipsic: O. R. Reisland.)

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PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Vol. XXVIII. Nos. 5 to 8.

CONTENTS: Nos. 5 and 6.

DIE WIRKLICHKEIT ALS PHÄNOMEN DES GEISTES. (Concluded.) By _A.
Rosinski_.

WESEN UND BEDEUTUNG DER IMPERSONALIEN. By _R. F. Kaindl_.

ZUR GESCHICHTE UND ZUM PROBLEM DER AESTHETIK. By _E. Kühnemann_.

CONTENTS: Nos. 7 and 8.

UEBER DIE GRUNDFORMEN DER VORSTELLUNGSVERBINDUNG.
Psychologische Studie. By _M Offner_.

ZUR GESCHICHTE UND ZUM PROBLEM DER AESTHETIK. (Concluded) By
_E. Kühnemann_.

WERKE ZUR PHILOSOPHIE DER GESCHICHTE UND DES SOCIALEN LEBENS
(Second Article: _G. de Greef, Introduction à la sociologie_).
By _F. Tönnies_.

RECENSIONEN.

LITTERATURBERICHT.

A. Rosinski’s contribution is a metaphysical essay on reality viewed as a phenomenon of the mind. The results of his discussion are these: that the world of experience, with all its laws and phenomena, and all we assume to exist _per se_, is referable wholly to ourselves; that the primal source and cause of all reality is not a something which lies absolutely outside us, but is simply our own self, or ego. In what sense reality is reality, the author proposes to discuss in future articles.

Dr. Raimund Friedrich Kaindl discusses, in the second article, the character and meaning of the impersonal verbs. The discussion is made both from the psychologico-logical point of view, and from the point of view of comparative philology.

The _Philosophische Monatshefte_ contain, in each issue, a very exhaustive bibliography of all the works which have appeared during the month in the provinces connected with philosophy. This department is conducted by Dr. Ascherson, the librarian of the Berlin University library, and forms a very important and valuable feature of this magazine. (Berlin: Dr. R. Salinger.)

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ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR PHILOSOPHIE UND PHILOSOPHISCHE KRITIK. Vol. 100. Nos. 1 and 2.

This well-known magazine, formerly edited by Dr. J. D. Fichte and Dr. Ulrici, is now presided over by Dr. Richard Falckenberg, of Erlangen. It has reached its hundredth volume, and with the present two numbers begins a new series. Its reviews and lists of newly published works are comparatively complete. Its articles, though generally tinged with scholasticism and chiefly treating of philosophico-historical subjects, deal, nevertheless, with some modern and living questions; for example, Dr. Max Schasler’s discussion of the proceedings on the recent Prussian school law; Dr. Eugene Dreher’s consideration of the law of the conservation of force; and Dr. Nikolaus von Seeland’s discussion of the deficiencies of the current theory of force. The other articles are contributed by A. Wreschner, G. Frege, J. Zahlfleisch, and Robert Schellwien. (Leipsic: C. E. M. Pfeffer.)

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THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY. August, 1892. Vol. IV. No. 4.

CONTENTS:

THE EXTENT OF THE CORTEX IN MAN, AS DEDUCED FROM THE STUDY OF
LAURA BRIDGMAN’S BRAIN. By _Henry H. Donaldson_.

SOME INFLUENCES WHICH AFFECT THE RAPIDITY OF VOLUNTARY
MOVEMENTS. By _F. B. Dresslar_.

EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH UPON THE PHENOMENA OF ATTENTION. By
_James R. Angell_ and _Arthur H. Pierce_.

SOME EFFECTS OF CONTRAST. By _A. Kirschmann_.

REPORT ON AN EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF MUSICAL EXPRESSIVENESS. By
_Benjamin Ives Gilman_.

PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERATURE. (Worcester, Mass.: Clark University.)

MIND. New Series. No. 3. July, 1892.

CONTENTS:

LOTZE’S ANTITHESIS BETWEEN THOUGHT AND THINGS. (I.) By _A.
Eastwood_.

THE FESTAL ORIGIN OF HUMAN SPEECH. By _J. Donovan_.

THE LOGICAL CALCULUS. (III.) By _W. E. Johnson_.

THE FIELD OF ÆESTHETICS PSYCHOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED. (I.) By _H.
R. Marshall_.

DISCUSSIONS: The Influence of Muscular States on Consciousness.
By _Edmund B. Delabarre_; Dr. Münsterberg and his Critics. By
_E. B. Titchener_. The Definition of Desire. By _Henry Rutgers
Marshall_. Feeling, Belief, and Judgment. By _J. Mark Baldwin_.

CRITICAL NOTICES. (London: Williams & Norgate.)

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS. July, 1892. Vol. II. No. 4.

CONTENTS:

NATURAL SELECTION IN MORALS. By _S. Alexander_.

WHAT SHOULD BE THE ATTITUDE OF THE PULPIT TO THE LABOR PROBLEM?
By _W. L. Sheldon_.

ETHICS OF THE JEWISH QUESTION. By _Charles Zeublin_.

MACHIAVELLI’S PRINCE. By _W. R. Thayer_.

ON THE FOUNDING OF A NEW RELIGION. By _B. Carneri_.

AN ANALYSIS OF THE IDEA OF OBLIGATION. By _Frank Chapman Sharp_.

REVIEWS.

Prof. S. Alexander, in his lecture delivered before the Ethical Societies of Cambridge and London, here reproduced, points out that the growth and change of moral and social ideals are the result of a process of mental conflict. Professor Sheldon thinks only a partial solution of the labor problem is possible until the second coming of men somewhat of the type of St. Francis of Assisi, “who will sacrifice their personal opportunities, abandon their station in the world, and go down to apply their gifts and acquirements to the cause of the lower stratum of society.” The religious as well as economic opposition to Judaism, according to Mr. Charles Zeublin, is caused by the exclusiveness of the Jew, and his ultimate welfare and that of his neighbors requires a humanitarian treatment within and without Judaism. Mr. William R. Thayer shows that Machiavelli merely described things as they were in his time, and deduced the laws which actually controlled the public deeds of rulers; and that it is now “the duty of all men to sweep away the old falsehood that rulers and governments are absolved from paying heed to those ethical principles to which every individual is bound.” According to Mr. B. Carneri, the living at peace with oneself and one’s fellow-men is possible only without religion, “because there is no morality without contentment, and it is the highest degree of discontent to strive for something beyond this world.” Mr. Frank Chapman Sharp concludes that when the element of _the good_ is taken out of the conception of obligation, this degenerates into mere submission to an arbitrary imperative; the foundation for the distinction between right and wrong must be sought in something that appeals to us as good, and its ultimate criterion can be given only by our chosen ideal. (Philadelphia: _International Journal of Ethics_, 118 S. Twelfth Street.)

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. July, 1892. Vol. I. No. 4.

INHIBITION AND FREEDOM OF THE WILL. By _Dr. James H. Hyslop_.

A CLASSIFICATION OF CASES OF ASSOCIATION. By _Mary W. Calkins_.

THE ORIGIN OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. By _Dr. Herbert Nichols_.

ON PRIMITIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. By _Hiram M. Stanley_.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS.

SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES.

The confusion incident to the old controversy about freedom is due, says Dr. James H. Hyslop, to a failure to distinguish between the _proof_ of freedom and the _conditions_ of it, that is, “the circumstances that are necessary to it, or the characteristics that constitute it.” Freedom consists in “self-initiative and independence of external causes, whether there be any choice between alternatives or not,” and inhibition and deliberation bring about both of these circumstances. Miss Mary W. Calkins rejects the ordinary division into association by contiguity and association by similarity, and gives detailed summaries of the fundamental characteristics of consciousness on which association depends and of the characteristics of association proper; the ultimate fact of association, whether it be psychical or physical or both, we do not understand. Dr. Herbert Nichols, in the first part of his article on the “Origin of Pleasure and Pain,” considers the phenomena of pleasure and pain associated with the action of the senses, and concludes that there is no “tangible evidence indicating that pleasures and pains are inseparable attributes of other senses or polar complements of each other,” and that separate sensations of pain and of pleasure are probable. Mr. Hiram M. Stanley regards pure pain as primitive mind, and pleasure as the polar opposite to it, although they are neither absolutely essential one to the other, pleasure being traced to “an intermediary feeling between pain as produced by excess, and pain from lack as differentiated form.” Consciousness is fundamentally pain and pleasure as serving the organism in the struggle for existence. (Boston, New York, Chicago: Ginn & Company.)

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THE NEW WORLD.

CONTENTS: Vol. I. No. 2.

THE SOCIAL PLAINT. By _E. Benjamin Andrews_.

RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION. By _Minot J. Savage_.

THE ORIGIN AND MEANING OF THE STORY OF SODOM. By _T. K. Cheyne_.

THE FOUNDATION OF BUDDHISM. By _Maurice Bloomfield_.

IMAGINATION IN RELIGION. By _Francis Tiffany_.

THE NEXT STEP IN CHRISTIANITY. By _S. D. McConnell_.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. By _Josiah Royce_.

HOW I CAME INTO CHRISTIANITY. By _Nobuta Kishimoto_.

NEW FORMS OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION. By _Mrs. Humphry Ward_.

CONTENTS: Vol. I. No. 3.

THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. By _Otto Pfleiderer_.

ECCLESIASTICAL IMPEDIMENTA. By _J. Macbride Sterrett_.

NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. By _Orello Cone_.

THOMAS PAINE. By _John W. Chadwick_.

SOCIAL BETTERMENT. By _Nicholas P. Gilman_.

THE RÔLE OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS IN MODERN RELIGIOUS
EDUCATION. By _Jean Réville_.

A POET OF HIS CENTURY. By _E. Cavazza_.

DIVINE LOVE AND INTELLIGENCE. By _James C. Parsons_.

BOOK REVIEWS.

SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Company.)

REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE.

CONTENTS: June, 1892. No. 198.

EXISTENCE ET DÉVELOPPEMENT DE LA VOLONTÉ. I. Existence de la
Volonté. By _A. Fouillée_.

SUR QUELQUES IDÉES DU BARON D’HOLBACH. By _A. Lalande_.

ESSAI SUR LA PHILOSOPHIE DE PROUDHON. By _G. Sorel_.

TRAVAUX DU LABORATOIRE DE PSYCHOLOGIE PHYSIOLOGIQUE.

CONTENTS: July, 1892. No. 199.

L’INCONNAISSABLE DANS LA PHILOSOPHIE MODERNE. By _G.
Fonsegrive_.

LA MUSIQUE D’APRÈS HERBERT SPENCER. By _J. Combarieu_.

ESSAI SUR LA PHILOSOPHIE DE PROUDHON (concluded). By _G. Sorel_.

CONTENTS: August, 1892. No. 200.

ÉTUDE CRITIQUE SUR LE MYSTICISME MODERNE. By _Rosenbach_.

LE DÉVELOPPEMENT DE LA VOLONTÉ. By _A. Fouillée_.

LA BEAUTÉ ORGANIQUE: ÉTUDE D’ANALYSE ESTHÉTIQUE. By _A.
Naville_.

ANALYSES ET COMPTES RENDUS.

According to M. Fouillée, the principle which tends to dominate psychology and physiology is the ubiquity of will and of feeling, and consequently of consciousness. Psychology will end by recognising the continuity and the transformation of modes of psychical energy, as physics recognises the continuity and the transformation of modes of physical energy, and philosophy will see in physical energy the external expression of will.

M. Fonsegrive maintains that the rejection of metaphysics as science, which marks the modern theory of the unknowable, is the consequence of Kant’s _a priori_ theory as to the origin of our knowledge. The laws of the mind have no real existence prior to experience, and universal and necessary notions can be discovered only by mental analysis. In this manner the existence, and even the essence, of metaphysical beings may be known, but only of such as experience puts in communication with ourselves. Thus we know God as the necessary first cause, although our notion of God is one of negation, of experimental notions.

After showing that Spencer’s theory of music had numerous antecedents, and that its conclusions are unacceptable on various grounds, M. Combarieu affirms that the secret of the musical art is the identity of the musical idea with the imitation or expression of the real world. All music contains a double verity; it is the meeting place of the senses and of the rational world confounded in a unity which is the work of art, as man is the combination of a soul and a body confounded in the real unity of life. Spencer is an excessive simplifier, and does not see the complexity of certain questions, which he seeks to resolve by undervaluing them. But he has thrown light on one of the aspects of the musical problem.

In this final essay on the philosophy of Proudhon, M. Sorel considers the theory of justice by the light of the notion of free will. He differs somewhat from Proudhon, and affirms that “the just man is the upright man such as our ideal conception of antiquity represents him to us, but transformed by our consciousness as refined by the influence of Christianity.” In dealing with the real organisation of societies it is necessary to distinguish between matters of justice and those of right, which includes that of force, of which war is an application. After showing the connection of the economic _contradictions_ of Proudhon with the state of war, and the value of education for the realisation of equilibrium in the state. M. Sorel affirms that education ought to be based on manual labor, for the explanation of which science should be taught; and that instruction should endure throughout life, so that men can elevate themselves and that an equilibrium may be obtained between knowledge and industrial needs. (Paris: Félix Alcan.)

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