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H. HQFFDING, PSYCHOLOGIE IN UMRISSEN. 609

by help of symbols, a device for which Dr. Hdffding, like Mr. Ward and other recent psychologists, shows a strong liking. The symbolic representation of the two great laws of association, and of their mutual implication, is well worthy of study even after Mr. Ward's recent masterly treatment of the same subject. The higher processes of thought, abstraction, judgment, &c., are, it is hardly needful to say, regarded as merely a rendering more explicit and precise under the control of the will, of the relations involved in the more elementary intellectual operations. The discussion of the space-question is cautious and critical, and shows the author's power of dealing with a highly complex problem impartially on all its sides. The whole exposition of feeling and its laws is marked by fine knowledge of the phenomena and clear scientific insight. The relation of feeling to intellection is admirably set forth. Pleasure and pain are present in the most primitive mental states, and therefore cannot be regarded as a mere result of the interaction of intellectual elements. At the same time, in all its higher phases, feeling is pervaded with and modified by such intellectual elements. And it is the special object of this section to trace the gradual developments of the elementary feelings and their transformations into a wide variety of forms under the action of growing experience and intelligence. Here the author makes good use of the first manifestations of feeling in infancy, and of the more striking and picturesque illustrations of human passion presented in literature. It may, however, be doubted whether it is possible to develop the wide variety of emotional states from a common elementary root in the way here attempted. In any case, the manifestation of a number of typically distinct feelings in the first years of life might suggest that ancestral experience and heredity play a larger part here than Prof. Hoff- cling. who is generally a cordial acceptor of evolution, seems to recognise. A further objection may be taken to the way in which the author defines the relation of the intellectual and the emo- tional factor in the reproduction of feeling. There is no doubt that all definite revival of feeling depends on intellectual processes of association in the way so ably illustrated by Dr. Hoffding. But when he writes : " Thought is the more mobile part of our being : feeling forms the foundation to which effects are only gradually transmitted from the more mobile surface," he seems to be overlooking important facts. Is it not at least as common for feeling in the vague shape of dim recalling or foreboding to precede definite ideation as for this last to precede emotional disturbance ? Here perhaps a more adequate grasp of the relations of sub-conscious to conscious mental processes would have been of service. But though now and again the critical reader may take exception to general statements, he will lay down the work with a feeling of deep indebtedness to the author for what on the whole is a masterly and interesting elucidation of the dark region of psychological fact. JAMES SULLY.

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