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It would appear, therefore, that a man is a whole both to the child and to the philosopher, but to the psychologist who stands between, there exists the dualism of mind and body. "It appears a problem only because of the fact that our experience is not yet completed, that, as Professor BALDWIN says, it still has a career before it." In a later paper (The Necessity from the Standpoint, etc.) Professor BAWDEN states the energic view, "Under the name of energy, motion is now regarded as itself the essence of reality, and the idea of brute, lump matter drops away. In place of the static we get the dynamic theory of the nature of reality." "This is the dynamic or energist's view quite generally held by philosophical physicists today." "The solution of the paradox (that time is built up in consciousness while the latter is an evolution in time) lies in seeing that consciousness, taken apart from the organism which is conscious, is not an entity or thing or even a process, it is only a meaning or significance." A meaning to what or whom? To the organism? Professor BAWDEN claims that the dualism of consciousness and organism is simply methodological not ontological. "Consciousness is not an entity or thing; it is a function, a meaning." But if the being of the organism be its activity, consciousness resolves into the function of an activity and we reach a conclusion like that of MACH referred to. In fact, the word function is perhaps unfortunate and could hardly be used in a strict way if we held to a materialistic construction of physical being. Evidently by "function" is not meant the doing that constitutes the being of things, but the interpretation of this doing or its revelation in the act of doing. It would seem to be nearer the conception intended by all the writers last mentioned if we conceive of energy or activity as the ground of all being and admit that the specific meaning of each form depends on its mode, form or type. Each type has its intrinsic meaning, but whether it shall be what we call consciousness or not depends on the exact form which the energy assumes.

This sketch would be incomplete without reference to Professor JAMES "Barrier Theory" of mind. It would interesting to know how far the author was influenced by his well-known leaning toward occultism and the mystical in general in putting forth this theory. Starting from the statement (to which we are asked to subscribe in advance) of the "great psychophysical formula: Thought is a function of the brain," Professor JAMES considers that the difficulty so generally felt in the acceptance of this statement is due to an unnecessary limitation in the meaning of the word "function."

Professor JAMES thinks that, when we speak of the power of the functioning of a moving waterfall, etc., "the material objects have the function of creating or engendering their effects and their function must be called productive function." But we also have releasing or permissive functions and we have transmissive functions. "When we think of the law that thought is a function of the brain, we are not required to think of productive function only; we are entitled also to consider permissive or transmissive function." The universe of material things may be but a surface-veil of phenomena, hiding and keeping back the world of genuine relations. Our brains are half-transparent places in the veil. The genuine reality, the life of souls as it is in its fulness, will break through our several brains in all sorts of restricted forms, with all the imperfections and queernesses that characterize our finite individualities here below. Through the weak spot in us, namely, our brains (appropriate conception) "Gleams, however finite and unsatisfying, of the absolute life of the universe, are from time to time vouchsafed. Glows of feeling, glimpses of insight, and streams of knowledge and perception float into our finite world." Those writers who envy Professor JAMES his superb mastery of English style may piously express their gratitude that they escape the temptation to sin with impunity against logic which that mastery confers. It is hard to think at the same time in tropes and syllogisms.

The forms of consciousness (thoughts, etc.) are either predetermined before they leave the great universal sea of all consciousness or else they are individualized and determined by the nature of the hole through which they pass. If the former, there is some determinant either in that sea or between it and the brain. But evidently Professor JAMES believes the brain to be the determinant for he uses the figure of the glottis determining the sounds by limiting air currents passing through it. Only on this presumption could the thoughts be ours. Only on this theory could there be any explanation of the curious fact that we have brain at all. But on this assumption the brain has just as productive a function as any in the world. Surely no one, unless it be some kind of a panpsychist, contends that new energy is created by thinking. The figure of the water power used by JAMES aptly illustrates this. The form of the aperture in the turbine determines (produces) the modification of energy constituting the work of the mill. The waterfall "creates or engenders its effects" only by modifying the form of existing energy. Creation itself is only such a modification (self-limitation). The difference between a productive and permissive function is a play of words only.

C. L. HERRICK.

LITERARY NOTICES.

His, W. Entwickelung des menschlichen Gehirns während der ersten Monate. Leipzig, S. Hirzel, 1904. Price M. 12.

Neurologists are to be congratulated that before his death Professor His was able to bring the present work to completion—a beautifully illustrated volume of 176 pages. After the appearance of his paper on the development of the medulla oblongata the publication of this series of researches was interrupted, as the author tells us in the preface of the present work, during the period of active reconstruction of morphological conceptions represented by the labors of FLECHSIG, GOLGI, RAMÓN Y CAJAL, etc. In the meantime Professor His had been continuing his investigations and now at the close of the research. period just referred to presents an installment which covers the histogenesis and morphogenesis of the entire central nervous system in its earlier stages, including a revised summary of much that is contained in the earlier papers.

In the review of the histogensis of the nerve tube, the term syncytium is applied for the first time, I believe (p. 13), to the spongioblastic framework as it appears in the earliest form of the "Randschlier" -a conception which has been abundantly confirmed and enlarged by HARDESTY in his latest contribution. He abandons his former view that mesodermal elements enter with the blood vessels and share in the formation of neuroglia, while HARDESTY, in the work just cited, admits a still more extensive participation of mesoderm in the neuroglia by means of a fusion of the spongioblastic syncytium with the enveloping connective tissue syncytium.

The germinative cells are again described as a distinct category, though from the brief reference it appears that, as contended by recent critics, they are probably nothing other than undifferentiated cells in a state of mitosis. For the recognition of neuroblasts there is no criterion save their connection with a nervous process (p. 21).

The section devoted to the longitudinal zones of the central nervous system is disappointingly brief. Recognizing the inadequacy of the original terms basal plate (Grundplatte) and alar plate (Flügelplatte),

it is proposed to substitute the terms hypencephalic area (including the hypothalamus, etc.) and epencephalic area (cerebral and cerebellar hemispheres, thalamus, corpora quadrigemina, brachium conjunctivum, olive and part of the pontile nuclei).

HIS combats vigorously (p. 29, ff.) the idea of the origin of conduction paths from a primitive nervous syncytium as expressed by BETHE in his recent book.

Summarizing the development of the brain in the first month, we find that the regional differentiation of the medullary tube is begun, but not far advanced. There is formed a separate mantle layer containing neuroblasts whose neurites form motor root fibers, arcuate fibers and in the ventral zones longitudinal funicles directed caudad into the spinal cord.

The chapter on the development of the cerebral hemispheres comprises 96 pages. The earlier contributions on the form relations are reviewed and thoroughly worked over. The histogenesis of the cerebral cortex as it occurs during the third and fourth months is given in detail, followed by the development of the blood vessels and commissures. Finally, 75 pages are devoted to the sequence of development of the intra-medullary fiber pathways.

C. J. H. Wilder, Burt G. The Brain of the Sheep. Physiology Practicums, Part IV, pp. 49-76. Published by the Author, 1904.

A copy of the latest revision of Dr. BURT G. WILDER'S Practicum devoted to "The Brain of the Sheep," indicates that this veteran neurologist is still employing the familiar methods which have served so good a purpose in his hands. The revision chiefly concerns details and the author cannot refuse a plaintive yet hopeful protest against a "reactionary tendency" as regards nomenclature in America.

C. L. H.

Harrison, Ross Granville. Experimentelle Untersuchungen über die Entwicklung der Sinnesorgane der Seitenlinie bei den Amphibien. Archiv f. mik. Anat., Bd. LXIII, H. 1, pp. 35-149, 1903.

The results of numerous cutting and grafting experiments performed upon frog embryos at the time of the growth of the lateral lines show that the lateral line Anlage follows definite paths formed by the surrounding tissues, that its growth is determined by forces within itself. and not from stimuli received from surrounding tissues, and that the differentiation of the Anlage into the sensory and supporting cells of the sense organs is likewise free from the influence of the surroundings except that adequate space is necessary for the development of typical organs.

J. B. J.

Mills, C. K. The Physiological Areas and Centers of the Cerebral Cortex of Man, with New Diagrammatic Schemes. Univ. of Penna. Medical Bulletin, XVII, 3, pp. 90-98, May, 1904. The history and theory of cortical localization are briefly reviewed and the new features of the author's diagrams commented upon.

C. J. H.

McCarthy, D. J. The Formation of Bone Tissue within the Brain Substance. A Contribution to the Inclusion Theory of Tumor Formation. Univ. of Penna. Medical Bulletin, XVII, 3, pp. 120-121, May, 1904.

Report of a small tumor containing true bone tissue which appeared in the cerebral hemisphere of a young cat subsequent to an experimental lesion.

C. J. H.

Piper, H. Das elektromotorische Verhalten der Retina bei Eledone moschata. Archiv für Anatomie und Physiologie, pp. 453-474, 1904.

The author starts out from the observation that water, and especially the water of the Mediterranean Ocean, strongly absorbs red and yellow rays of light so that the sunlight which reaches moderate depths below the surface is strongly tinged with blue and green. HIMSTEDT and NAGEL had discovered in 1901 that the action currents of the frog's retina are stronger for intense yellow light (natrium) than for any other intense colored stimulations which they applied. Now the yellow portion of the solar spectrum as measured bolometrically has a greater energy than any other part, so that these authors referred the greater action currents for yellow light to an economical adaptation of nature, whereby the light most predominant in nature has also the greatest stimulation value. The human eye receives the most intense sensation from the yellow part of the spectrum, so that they further concluded that the action currents of the retina are a fair measure of the intensity of the sensation being carried to the brain. And in confirmation of this they actually discovered that a frog's retina when adapted to "rod vision" before being removed, would then give greater action currents for blue-yellow light than for the yellow light to which the unadapted retina best responds; just as the human adapted eye sees the blue-yellow part of the spectrum as brightest (PURKINJE Phenomenon).

Now Dr. PIPER inquires whether animals living some distance below the level of the sea will give the strongest retinal action currents for that color of light to which they are most exposed; and more particularly, whether animals living in the depths of the Mediterranean Ocean will have the strongest retinal currents for that blue light by which they are always surrounded. In fact, the author finds this to

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