New-York tribune., 1901-03-16

berg Professor of Psychology in Harvard Uni
1yersity. 12mo, PIP. xiv, 286. Houghton' Mlffiin
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIALISM. BY Gustave
lie Bon. Svo. PIP XIV Ais. The Macmillan com
pany.
In his talks to teachers and students Professor
James gives a good example Of his skill as
writer. Nothing clearer, simpler or more en-
tertaining in the way of popular science teach
ing can be imagined or, the other hand,
anything less open to the charge of superficial
ity Here, as in all his earlier essays, he shows
that very rarest of combinations, the union OF
a thorough specialist and a man of letters-a
popularizer of science who has both an exact
knowledge of his material and ability to write;
and it may be added that it is just now of con-
<iderabl Importance that this combination OF
scientific talent and style appears in psy
choogist Whatever may be the merits of the
new psychology'-and they are many and
great-one who keeps track of its progress can
have little doubt that it has had a depressing
effect upon the literary quality Of psychological
writing The works of the other school were
not. OF course. always products of literary art,
but the fact that a definite connection between
the science and literature is legitimate and de-
sirable has always hitherto been recognized
This tradition the new psychologist seems to
have forgotten, or to despise. and the books
which he concocts in his dissecting room and
laboratory are for the most part devoid of all
graces except that of truth. The public, at least,
owes much to Professor James for his effective
demonstration that this severance of the two
is not a necessity.
The scientific material of the Talks to Teach
ers," which occupy the greater part of the vol
ume. is elementary, and requires no special no
tice. These lectures were delivered in 1892. at
the request Of the Harvard Corporation to the
teachers Of Cambridge, and they deal chiefly
with points which of fundamental practical
Importance in the teaching art. As the author
says. they contain a minimum of what is
deemed scientific in psychology. and are prac-
teal and popular in the extreme" OF their
spirit and substance no better statement can be
given than this from the preface:
My main desire has been to make [teachersl
conceive, and if possible. reproduce sympa-
thetically in their Imagination. the mental life
of their pupil the sort of active unity which
he himself feels it to be. He doesn't chop him.
self into distinct processes and compartments;
and ii would have penetrated this deeper pur-
pose of my book to make it look, when printed,
like a Baedeker's handbook of travel or a text
book of arithmetic So far as books printed like
this book force the fluidity of facts upon the
young teachers attention. far they
tend to do his intellect a service, though
they may leave unsatisfied a craving mot alto
gether without its legitimate grounds for more
nomenclature headlines and subdivisions.
This service the book unquestionably renders.
and it is to be hoped that it will find its way
into the hands Of all teachers. particularly of
those engaged in elementary work Such IN
sistence upon the central realities of mental life
and growth. and such scorn of psychological
pedantry, precisely what is needed to coun-
teract in their minds the disastrous effects of
the artificiality and general woodenness of most
of the psychological textbooks upon which they
are nourished AS Professor James saws one
may be a good psychologist without being a
good teacher. but one cannot be good teacher
without being, TO a certain extent. good psy-
chologist; but this the teacher never can become
who is satisfied with the artificial analysis and
naming of mental processes, and has not ac-
quired that understanding and feeling OF what
is actually going on in the pupils mind which
these Talks inculcate.
In his Psychology and Life Professor Min
sterberg takes his central theme the effect
upon our ethical and esthetical ideals of the
mechanical theory of mental life which dom
mates modern physiological psychology. That
TINS theory is in principle correct; that psycho-
ogy as science must seek to bring the success
sion and continuation of psychical events under
the law Of causaity. and that this can be done
only by correlating them with processes within
the physical organism, he admits; but he denies
that from this fact the nullity OF our ethical and
practical life can legitimately be deduced Psv-
choogy. he says. like physics, does not deal
with or express the real. but is "a complicated
transformation of it, worked out for special
logical purposes in the service of our life"
1t is "a special abstract construction which has
n right to consider everything from its own i'm
portant standpoint. but which has nothing to
assert in regard to the Interpretation Of our real
freedom and duty, real values and ideals"
1t is in these ethical and other values-in the
r-iI1 hot
causal and the mechanical do not apply To at
tempt to criticize such a conception in para
graph would be absurd. One may suggest how
ever, that while It may in a sense be true the
real matter of practical interest is whether the
existence of these values for and their effect
lVeness in US are in fact conditioned upon brain
action, and whether that existence and effective
ness can continue if brain action stops. Goodness
is doubtless eternally good and beauty eternally
beautiful, just as truth is eternally true
whether any one actually thinks it or not But
is this eternal, supracausal and supramechan-
ical reality anything more than an abstraction
-"r the living. healthy Individual?
NJ. lie Bons Psychology of Socialism, is a
general discussion of that topic rather than the
special psychological study of it which one
would expect from the title. The central
thought is the not unfamiliar one that the de-
velopment and the future of socialism must diff
fer with the traditions and the mental makeup
of the several races the Latin races being des-
tined by their political training and tempera-
ment TO become its prey, and the Teutonc races
for the same reason, to defeat it. The book con-
tains many sound observations and witty re-
marks. Occasionally, however. the author fails
to hit the mark. as, for example, when he says
Of the American negroes that their liberation
from slavery is generally regarded in the United
Statesl a stupendous error!