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NEW BOOKS. 121 Les Timides et la Timidite. Par le Dr. PAUL HARTENBERO. Paris : I '. Alcan, 1901. Pp. xv., 264. Price 5 fr. The least fortunate part of this book is, perhaps, the Introduction, in which the author claims for his work that it is an essay in scientific psychology, and explains that he means by this the study of the functions of the brain ! As it turns out, however, this prepossession does not greatly affect his work ; in general he simply takes the line of the sup- porters of the Lange-James theory, which is accepted without criticism and without any attempt to show how it can be reconciled with his further position, that the affective life is prior to the intellectual and is irreducible. Chapter i. deals with the definition of timidity, which is regarded as a combination of false fear and false shame in the presence of other human beings. In chapter ii. the constituent emotions, fear and shame, are discussed, and the symptoms of Timidity itself minutely enumerated. Unfortunately it has as yet proved almost impossible to subject pure cases of this emotion to experimental examination. The third chapter is an interesting, rather than a scientific, sketch of the Char- acter of the Timid. Quotations from autobiographical writings such as those of Rousseau are, perhaps, admissible, but it is difficult to defend the frequent references to, and excerpts from, works of fiction. For the rest, Dr. Hartenberg largely follows Dugas. The fourth chapter treats of the evolution, etiology, and varieties of the emotion. As to its etiology the author does not arrive at any very definite result. We are not much informed by learning that the basis of timidity is an inherited ' affective hyperaesthesia '. Even granted that the term is legitimate, we are no nearer a solution of the problems why the timid are disturbed by the presence of human beings only, and why their disturbance expresses itself in exactly these or those bodily alterations. Apparently, Dr. Har- tenberg holds that ' every definite emotion is represented in the cortex by a definite group of cells ' (p. 39), and that this explains the definite physiological concomitants (or constituents, as he would say) of the emotion. But he has already told us that timidity is a composite emotion. Do the ' cellular groups ' fear and shame overlap ? And, if the Lange- Jarnes theory is true, are these centres sensory or motor or both ? Dr. Hartenberg returns to works of fiction. The treatment of varieties of timidity is chiefly concerned with the ' trac ' of actors, singers, etc., of which a full and interesting account is given. There follows it (chapter v.) an excellent discussion of pathological cases, and a final chapter on the practical treatment of the timid. Scattered throughout the book are many acute and suggestive remarks, and several rather doubtful ones. T. LOVEDAY. La Mimique. Par fioouARD CUYER, Peintre, Professeur suppleant d'anatomie k 1'^cole nationale des Beaux- Arts, Professeur & 1'Ecole regional e des Beaux- Arts de Eouen. (Bibliotheque Internationale de Psychologic Experimentale). Paris : Octave Doin, 1902. Pp. 366. Price 4 fr. In this volume the author offers us a treatment of a difficult subject which, though very complete so far as it goes, is far from being com- prehensive. He approaches his subject too exclusively from the stand- point of the anatomist and too little from that of the psychologist. It is characteristic of his method that the first chapter, entitled "La Mimique du Langage" only occupies two pages, of which one is devoted