Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/146

132 PHILOSOPHICAL PERIODICALS. REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE DE LA FRANCE ET DE L'ETRANGER. SO^me annee. No. 9, Septembre, 1905. V. Gignoux. ' Le Role du j ugement dans les phenomenes affectifs.' [A very interesting and important attempt towards a conciliation between the widest intellectualism and the physiological theory of affective phenomena. The discussion of the two positions excluding each other and a lucid analysis of the different kinds of emotions lead the author to the conclusion that the immediate antecedent, but not the first and profoundest cause, of emotion is always to be found in organic processes ; these organic processes themselves are, in most cases, a result of judgments. This theory of judgment as acting on organic activity and of this latter as productive of emotion, while be- longing in one of its elements to a dynamical spiritualism, seems to be materialistic in the other. To give it the necessary unity, the author refutes briefly the hypothesis which regards mind as being a mere epi- phenomenon of matter, and adopts a purely idealistic conception of the body.] R. de la Grasserie. 'La Psychologic de 1'argot.' [Studies the French slang with a view of pointing out the psychological character of this sort of language and of inquiring what light its study may throw on the study of mind. The psychical tendencies in which the principles of the slang have their source and the contrivances used for the actualisa- tion of these principles are carefully analysed. P. Girard. ' Sur 1'ex- pression numerique de 1'intelligence des especes animales.' [Expounds the results of the attempts, made respectively by Manouvrier and by Eugène Dubois, to find a mathematical formula of the relation between the weight of the encephalon and the degree of intelligence as considered in a given animal species.] Q. True. ' Une illusion de la conscience morale.' [This article is intended to show that moral responsibility does not exist at all, but is, as M. True calls it, a mere hyperaesthesia of the sensibility. Virtue is " a brilliant fantasmagory ". The word " illusion " is so often and so dogmatically used by the author in dealing rather hastily with the highest concepts of psychology, of metaphysics and of ethics, that there is no doubt the author's position is, at bottom, a uni- versal speculative nihilism : all is illusory, except, of course, Nietzsche's and M.. Truc's personal doctrine.] Notices bibliographiques. No. 10. Octobre, 1905. Paul Sollier. ' La Conscience et ses degres.' [According to Dr. Sollier, consciousness is not at all a form of energy or corresponds to any quantity, to any absolute intensity, of cerebral energy ; having no existence proper, it is in close connexion of dependence (not with cerebral disintegration, as Herzen taught), but with cerebral integration, or, more probably, with the integration in the apperception-centre. Its function is to register, so to say, the phenomena corresponding to the highest (relatively speaking) degree of cerebral activity at a given moment, and to simplify the organisation, the conservation and the reactions of the impressions received by the brain. Dr. Sollier's conclusion is that con- sciousness, although its essential nature must always elude us, is an "essentially" biological and physiological phenomenon which by no means may be accepted as a criterium of what distinguishes the psycho- logical from the physiological and even from the physical.] C. Bos. ' Les elements affectifs du langage : ses rapports avec les tendances de la psychologic moderne.' [The main tendency of to-day's psychology is a reaction against intellectualism. Recent writers have shown that we never have to deal with pure thought, that always a feeling or a senti- ment lies concealed in it and governs it ; in other words, that knowledge is affective-intellectual. M. Bos's purpose is to show that the same theory is true as applied to language. Subtle and interesting analysis of its formation, development and use brings into relief the perpetual com- bination of affective and emotional with rational characters in language,