Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/116

100 CRITICAL NOTICES : thought, the degree of " systematic association ". The highest in the scale are the balanced intellects (les equilibres) ; and through the dissolution of the systems of thought, through the increase of disconnected ideas, the author attempts to explain the types of illogical minds. But what is the connexion between the two books ; what is the relation of the classification proposed in the one to the classifica- tion proposed in the other? M. Paulhan has not discussed this question ; and I think it is one that will perplex the reader. The two classifications cross one another. Thus the highest in the second may be the lowest in the first. The balanced minds (les equilibres} are often found among common-place people. " Every one has known good folk who acquit themselves suitably of their various social functions : their business, their family duties, and who in the discharge of these functions discover healthy ideas and sound reasoning." x But these are not they who lead an intellectual life and make knowledge an end in itself. Their ideas are wholly subordinate to organic wants or practical ends. While they belong to the highest class in the second scheme they belong to the lowest in the first. What relation, too, do the incoherent and illogical minds bear to the types of the first classi- fication ? The fundamental ideas which underlie M. Paulhan's theories do not seem to me to be sufficiently analysed, and as a result are some- times vague and unsteady. I do not mean the metaphysical ideas on which all thought reposes, but those which are properly psycho- logical, as, for instance, the relation of thought to the desires and sentiments, which is the subject of the first book. Much of the value of this book is lost for want of a clear and steady recognition of the fact that the intellect is never separated from desire and sentiment ; and the conception of systematic association, which seemed clear in the earlier work on character, here, in its application to the intellect apart, becomes ambiguous. We shall return to this point later and need not dwell upon it. It is when our author comes to detail, when he deals with types which he has evidently known, and which are not constructed to fill a vacant place in the series, it is here that he shows a remarkable talent. His analysis becomes finer as it approaches the concrete. Where he studies the subordinate varieties of a type, he shows a delicate appreciation of their differences and a fine insight into their psychological explana- tion. All this part of his work appears to me admirable ; and it is this combination of a fine analysis in the concrete with insufficient analysis of fundamental conceptions that seems to me the dis- tinctive character of his work. The first chapter of this book, which is one of the very best, is an example in point. He dis- tinguishes four leading types, each conspicuous for the high degree of its coherence through systematic association, but each exhibiting 1 P. 136.