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NEW BOOKS. 273 under modern conditions are quite as well able to make their way in the world and in professional life as men. He is none the less of opinion that their more appropriate sphere is home life ; but the reason is not any deficiency on their part as regards public life, but a positive capacity which they possess in a far higher degree than men of lavishing personal attentions. It is not because they are less fitted to face the world that they should prefer the home circle, but because they are more fitted for the duties of home life. Dr. Starcke treats very fully the whole range of problems, moral and legal, connected with marriage and the family. We have not space to follow him here ; we can only say that there is a great deal to be learned from his book, and that even where it is somewhat difficult to agree with him, he has much to say which is suggestive and valuable. L' Education rationnelle de la Volonti ; son emploi thirapeutique. Par Dr. PAUL-^MILE LEVY, Ancien Interne des Hopitaux de Paris. Paris : Felix Alcan, 1898. Pp. v., 234. (4 francs.) To educate the will in a given direction is to give to a certain idea pre- dominance in consciousness which will make it efficient in determining conduct. The sole means of producing this result is concentration of attention on the idea. The special feature of Dr. Levy's book is that he lays stress on certain peculiarly effective methods of attaining this end. He takes his cue from the power of suggestion in hypnosis and similar states. But the education of the will which he has in view is not- educa- tion by external suggestion, but self-education by auto-suggestion. For instance, he recommends that the patient should withdraw into quiet and solitude, and then compose himself as if for sleep.' At the moment when he is in the transition state between sleep and waking he should bring before his mind as vividly as possible the idea of himself as acting in a certain way, or as undergoing some change of bodily condition, and not merely the idea but the definite affirmation that he is going to act in this way or to undergo this change. Dr. Levy says that he himself can pursue this method with success, and that he has found it efficacious in the case of many patients. Of course an idea dwelt on under these con- ditions will attain a controlling force and dominance simply because it has the field to itself, the mind being in other respects dormant. This procedure is not only an education of the will, but also in many cases a cure for bodily diseases. The general state of the organism depends to a very large extent on that most important member of the organism, the brain ; and so far as this is the case Dr. Levy's method supplies a means of altering the condition of the body ; for according to the principle of psycho-physical parallelism, psychical change involves cerebral change, and cerebral change in its turn determines other organic states. Dr. Levy gives a number of cases of such cures. Insomnia, tendency to fainting-fits, paresis, trance, trembling, various kinds of pain such as headache and toothache, disorders of circulation and respiration, want of appetite, constipation, etc., have yielded in his experience to treatment by auto-suggestion. Of course the efficacy of the treatment has definite limits, but it seems that it is capable of successful application in a large class of cases. Whatever may be the value of Dr. Levy's results to the medical man, they are certainly very interesting to the psychologist. La Notion de Temps d'apres les principes de Saint Thomas d'Aquin. Par DESIRE NYS. Williams & Norgate, 1898. Pp. '228. The concept of time is at once amongst the most familiar and the most obscure of concepts. " What is time ? If no one puts that question to 18