Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/587

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VII. NEW BOOKS. [These Notes (by various hands) do not exclude Critical Notices later on.] Psychology. The Cognitive Powers. By JAMES M'Cosn, D.D., &c., Pre- sident of Princeton College. London : Macmillan & Co., 1886. Pp. vii., 245. This is the first volume of a work on Psychology which the author hopes to complete by a second on "the Motive Powers of the Mind, including the Conscience, Emotions and Will" (partly anticipated by his work on the Emotions). " The study of the human mind in an inductive manner " leads us, he thinks, "to Realism, which in a rude state was the first philo- sophy, and when its excrescences are pruned oft' will be the last." This realism is qualified by the stress laid on the limited character of our "original" as distinguished from our "acquired" perceptions and memories ; and no difficulty is felt, for example, in incorporating the results of modern investigations of sense-perception from Berkeley onwards. In the Intu- duction (pp. 1-17) the subject and method of study are defined, and the traditional terminology of mental "faculties" and "powers" is defended with qualifications. The author then goes on to deal, in three Books, with "The Simple Cognitive or Presentative Powers" (pp. 18-86), "The Repro- ductive or Representative Powers " (pp. 87-207), and " The Comparative Powers" (pp. 208-45). Under the second head he gives an account of the laws of association. Two "primary laws" are recognised, "contiguity" in space and time, and "correlation". The eight "relations" which may form the ground of association are considered in detail in Book iii . Within the scope of the "comparative powers," and among those especially of "the faculties which discover the relations of Identity, Comprehension and Resemblance," are brought the " discursive operations " of " Simple Appre- hension, Judgment and Reasoning" (c. iii.). The Social Problem in its Economical, Moral and Political Aspects. By WILLIAM GRAHAM, M.A., Professor of Political Economy and Juris- prudence, Queen's College, Belfast, Author of the Creed of Science. London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1885. Pp. xx., 479. This eloquent book (divided into four parts " The Social Problem and its History, "The Existing Distribution of Wealth and Work," " Property and Inequality of Wealth," "Special Remedies'") does not properly fall within our province, but may be mentioned here 1 T its main ron- rlnsion that all conceivable " remedies " for the ills that threaten society (as never before) with universal collapse, run up, in the author's view, into moral considerations "turn finally on the question, Can man be made morally better?" and also because of the work he has previously done of a more directly philosophical cast. Apparently he has now forsworn his earlier allegiance, for he gives it as one of the signs of hope for the future that "Philosophy dropping her mill-horse round of thrashing exhausted metaphysical issues is turning her eyes to earth, is condescending to regard that remarkable entity called Society; a thing well worthy her regards if only for a change, now that long i'ainiliarity with the Absolute must at last have produced a sense of monotony from want of variety" (p. 460). This is somewhat rhetorically said, like what is earlier (p. 21) remarked of the " metaphvsical" vagaries of "modern prophets . . . . from Hobbes and Locke to Bentham, Mill and Carlyle".