Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/330

318 NEW BOOKS. tinct on the one hand from the so-called exact and positive sciences, and not to be resolved into mere theory of knowledge on the other, but to be upheld as aiming at systematic explanation of the world from a single principle. The author's principle is the Phantasy (at once objective and subjective) which he has expounded and defended in a series of works previously noticed in these pages (see especially MIND VII., 398). It is, he here again contends, a universal living and fruitful principle, not reached by abstraction from the special sciences, but open to direct observation and so fitted to yield a peculiar science of ideal truth, which is Philosophy. Katechismus der Psychologic. Von FRIEDRICH KIRCHNER. Leipzig : Weber, 1883. Pp. viii. 292. This is one of a long series of Catechisms (mostly illustrated) bearing upon the Sciences, Arts and Industries, to which the author has previously contributed the pieces dealing, respectively, with History of Philosophy, Church-history, Ethics and Logic. Otherwise a somewhat versatile writer on philosophy and religion, he has here produced, within the compass of a small and cheap handbook, a rather remarkable treatise on his subject. While treating with intelligence and considerable independence the topics of scientific psychology as they are now generally recognised, he has been able also to discuss to some purpose the metaphysical question of the nature of mind, with the relations of mind and body ; and, while giving useful references to the most recent as well as earlier psychological literature, he finds room for an express section of no less than 30 pp. on the history of the science from its first beginnings in Greece. Even the pathological side of mental life has not been overlooked, having 12 pp. allotted to it at the end. The whole work is more thoroughly done than anyone would suppose from its width of range, and it cannot be read without instruction even by a more advanced class than the elementary students for whom it is in the first instance intended. In the properly psychological Part (following upon an Introduction, pp. 1-47, and Part i., " Das Wesen der Seele," pp. 48-139), the order of topics is, General View, Sensations, Movements, Vor- stellen, Feelings, Affections, Impulses, Desire, Willing, Freedom of Will, Mental Diseases. Geschichte der Psychologic. Von Dr. HERMANN SIEBECK, Professor der Philo- sophic an der Universitat Giessen. Erster Theil, Zweite Abtheilung : "Die Psychologie von Aristoteles bis zu Thomas von Aquino". Gotha : Perthes, 1884. Pp. xi. 531. The author, who has passed, since he published the earlier section of his work in 1880, from Basel to Giessen, has now completed in this second section the first of the three Parts into which the whole will be divided. His design, as was previously mentioned (MiND XXI., 150), is to separate out, as far as possible, from history of philosophy in general the story of the progress of psychological inquiry in particular, looking to the position which psychology has won or is winning as special science. Now that he has traced out the whole course of Ancient Psychology with its influence as protracted through the Patristic period to the culminating point of Scho- lasticism, it becomes possible to estimate with effect the manner and results of his investigation, and this we hope to do in a future Number. Mean- while it should be said that the present section confirms and deepens the impression of thoroughness of treatment given by the former one. The general subject of the volume is " The development of Psychology as philo- sophical science under the head of Aristotelianism " ; its foundation as "philosophical discipline" by Socrates and Plato having been already delineated. The treatment is disposed under the four heads : (1) Psychology