Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/605

c. STUMPF'S TOXPSYCHOLOGIE, i. 593 . Von Dr. GAEL STUMPF, Professor der Philosophie an der deutschen Universitat zu Prag. Erster Band. Leipzig : Hirzel. Pp. viii., 427. Dr. Stunipf is favourably known as the author of an essay on the psychological origin of the Space-perception (Ueber den psy- cho! Unffung der Rauincvrstellung), in which he proved accurate scholarship, fineness of observation, and considerable ingenuity both in criticism and in construction. He has now essayed a more considerable task. This is a complete psycho- logy of Tone as a basis for musical theory. This task on the scale conceived by our author can hardly be said to have been attempted before. Helmholtz's classical work, though it certainly penetrates into the psychological territory, is in the first instance a physico-physiologieal treatise. The most complete treatment of the psychological base of music is the work of Mr. E. Gurney, which seems oddly enough to be unknown to Dr. Stumpf . Even this weighty volume, however, does not go into certain depart- ments of the psychology of tone as defined by the later writer. The difference of aim in the two works is worth noting. Both authors are lovers of music, and attracted to the subject on this side. Dr. Stumpf tells us in his introduction that in his youth he pursued music with enthusiasm, and purposed making it his calling ; and from his work we can easily see that he has not only a wide acquaintance with the art, and a fine feeling for its effects, but a good deal of very special technical knowledge con- cerning the mode of production of sounds, the usages of musicians, and so forth. Yet his work is not throughout immediately con- cerned with music, as Mr. Gumey's is. The musical psychology is reserved for a second volume, and in the first we have an ela- borate inquiry into the nature of sensation and of sensuous judgment, with a special reference to tone-perception. Thus his work has a scientific importance quite apart from its bearing on music. Indeed, if we bear in view what the author tells us about his musical proclivities, we cannot but admire the rigorous im- partiality with which he has dealt with every phase of his subject. So full and penetrating is the treatment that it is pretty certain to count as a solid contribution to the pure science of psychology. The appearance of a work like this is in more than one respect suggestive. It is something, to begin with, to know that the psychology of the senses has been brought to the point which allows of a seriously conceived attempt to supply a scientific groundwork for musical art. A still more important reflection is that, owing to the rapid extension of psycho-physical research, the work of expounding and interpreting the facts reached is neces- sarily growing more and more divided and specialised. A reader of English text-books may be surprised to hear of a work of two volumes on Tone-psychology. But our author amply justifies his selection of a certain circumscribed group of psychical phenomena for special consideration. And he has done students of the