This little book, by so competent an authority as Professor Hudson, will be welcomed by all who are interested—and who nowadays is not?—in the subject of Evolutionism. The object is to furnish a "hand-guide" or introduction to Mr. Spencer's system, and, owing to the simplicity of its exposition and the convenience of its arrangement, it seems likely to achieve this object very effectively. The biographical sketch of Spencer's life and the chronological list of his writings especially will be found very useful. For the rest its attitude is faithfully discipular and does not pretend to independence; and so it neither increases nor diminishes the difficulties of the Synthetic Philosophy, and of that extensive and peculiar knowledge of the Unknowable which it displays.
The aim of the author is to apply to 'concrete psychology' or the study of character those general laws of mental activity with which 'abstract psychology' deals. The laws in question have already been laid down by him in a preceding volume. The first, the law of systematic association, expresses the tendency of each element (desire, idea, or image) to arouse other elements fitted to associate with it for a common end. The complementary law of systematic inhibition expresses the power of arrest, which each psychical element tends to exercise over every other element, which does not associate harmoniously with it. From the combined play of both arises the law of contrast. Finally, there is the less important law of association by contiguity and resemblance (p. 12). Of the four books into which this work is divided the first deals merely with the form in which the constituent elements of a personality may be combined, no attention being paid to the special nature of the elements themselves. The author begins with the perfect type, where the systematic association is so perfect that a number of strong tendencies, each well developed, balance one another and form a unity. He then shows how the harmony and subordination of psychic elements give place to the independent activity of each constituent by the development of antagonistic tendencies. On this principle he enumerates the following marked types: (1) les équilibrés; (2) les unifiés; (3) les maîtres d'eux-mêmes; (4) les inquiets, les nerveux, les contrariants; (5) les impulsifs; (6) les composés; (7) les incohérents; (8) les faibles, les étourdis, les légers. In the first class there is a perfect balance between a number of elements, in the second the harmony is gained by the subordination of everything to a predominant tendency, in the third the harmony to the result of a visible struggle, in the fourth contrary tendencies dominate alternately. The fifth class includes those cases where the unity is apt to be broken on occasion by the independent action of certain elements. In the sixth class there is a successive predominance of
