The closing chapters—ix, "Morality and Religion," and x, "Theory of Rights and Duties,"—are among the best in the book. This does not, of course, imply one's own acceptance of all the views expressed. Moreover, it seems to me that, in chapter ix, the author would have done quite as well to confine himself to showing that the acceptance of any religious creed, however orthodox, need not any more than the acceptance of any form of the theory of evolution—determine the particular character of one's ethical theory. The division of 'rights' into 'natural' and 'acquired' (p. 432) savors too much of a defunct theory which the author does not understand himself to hold.
While the book which we have been examining is such as necessarily to call forth a great deal of adverse criticism, it would be unjust to close this review without again paying some tribute to the author's own attitude. The treatment is frank and manly throughout. It is not, after all, a small thing to write a treatise on Ethics without once lapsing into cant, or showing a spirit of animosity and unfairness toward one's opponents. That Dr. Hyslop has accomplished this, cannot be denied by any candid reader.
Encouraged, we may suppose, by the success which has attended M. Pillon's Année philosophique, now in its fifth year, MM. Beaunis and Binet have decided to issue yearly an Année psychologique, planned upon very similar lines. This first number contains a brief general introduction from the pen of M. Beaunis, and has three principal divisions: original articles[1] (experimental researches from the Sorbonne Laboratory and elsewhere, and a paper upon the organization of psychological laboratories in America); a synopsis of the most important psychological investigations of the year; and a psychological bibliography.
Part I occupies 255 pages. It opens with two articles by MM. Binet and Henri upon memory for words and phrases,—a continuation of the series of memorial studies already published by the same authors. In the first investigation lists of unconnected words were read aloud to children and adults, and repeated or
- ↑ Several of these will be given in epitome later, under the heading "Summaries of Articles."
