VIII.—NEW BOOKS

G R. T. ROSS
1905 Mind  
NEW BOOKS. sensible discrimination of all the senses, measurements of motor ability and endurance, tests of ingenuity, as displayed in rapidity of solving anumber of pozzies, mechanical and other, of powers of memorising and retention, of rapidity and variety of the associative processes, of the degree of change in poise and respiration under various conditions, and lastly a series of questions designed to bring oot the subject's estimate of his peculiarities of faculty and disposition. The
more » ... s seem to have been well devised and carefully applied, and the results are shown in convenient diagrammatic form. The differences between the two groups, male and female, brought outby these tests are very small, and are summarised by the author as follows: " Thresholds :-Women have lower thresholds in the recognition of two points on the skin ; in touch; in sweet, salt, sour and bitter taste ; in smell; in colour; and in pain through pressure. Men and women are alike in respect to the upper and lower limits of pitch. Men have a lower threshold in the perception of light. Discriminative sensibility :-Women have finer discrimination in pitch and in colour. Men and women have equal discrimination in temperature, in odour and in passive pressure. Men have finer discrimination in lifted weights ; in sweet, sour and bitter taste ; in shades of gray; probably in areas on the skin ; and in visual areas." Motor ability in most of its forms isbetter developed in men, namely in strength and rapidity of movement, in endurance and in precision ; while women have the advantage in the formation of new co-ordination of movement. As for the intellectual faculties, women axe decidedly superior in memory and possibly more rapid in associative reproduction. Men are probably superior in ingenuity. There is little, if any, sexual difference in the degree of domination by emotion; and social consciousness is more prominent in men and religious consciousness in women. The writer argues that such small differences as her researches have revealed are probably due wholly, or in chief part, to differences of social environment and training. The criticisms that suggest themselves are: first, that the numbers of individuals are too few ; it iB to be regretted that when so much labour has been given to the research, the same methods should not have been applied to a still larger number of individuals of both sexes ; secondly, that the tests applied are quite inadequate to bring out the innate differences that are socially important, e.g.. it is obvious that the replies of individuals to such questions as "Are you sympathetic?" and "Areyou socially timid ? " must be determined by the standards of sympathy and timidity of the subject" and that the differences of standard in such matters, that certainly obtain between the sexes, may obscure verygreat real differences in these respects. Should the authoress ever become an impartial observer of a family of boys and girls she will probably find occasion to revise her conclusions in respect to many of the more important points. W. McD. The Exittential Import of Categorical Prtdicaiion: Studia in Logic By A. Wow, M.A. Lond., B.A. Camb. Cambridge University Press, 1906. Pp. xii,164. This is an exhaustive discussion of the problem, in which the author gathers together and criticises in a highly expert fashion all that has been said about it by the leading modern logicians. The theories of Dr. Venn and Dr. Keynes hare get a thorough overhauling, but Mr. Wolf
doi:10.1093/mind/xiv.3.424 fatcat:tmfytt5mm5etrbfbolesv5yuf4