VII—NEW BOOKS

A. E. TAYLOR
1912 Mind  
NEW BOOKS. shelves a twelve-year-old work of 660 pages, and a reconstructive effort of the pen covering the whole ground again, and resulting in a re-adjusted S urview oooupying two-thirds of the original bulk. It U true there wan le younger version, itself '» re-written work, prepared for English readers (and I am not sure that Tendons in other languages have not appeared). But this year's addition to the family differs as much from the English version as from the original, except in ite
more » ... ve conciseness, however strong a family likeness appears in all. The opening chapter on the historical development of psychology is common to all the versions, but the somewhat less satisfactory genealogy of Knglinh theories of the original edition is adhered to, instead of Sat in the English version. The Methods of Psychology follow at once in ohapter ii, not iv. Chapter iii. contains Structure and Functions of Psychical Life, being a re-cast of chapters v. and vL of the English version. ' Mind and Body' are transferred to chapter iv., and chapter v., ' Object and Limits of Psychology,' is a re-cast of the second English chapter. The brief Conclusion is followed by an excellent Index of Subjects, and one of Names-a highly desirable terminal improvement, the earlier absence of whioh was a curious defect in a work of reference, and in which the misspelling of Tylor (as Taylor) and of Shaftesbury is not corrected. Here is no space or fitting occasion to discuss the author's altered estimates We still note that the historical development oooupying his mind is at least as much the development of the metaphysical bases and inductions of psychological inquiries as that of the scxtntifie inquiries themselves. The work might ue quite as fitly entitled Philosophy of Contemporary Psychology. And this being so, some account might have been taken of the psychological developments taking shape in connexion with rocent philosophy of perception in this country. Once more, the twenty-first century may oavil at the over-comprehensive title as less fitting than Contemporary Psychology in Europe and America would have Deem But this reflexion belongs to the re-adjusted perspectives of the future. Meanwhile the psychological student owes a great debt to Prof. Villa's splendid energy thus to tell us de novo how the sphere of such inquiries is growing, and of how he is growing along with it all the time.
doi:10.1093/mind/xxi.82.284 fatcat:mez5hvjmmfhh3klmp47i7lki6a