NEW BOOKS

W. L. M.
1913 Mind  
NEWT BOOKS. that no single activity is the source of the idealising movomont in religion ; and it is also true that it is hard to frame any adequate definition of so complex a fact HS religion. He suggests we might apeak of it " AM man'a -whole bearing towards what seems to him the Best and Greatest". Tim is like the well-known definition of poetry a« " criticism of life," true n> far aa it goes, but not enough to include nil that is chnractcriHlic Some might define the moral consciousness in
more » ... e same terms. Any useful definition of religion mu.it contain a reference to the nen.->e of need, of incompleteness and dependence, on the human side, and the attribute of power on the divine side. Tn the concluding chapter where ho dinjussea Standards of Religion, Prof. Stratton reaches the boundary of the psycholnsiual field, and comen in sight of the problem of truth or validity. And if he does not seek to deal with the problem deliberately and in detail, he at least says enough to show IIR the direction in winch his thoughts are moving. To our mind he wisely ri' fusee to accept the theory that there is a single test of truth He distinguishes four kinds of truth, viz , pragmatic or utilitarian truths, truths of intellectual consistency aa in mathematics, value-truths, and truths of fict or represented reality. Religion is concerned with them all and not least with truth of fact for it " feels kflelf concerned with a larger world, not exixtent merely in idea, bat potent and actual ". So the religious consciousnesK supplements the given world by an ampler one, and that in a way that corre«ponds to the scientific postulate that the world implies a rational unity of things, and to the demands of the aesthetic and the moral coiwciouaneM that it should be seen as aesthetically satisfying and morally harmonious. Religion has an equal right with art and science to express its peculiar need, and an impartial world-view will take that need into account In religion as elsewhere the discovery of natural causes does not decide the <|uestion of validity. And though it is no part of the psychologist's task to pronounce on the matter of ultimate truth, Prof. Stratton at least makes it clear he does not sympathise with those who deny the reality of tho religious ideal. " The dim and broken image of perfection mnv well lie formed in sympathy with a Perfection that is most real . . . The truth may well be, that those definite causes which work lawfully, as science would describe, in our mental life and in external nature and by intercourse with other men, are themselves sanctioned by the Bent, as the means by which its own outline shall gradually appear in tho clouded minds of men" (p. 367). The book seems to as a very candid and suggestive one, and its perusal should be stimulating and profitable to all who are interested in tho subject. G. GAXLOWAT. Psychotherapy. Professor of Psychology in Harvard University. London and Leipzig : T. Fisher Unwin. Pp. x, 401. Thia m one of the most fascinating of the many book* that have come from the pen of Prof. Mftnaterbarg. In his preface he takes care to tell ua that the book i» one of a series in which he adapts the results of psychological reflection to the non-technical of various types of experience. The lawyer does not want the same class of facts as the doctor, and the layman has his own preferences. Hence the volumes on Prpekoiogy and Oriwu, ."tyckolon and the Ttadter, and Ptyckology and Lift. The present is another on the same plane of non-technicality. In a relative sense, all the books are " popular," bat this does not mean that
doi:10.1093/mind/xxii.1.134 fatcat:tw57kk2ypzcjnpehubsccvq5u4