Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/112

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98
THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.
[Vol. II.

— This naturally precedes verbal blindness. The subject may write music, but cannot read it (Proust, etc.). One case is cited. In it, the time-value of the notes was recovered before their tonic value; cf. Ribot's law of regression. γ. Motor or expressional amusia. — Some aphemics retain their motor song-images, but cannot reproduce the words of the songs. A more numerous class retains the airs and their motor images, but only recovers speech for the words of these airs. In motor amusia, the aphemics have lost the motor memory for singing, as they have that for articulation. Probably this amusia can occur in the absence of aphemia. 5. Conclusions. Two hypotheses are possible: that the centres for music are identical with those of speech, but that partial functional disability may arise; or that the centres are near together, but distinct. The question must be decided by pathological anatomy. Physiologically, we may apply to music as to speech the theory of the three images (auditory, visual, motor). As regards classification, we may distinguish total (or, at least, complex) amusia and simple amusia (of reception; tonal deafness and notal blindness: and of transmission; vocal and instrumental motor amusia). Amusia may exist independently of aphasia. Finally, timbre will be imaged in terms of pure audition; melodious song in those of audition, sight, and muscle sense; the harmonic chord in those of audition, supplemented by vision; rhythm by those of the muscle sense alone.

E. B. T.


On the Introspective Study of Feeling. H. M. Stanley. Science, Oct. 7, 1892.

Psychology is a very imperfect science. Not even the classification of psychic phenomena into intellect, feeling, and will is universally accepted. Most apparent is the imperfection in the domain of feeling. Literary authority and common observation are the sources from which most essays on feeling draw their inspiration; and they are often colored also by ethical or philosophical bias. To study feeling scientifically, we must assume that it is "a biological function, governed by the general laws of life, and subject ... to the law of struggle for existence." The first difficulty that meets us here is the automorphism of psychological method. Yet this subjective method is necessary. Can it give us direct knowledge of feeling, as conscious content, or only mediate knowledge, through its accompaniments? Ward upholds the latter position. But though the cognition of feeling as a fact of consciousness is always associated with the feeling-disturbance of consciousness itself, the two processes are distinct. There is nothing in the nature of feeling to make it only indirectly observable by consciousness.

E. B. T.