Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/157

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XL NOTES. PROF. MUNSTERBERG'S PSYCHOLOGY AND LIFE. I write to tile a protest against the matter and the manner of Mr. Schiller's notice of Prof. Mtinsterberg's Psychology and Life in the last issue of MIND. And I venture to do this because I am one of those who are directly responsible for Prof. Miinsterberg's appearing in English. Prof. Munsterberg became an active contributor and co-operating editor of The Psycholoijifdl Rt'rie.w with much hesitation, feeling naturally that his residence in America had been short and that his English might be criticised; he finally yielded with much courtesy and with great incon- venience to himself and consented to print his researches in English, at the same time requesting us who passed his MSS. editorially to aid him in matters of idiomatic expression. The chapters of the Psycholoyy and Life were first published in the Atlantic Monthly and passed through the hands of an editor whose standards as the record of his magazine Attest are as high as those of any journal published in the English language. That Prof. Munsterberg should now be criticised in terms so discourteous not to use stronger language seems, even apart from these circumstances, not only a flagrant breach of hospitality on the part of the foremost English philosophical journal but also a case of the airing of a private prejudice. If Mr. Schiller's notice should weigh seriously enough with Prof. Munsterberg to lead him to reconsider his decision to interpret his German works himself for English readers (as in this case) it would certainly be a loss to the English-reading public. As to the rest the tone of superiority and assumption of the reviewer toward an author of Prof. Miinsterberg's repute must, one cannot but believe, be accidental rather than deliberate, esprit rather than animus ; and on that supposition one may excuse its lack of close criticism and real discussion. But certainly a work of serious not to say strenuous philosophy, which has been prepared with great pains by the author from his larger German manuscript, deserves a more adequate and responsible review in MIND. J. MAHK BALDWIN. Prof. Baldwin's ' protest ' against my review of Prof. Miinsterbergs' book (in the last number of this journal) seems to suggest that my criti- cism may have been in some way, or to some extent, inspired by personal animus. I should like, therefore, to state emphatically that this was by no means the case, and that my criticism found the sources of its inspiration entirely within the four corners of Prof. Miinsterberg's book. That he and his friends should feel so aggrieved about it I regret, as also that I should have written in ignorance of the ' extenuating circum- stances ' that Prof. Baldwin enumerates. But as their existence in no wise appeared on the surface of Prof. Miinsterberg's work, which instead seemed to show features that warranted my strictures, I may perhaps be allowed to claim a similar indulgence on my own behalf. At all events I am confident that my review did not contain