VII. CRITICAL NOTICES. A Handbook of Psychology. By J. CLAKK MURRAY, LL.D., F.B.S.C., JProfessor of* Mental and Moral Philosophy, M'Gill College, Montreal. London : A. Gardner ; Montreal : Daw- son Brothers, 1885. Pp. x., 422, cr. 8vo. In his prefatory note Prof. Murray intimates explicitly that his work is designed solely as an introduction for students to psycho- logy, and he is certainly entitled to claim that any estimate of its contents shall bear in mind the limits so imposed. No one who has any acquaintance with the present state of psychology would hesitate to admit with Prof. Murray that " there are problems, still unsettled, which affect even the fundamental principles of the science " ; and to allow that obstacles of a very serious kind beset any effort to expound the subject in an elementary fashion. So much is this the case, that one's interest in an elementary treatise concerns mainly the method adopted for overcoming the inherent difficulties of the treatment. In this country, what has been called psychology has acquired by tradition the place of propaedeutic discipline for philosophy generally, and for one reason or another it has been insisted that, whether or not psy- chology be the fundamental philosophical science, it is only through the portal of psychological analysis that the student can be safely introduced to the temple of speculation. In defiance of traditional nomenclature, however, one might maintain that the propaedeutic analysis commonly described as psychology, the merits of which need not be called in question, is not psychology at all, does not involve the special notions that characterise psychology as a science, and rests but little if at all on psycho- logical analysis of mind. Further, it may fairly be contended that when there are taken into consideration the kind of problem that a scientific psychology has to attempt, the means at our dis- posal for attacking it, and the success that has hitherto attended efforts at its solution, no subject can be deemed less well adapted for introductory purposes, no subject lends itself more grudgingly to elementary treatment. In saying so, I am by no means in- sensible to the weighty argument by which in this Journal the tradition of the English psychological method of approaching phi- losophy has been enforced and defended. I fully admit that in fol- lowing up psychological analysis the investigator may be bi'ought in contact with all the deepest problems of general philosophy ; but then exactly the same must be said of every separate philo- sophical science, and to say it is merely to emphasise the fact that philosophy is, so to speak, a closed circle. From whatsoever point one starts, continuous progress will involve in the long run just the problems that would be faced had one started elsewhere.
