V. CRITICAL NOTICES. Outlines of Psychology, icith special reference to the Theory of Edu- cation. By JAMES SULLY, M.A. London: Longmans, Green, 1884. Pp. xxiv., 711. Mr. Sully's contributions to Psychology have already secured for him so distinct a place as one of the most able and successful students of the science that a reviewer of his latest work is absolved from the pleasant task of merely general eulogy. It needs not to be said in many words that in the Outlines of Psy- chology ample evidence is afforded of the writer's power of acute analysis and felicitous statement, and that the reader will find in it not only a valuable compendium of much new work but also rich material for further reflection. Nor does it seem needful to offer any opinion as to the comparative merit of the book viewed in relation to such similarly planned treatises as may formerly have been accessible to the English student. It goes without saying that Mr. Sully's book, coming as it does at a time when psychology is occupying an unusual amount of attention and the material of the science is constantly on the increase, must take a position distinctly in advance of its predecessors in the same line. It embodies researches of a novel description, and it brings before the student views and lines of inquiry the importance and signi- ficance of which have been but recently recognised. At the same time the circumstances which give to Mr. Sully's volume its fortunate position, as representing in compendious form an immense amount of new work in psychology, have other con- sequences and impose weighty obligations on the writer of a systematic treatise. It is an old theorem that form and matter go together, and certainly, in respect to any science, it is rarely possible for its material to increase largely in quantity without a change taking place in the fundamental notion, principle or method which animates the whole and gives it a special place in the wide domain of knowledge. The period which has been so rich in detailed psychological work has been one of continued discussion in regard to the exact nature, the conditions, even the possibility of a science of psychology. The many treatises on psychology which represent that work offer to the student a very chaos of conflicting views in respect to all the fundamental pro- blems of principle and method, and a teacher of psychology finds that his hardest, though perhaps not his least profitable, task is to give such an initial statement of the nature of his facts as shall be consistent and capable of development. That there are special grounds of difficulty in taking the first steps in psycho- logy is a well-recognised and much-deplored truth, and one might
