It is with pleasure that one notes the success of Messrs. Appleton & Co. in their effort to provide a series of reliable works on education. The latest addition to their educational series is this translation of another of Professor Preyer's remarkably thorough and accurate works on psychogenesis. The translation follows the German idiom a little too closely in some places, and the sentences are often too long and involved to give the clearest statement of the author's thought. On the whole, however, the translation is satisfactory, and should be very helpful to those interested in the training of the young.
Here is another monograph, with preface to advertise it. If the Herr Verleger had realized the ire which such advertisement raises in the scientific breast, he would have refrained from applying to Professor Lazarus, and might have counted more certainly upon impartial handling by the critics.
The writer's aim is the psychological and methodological treatment of a logical subject,—the analogical judgment. The Introduction rightly emphasizes the importance of the subject-matter and of the manner proposed for its consideration.
The work falls into three chapters. Chapter I deals with the developmental stages of the analogical activity in human thought. We find (1) external analogies,—both complexes belong to the domain of the outer experience; (2) objectivistic analogies,—the reproducing complex belongs to the inner, the reproduced to the outer experience; (3) subjectivistic analogies; (4) internal analogies. The analogical activity is two-fold: (1) the voluntary or involuntary formation of analogies; (2) the voluntary or involuntary completion by means of analogies. Chapter II treats of the formation of analogies, (1) Involuntary formation. Thought is pictorial; the idea is the analogical material. Special sections are devoted to sensation analogies and time and space analogies. (2) Formation under the influence of the will as end in itself. Three motives are discovered. (a) The necessity of assimilating new matter to the already existing ideational content leads to mythical personification, etc.[1] (b) The effort
- ↑ A small point! The author speaks of the 'Lazarus-Steinthal' apperception, meaning the 'Herbartian,' p. 29. Lazarus and Steinthal cannot be thus hyphened together; cf. Phil. Studien, I, pp. 149 ff. Wundt's terminus technicus, 'Assimilation,' seems better than 'apperception,' in the required sense.
