252 CRITICAL NOTICES : retained. This indicates a distinct cerebral embodiment, not to say area, for each class of ' ' Vorstellung ". This principle is applied all through. And " Aphasia " is expanded to include the disturb- ances of other activities. The definite varieties produced by dis- ease are, as ib were, a " Vivisektion des Physiologen " (p. 306), as hypnosis is " Vivisektion des Psychologen ". I am inclined to think that Dr. Wallas 'hek, like the majority of those that use the same materials either for psychological or medical purposes, make somewhat too uncriticised a use of the grosser pathological states. It is no doubt true that the mental phenomena associated with aphasia, for instance, in a case of hemiplegia, are constant enough to permit of detailed analysis, and the broken brain, so far as it functions at all, may still yield something mental. But it is clear that the mental phenomena present are often not functionally on the same plane as the normal, any more than the irregular muscular contractions in a broken limb are on the same plane as normal walking. The danger is less where the so-called functional paralyses are in question. The investigation of these has been abundantly illustrated by Eaymond and Pierre Janet. Of this class of analysis there is little or nothing in this book. Analysis by hypnosis is carefully estimated. Incidentally, in every section, practical hints for educational purposes are freely given. One point Dr. Wallaschek repeats in many connexions, namely, that the true direction in acquisition is from whole to part, not from abstract part to whole. The part takes its meaning from the whole, which is not the mere sum of its parts. Gower's patient, who, on being requested to say "No," declared at last " I cannot say no," is cited to show that the whole sentence has one place in the brain, the individual word another. But this assumes that the word in question, when uttered in the particular sentence, was in content the same as it would have been if uttered alone, which is doubt- ful. But, in the wide sense that words as symbols of meaning and words as mechanical sounds give rise to different varieties of dis- position in the brain and so form organic parts of different varieties of whole, we may accept Dr. Wallaschek's contention of whole and part. As the sentence to the word, so is the word to the letters in it (p. 16). In practical education, no doubt, the percep- tion of meaning assists acquisition, but it is equally true that mechanical acquisition of many words, formulae, etc., is not only possible, but essential to progress. The main point is that the thing to be acquired be the right thing. If it is lodged in the memory or in the habit, it will be of ultimate service whether the meaning is perceived at the time or not. That our rote-acquisi- tions at school are relatively so small is due largely to the fact that by the infinitely varied repetitions of daily life we acquired by rote much that we should otherwise have had specially to learn. Pos- sibly, Dr. Wallaschek would accept this ; but his repeated insistence on the necessity of always " understanding " what is learned seems to me too unqualified.
