Psychology: The Cognitive Powers. By James McCosh, D. D., LL. D., Litt. D. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1886. Pp. 245. Price, $1.50.
The author says in his preface: "For the last thirty-four years I have been teaching psychology. . . . From year to year I have been improving my course, and I claim to have advanced with the times." No one acquainted with Dr. McCosh's earlier treatises would deny upon examining this one that he has "advanced." The trouble is, he has not advanced fast enough nor far enough—"the times" have distanced him in the race; and, after we have given all due credit, we have to confess to ourselves that this latest work leaves us with the consciousness of a good deal to be desired. We suppose the author would maintain that his account of the cognitive powers is scientific. But at the very outset a suspicion is cast upon its scientific character by the opening sentence: "Psychology is the science of the soul. . . . By soul is meant that self of which every one is conscious." Now, we fear Dr. McCosh's Scotch fondness for theological battles has interfered in this case with that simplicity of truth which the faithful expositor of science ought to exhibit in his statements. The implications of the word soul extend much further than is indicated. Dr. Reid expressed them when he said, "It is a primitive belief that the thinking principle is something different from the bodily organism, and, when we wish to signalize its peculiar nature and destiny, we call it soul or spirit." In a word, soul has reference distinctively to mind as immortal or as capable of existing independently of the present bodily organism. This meaning is not openly declared by Dr. McCosh, but by the use of the term an argument is quietly instilled into the mind of the reader. President Porter, who also calls psychology the "science of the soul," is much more frank in his exposition. But, certainly, inasmuch as the immortality of the soul is something which we all hope psychology will demonstrate as a result of the examination of mental processes and powers, would it not be more satisfactory to every one and add to the value of our researches if we did not start out with assuming the point to be proved? This same disposition to study mind for the purpose of substantiating some theory crops out all too noticeably throughout the whole work. To refer again to the preface, we are informed that idealism and agnosticism are to be exploded, and, as we go on, the claws of polemical metaphysics protrude far too often for the scientific value of the book. The writer is fond of "laying down" positions which "deliver us" from great philosophical errors of the day. No doubt they do, but the warrant for laying them down is unfortunately not always so plain as the eagerness to establish them.
This is a very serious defect. Besides, although we find much to approve in particular statements, the latest, the clearest, the best results of psychological study are not brought out nor recognized as they should be. The same cloudiness and contradiction which perplex the student in the "Intuitions of the Mind" annoy us here. The classification of mental powers and their modes of exercise is cumbrous and antiquated. It is not so good as that of Sir William Hamilton, and is inferior to that of President Porter. We have, for example, no less than "six different capacities" of the representative powers, among which is placed association. But association is as much concerned with presentative knowledge as it is with representative; and even the old divisions of reproductive and productive imagination or memory and imagination would be quite sufficient to cover all not included under association. Moreover, it is very confusing to find afterward as distinct powers the comparative, including the apprehension of relations and discursive operations, as if the associative and representative powers were not adequate to explain all these mental acts. Moreover, under the "relations" classified, we notice identity and difference, and then resemblance. Obviously, identity is only complete agreement, and resemblance less complete; while it may be said of the whole catalogue of relations mentioned, that it would certainly be greatly simplified by almost every authority in psychological and logical science.
The treatment of the discursive operations is exceedingly meager, but doubtless the author thinks this should be left for logic. The exposition of sense-perception is
