a misty dream. This may even result in a double consciousness where the real and the wish form of life course side by side, or alternately, the second form being the dominant one. Wendt then discusses the practical relations of the condition to criminality and to medico-legal questions.

A case is then narrated at length. The patient was a student of law, aged twenty-two. The morbid condition, although resting on constitutional grounds, appeared periodically on three occasions the first of which was at the time of puberty. On the last of these the condition was much exaggerated, the patient posed as a count, conducted himself accordingly and ultimately came into conflict with the law over money matters. He imagined himself possessing all sorts of enviable attributes, and quite confounded reality and fiction. Wendt discusses the clinical diagnosis, especially between paranoia, mania, and hysteria, and considers the case to be more nearly allied to the last named. He finally deals with the legal and prognostic aspects of the case.

ERNEST JONES.

DE L'ATTENTION. E. Rignano. Scientia. Vol. X, No. 20, 1911.This paper constitutes the first part of the author's contribution to the subject of attention. Attention is one of the most important of mental phenomena and consists of certain reactions to distance receptors by which the organism is maintained in a longer or shorter state of suspense. Phylogenetically, many of these states of suspense or attention arose from memories of past deceptions to which the organism had been subjected. Frequent deceptions gave rise to certain useless, consumatory acts, therefore the failure to react in a certain manner produced antagonistic acts or a maintenance of the organism in suspense. It is precisely this state of suspense which constitutes the state of attention. This theory of the evolution of attention is similar to Jenning's theory of the birth of intelligence arising from the "method of trial and error" in lower organisms and is distinctly opposed to any mechanistic hypothesis.

Attention, therefore, seems to have evolved from reactions to distance receptors. It is made up of the contrast between two affective tendencies, of which the second, inhibited by the first, ceases its complete activity for a time and is thus maintained in suspense or attention. According to this theory the primary cause of attention seems to be antagonistic affective states, and conversely, there can be no state of attention without this affective antagonism. Curiosity is one of the light forms of this affect

ive contrast and is a special state of attention produced by new stimuli or circumstances. If this affective activity or interest be reduced to a minimum, attention becomes blunted. When it is reduced to zero, sleep results. because we sleep in the exact measure that we are disinterested. He does not agree with Ribot's theory that motor phenomena are the prime factors in all attentive processes, but thinks that attention is pre-eminently of central origin. The motor elements of attention are merely secondary manifestations and are not indispensable for attentive processes.

Intense attention is concentrated or narrowed on one object and thus produces a state of distraction or mental dissociation. Light attention passes quickly from one object to another. Thus attention safeguards the unity of consciousness, although it is not a necessary condition of consciousness.

PSYCHASTHENIA AND INEBRIETY.

I. H. CORIAT.

Tom A. Williams.

National Association of Study of Alcohol and other Narcotics. Atlantic City, June, 1909.

DR. WILLIAMS begins with the consideration of the psychasthenic constitution, how it is acquired, its relation to the need for excitation, how to compensate for psychasthenic insufficiencies, prevention in childhood and youth.

1. Constant interferences with the spontaneous volitions of the child induce mental hesitation and doubt and search for approval before any act is begun, producing a premature and indiscriminate inhibition. Activities thus frustrated find their expression in such derivities as grimaces and tics, morbid fears and mental ruminations and obsessions.

2. The chronic dissatisfaction thus engendered, when once removed by the forgetfulness of narcosis, again seeks this means of terminating itself, and a habit of drug taking is easily formed.

3. The psychotherapy of the psychasthenic state must afford innocuous satisfactions for a desire which is only unphysiological, because of its insistence and lack of correspondence with environment. The most satisfying and permanent of these is work of a definite kind, to call into action and gradually fortify the volitional power. This is best done by motorial and especially productive activities, in which the sight of something accomplished tends to remove the sense of inadequacy and want of achievement felt by psychasthenics.

4. Prophylaxis in childhood and youth against insufficiencies of this kind is best accomplished by games, the interest in which

causes vivid attention and practice in concentrating the full activity upon the task in hand; whence the best guarantee for success in performance and the feeling of personal triumph gained by one's own efforts and not merely imparted by the reflected glory of one's associates. Games must be supervised to guarantee the weaker, who require them most, against the discouragement of their activities by those who excel them.

AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT.

THE WORLD OF DREAMS. By Havelock Ellis. Boston, 1911. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., pp. 288.

In this popular study of the nature and genesis of dreams, Havelock Ellis approaches the dream problem by the introspective method, although, as must be evident in a book intended. for popular reading, he does not enter into the details of psychoanalysis. The dream mechanisms discussed are chiefly those of normal dreaming. According to the author a large majority of dreams originates in tactile, auditory and even visual peripheral stimuli. This furnishes the main theme of the book. Concerning the actual mechanism of the dream, however, that is, the dream work and the transformation of these peripheral stimuli into dreams, he leaves us in the dark. It seems strange that he does not devote more space concerning pathological dreams and their value as a most convenient method for exploring the unconscious, as such details would interest the popular mind and could be given without entering into the finer technique of psychoanalysis. Although he gives a most interesting account of the psychology of dreaming, yet we cannot agree with his contention for the peripheral origin of all dreams, as the result of all psychoanalysis strongly militates against a theory of this sort. He rightly discards any supernatural element in dreams, such as prophecy or premonitions of the future. In turn, he discusses motion, aviation, symbolism, and memory in dreams, and he insists on the evolution of myths and folk lore as arising out of the dreams of primitive man, a point which has recently been elaborated by the followers of Freud. As must be expected in a popular book, one misses any profound psychological analyses of dreams. He points out, and here we agree with him, that the introspective method of dream study is far more valuable than the experimental or statistical method. The portion of the book devoted to Freud gives an interesting but rather condensed account of his work on dreams, and we note with interest that he disagrees with Freud in not interpreting all dreams as an imaginary wish fulfillment, a tendency which must force itself upon any one who has had any practical experience with the psychoanalysis of dreams. The wish is not the fundamental and positive element in dreams, because the unconscious may have other functions beside wishing, such as fear, mental conflicts and even non-fulfillments of wishes.

He divides dreams into the peripheral or presentative group, excited by a stimulus from without and a central or representative

group, having its elements in conscious or unconscious memories. However, he almost completely rejects the latter type and believes that all dreams have received their initial stimulus from some external or peripheral source or some internal organic stimulus. We cannot fully agree with this viewpoint, although admiting at the same time that some dreams may have a purely peripheral origin. This, however, at once plunges us into the immense difficulty of interpreting how an elementary external stimulus can be transformed into an elaborate or complex dream, particularly since, in sleep, there is an almost complete absence of external stimuli.

The dreams of flying (aviation dreams), he interprets as due to the diminished state of tactile pressure in sleep, and not, as Freud claims, for instance, in his analysis of Leonardo da Vinci, to a concealed sexual wish. Sometime the same symptom is found in hysteria, that is a sensation of abnormal lightness of the body due to the tactile anaesthesia. This is evidently the explanation of the hysterical ecstasy, which played so great a part in the sensations of levitation in the religious manifestations of the medieval saints. On the whole, the book is clearly and interestingly written, is full of interesting material, and furnishes an excellent introduction for the lay reader to the scientific study of dreams and their mental mechanism.

I. H. CORIAT.

SCIENTIFIC MENTAL HEALING. By H. Addington Bruce, [M.A.] Boston. Little, Brown and Company, 1911. Pp. ix, 258.

THIS readable book is made up of eight chapters, four on the history and methods of psychotherapy, one on dissociated personality, one on some of the recent practical applications of psychology, one on psychical research, and the eighth chapter is one of the very numerous appreciations of the great William James. Just about half of the volume, then, deals with mental healing, and to very many people it will serve as a relish for more, for it is written in a clear and simple style with variety of fact and illustration and the subject already is a reasonably large one.

The first chapter, "The Evolution of Mental Healing," points out the probable usefulness of hypnosis among the early Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese priesthood; deals briefly with Mesmer, Braid, Liébeault, and others, and very properly proceeds to give to Quimby the credit due him for his influence on the mental healing culture of our own day. The two chapters following, "Principles and Methods" and "Masters of the Mind" by name,