which are indirectly inferred (p. 57). "Excitation and sensation [are not] cause and effect [but] merely...the same objects taken in from different standpoints" (p. 63). Now excitation of material sense organs and original sensations being but the same 'objects' from different standpoints and mnemic sensations being identical with original sensations from one of these standpoints, the other standpoint is assumed to demand an excitation of material "stimulable substance" as the correlate of mnemic sensation and this is found in the ecphory of an engram.

"The engram is a lasting, latent change in the organic substance" (p. 171). "The ecphory of an engram should be understood as being its passage from the latent to the active state or, in other words, the arousing of a condition of excitation (= sensation), which has remained as a permanent, though locally dormant, alteration in the sensitive substance of an organism" (p. 179). The processes concerned and the dependence of mnemic sensation on original sensation are set out in two mnemic principles:

I. The principle of engraphy: "All simultaneous excitations (manifested in our case by sensations) within our organisms form a connected simultaneous complex of excitations which, as such, acts engraphically, that is to say, leaves behind it a connected and, to that extent, unified engram-complex" (pp. 159160).

II. The principle of ecphory: "An ecphoric effect upon a simultaneous engram-complex is obtained by the partial return of the excitation-complex which on its side has deposited an engram-complex, and this return must take the form either of original excitations (produced by an original stimulus) or of mnemic excitations (produced in the second instance by a mnemic process)" (p. 181).

Stimulation of a sense organ results in original excitation (sensation), the excitation outliving the stimulus and dying down, at first rapidly and then more slowly. The phase of excitation (sensation) coterminous with the stimulation is termed the synchronous phase: the succeeding phase, which again may be subdivided, is termed the acoluthic phase. The synchronous phase and acoluthic phase together make up an original excitation (sensation). An isolated simple sensation is never experienced: we are ever the victims of simultaneous complexes of excitations, some in synchronous phase and others in all stages of the acoluthic phase and each simultaneous complex leaves its engram impress in "some still blank portion of the stimulable substance" (p. 258). The simultaneousness' must have duration for "every process of excitation in our organic substance, even the briefest, must take a measurable time" (p. 170), and as in each duration block the acoluthic phases of excitation from past stimuli are mingled with the synchronous phase of excitations from present stimuli and will carry over, with new acoluthic phase excitation from present stimuli, into the next duration block we have an organic basis for the 'specious present' and all 'forms of association' can be reduced to simultaneous association (Ch. X).

In the engram complex left by a simultaneous excitation complex, in addition to the engrams from original excitations, there are engrams from the mnemic excitations present and also "a ground pattern left by the cyclically recurrent organic sensations...making a sort of background on which all other engrams are embroidered." In this 'sort of background' is found the explanation of the non-reversibility of mnemic succession, for when the complex is ecphorised "these mnemic breathing and circulation excitations (= sensations)

Med. Psych. IV

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are prevented from reversing their course by the inevitable presence during every ecphory of original sensations of breathing and circulation" (Ch. XI).

Two forms of localisation of the engram store are recognised-one the topogenous localisation described at length in Mneme and corresponding to the "special topographical configuration in the central organ" (p. 261), the other chronogenous localisation introduced to account for the fact that "our individually acquired store of engrams is always at our disposal in chronological strata" (p. 171). The author is satisfied that the basis of each form of localisation is a material change in the stimulable substance but criticises the more common physiological explanations of facilitation and declares that to follow this material change "into the molecular stage [is] a hopeless undertaking at the present stage of our knowledge" (pp. 154, 259, 328).

The concept of homophony, confined to mnemic homophony in Mneme, is extended and used to explain abstraction, increase in vividness, and "differentials of sensations" such as "sensation of depth" and recognition in a way that compels careful consideration, and, whether we can accept his foundation assumptions and agree with his conclusions or not, arouses regret that the author was unable to give to us "that further application of the general modes of thinking and the special methods inaugurated in his Mneme which [he] proposed making in a future work" (p. 338).

In the interesting introduction we are given a warm appreciation of Semon's work in the form of "Notes on some applications of mnemic principle in recent psychological literature."

The translator has given us a very readable edition of a difficult work, but a few errors that have been missed seem to call for a correcting slip.

R. J. BARTLETT.

The Unstable Child: An Interpretation of Psychopathy as a Source of Unbalanced Behaviour in Abnormal and Troublesome Children. By FLORENCE MATEER, A.M., Ph.D., Formerly Psycho-clinician in the Ohio Bureau of Juvenile Research. New York and London: D. Appleton and Co., 1924. Pp. xii 471. Price $ 2.75.

This book is a rather important, because constructive, contribution to our understanding of constitutional personality-defect. It materially helps us to clarify a little our more or less indefinite notions as to this greatly important branch of psychiatry. It does this all the better because it discusses the beginnings of psychopathy, namely in children. Personality, the individuality of mankind, is so uniquely complex and various, so incommensurable and irrelative, that every discussion and real description must receive especial welcome from those who pursue "the proper study of mankind" as man.

The author comes to her work well prepared by both 'education' and experience. After graduation from the Pennsylvania State Normal School at West Chester and five years of classroom teaching in the grades, Dr Mateer was for three years research assistant to Dr H. H. Goddard at the Training School for the Feeble-Minded at Vineland, New Jersey. Three years of graduate work at Clark University were followed by two years as psychologist at the Massachusetts Institution for the Feeble-Minded. The next three years were spent as psycho-clinician in the Ohio Bureau of Juvenile Research. Thereafter

Dr Mateer established at Columbus a private school for corrective treatment of psychopathic children in which her present contribution has grown and been tested. It is doubtful if a medical course would have added much to her adequacy in this constructive writing, however much it would advantage her in the actual handling of the children.

Psychopathy stresses the badly-functioning aspect of personality-defect, just as mental deficiency, amentia," oligophrenia,' as Bleuler poorly calls it, stands for a native or acquired lessening proper of intelligence abstract, social, or mechanical, or all of them at once. This book emphasises the humanness, so to say, and the curability of much of the psychopathy of childhood: "The world in which we live is a world full of people who show tendencies toward such traits as excessive talking [sic] (so-called verbalism), mutism, irrational anger, extreme irritability, or ease of acquiring a 'grouch,' too easily aroused optimism ['aroused optimism' is a fine bit of cynicism too], incoherence, irrationality, automatic habits, perseverative conversation on the same subject, too great interest in the subject of sex, over-inquisitiveness, solitariness, lying evidently for the joy of it. One-half of the world is constantly wearing out and using up energy needlessly because of the irritating inconsequences of the other half. It is not obvious, glaring lack of intelligence that exasperates one so frequently in everyday life, but the 'peculiarities,' 'mannerisms,' and 'oddities,' too small to resent, too great to accept without actual nervestrain.... We are all more or less psychopathic. The determining factor is the degree of our malfunctioning....Only when such an individual's variation, or a group of such variations, makes an individual's behaviour deviate so definitely from what is done by the social group to which he as an individual belongs that it is impossible for him to live as a member of that group, without definite discomfort to the group, or without violating the social code in such a way as becomes a menace to human progress, may we say that his condition is definitely psychopathic."

The criterion of psychopathy, then, for Miss Mateer, is more or less local custom, and a psychopath in Massachusetts would be normal or superman even in sight of Mount Albert Edward in Papua. But for practical purposes, however inadequate in theory, this definition works out very well. The psychopathic child is a child maladjusted to highly-civilised communities.

Perhaps the best way of suggesting the range and the contents of this thoughtful book is to quote the thirty-one chapter-titles. They are divided into two groups, respectively relating to theory and to practice: "The Origin of Clinical Psychology; Recent Tendencies in Clinical Psychology; Problems of To-day; The Future Laboratory of Clinical Psychology; The Clinical Psychologist, Himself; Means and Methods; Verification of Results; Results So Far Obtained; A New Angle: Psychopathy; Methods of Determining Psychopathy; Serepta, a Psychopath; The Delinquent as a Deviate; A Practical Study of Delinquents; Children Under Six Mentally; Children Six to Nine Mentally; Children Ten to Twelve Mentally; Normal, but-; Intelligence Plus Delinquency; Generalisations; Congenital Syphilis; Conclusions." And there is a good index as well as an adequately-orienting preface.

As is the common recent practice (often overdone) in this kind of a work, almost half the book is taken up with case histories and a somewhat detailed analysis in mental age groups of the cases studied at the Ohio Bureau of Juvenile Research. This includes an excellent brief discussion of the delinquency of childhood and of early adolescence.

"It is wrong mental function-psychopathy-that explains unbalanced behaviour when mental age, heredity, environment, physical condition, and education give no clue." "There is no such thing as a bad child. Either he does not know any better or else he cannot help it.' "Pure cussedness," the intuitive slogan of so many parents and guardians, has no obvious place as a reality in the neopallium of Dr Mateer.

"The psychopath is a chance waste-product of our attempts at civilisation. [One wonders if the author be a socialist at heart.] He will not grow less numerous. He is with us to stay. It is our duty and our privilege to study and to help him. He feels intensely, lives exceedingly. He is a bundle of contradicting desires, abilities, and defects. He has potentialities. What he needs is early detection, long years of training, supervised parole without stigma, and a chance to make good."

Such optimism does the author, a young woman, credit. Surely it will not be her fault if the years show that the optimism be extravagant-for the problem is one of the most basal and difficult in the whole vast range of humanity's amelioration and evolution.

NEW YORK.

GEORGE VAN NESS DEARBORN.

Abnormal Behaviour: An Introduction to the Study of Abnormal and Anti-Social Behaviour. By IRVING J. SANDS, M.D., and PHYLLIS BLANCHARD, Ph.D. London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., 1923. Pp. viii + 482. Price 16s. net.

The writers of this book have sought to give a general summary of recent work upon abnormalities in human conduct. To contribute new data or original views is not their purpose. What they have aimed at is a sane and systematic presentation of current views, without emphasising any one theory or aspect at the cost of the remainder.

The first portion of the book consists of a description of the emotional, intellectual and physical bases of human behaviour. In discussing the emotional basis they accept McDougall's view that each human emotion is correlated with a special instinctive tendency, and that these instinctive tendencies, together with the emotional energy which their excitement releases, form the mainsprings of human conduct. The list of instincts offered by the writers differs a little from that familiarised by English psychologists. It comprises the following: (1) the food-seeking instinct, correlated with the feeling of hunger; (2) the instinct to escape, correlated with the emotion of fear; (3) the instinct to fight, correlated with the emotion of anger; (4) the reproductive instincts, correlated with sexual emotion; (5) the parental instinct, correlated with parental emotion; (6) the tendency to manipulate, correlated with the feeling of curiosity; (7) the instinctive and emotional activities designated by the terin play; and, finally, (8) the gregarious tendencies and emotions, by which is understood the impulse to act like other members of the herd. Other instincts sometimes recognised, such as those of self-assertion, self-subjection, and disgust, are passed over. They are (somewhat singularly) considered as of relatively small importance for the problems of human behaviour. In discussing emotional conflicts as causes of disorders of behaviour, the writers

lay chief stress upon the sexual instincts. But they also believe that feelings of fear and feelings of inferiority may cause analogous disturbances.

Intelligence they define as 'innate intellectual capacity'; and, after a short account of the more familiar tests of intelligence and a brief discussion of individual differences in regard both to general intelligence and to special abilities, they examine at considerable length the importance of mental deficiency as a contributory factor in the production of anti-social conduct.

The human organism is then described as a physical rather than a psychical mechanism; and a short outline is given of the structure of the body and the functions of its several organs. The writers explain what is the influence upon conduct both of physical development and of physical disease; and offer a clear and careful summary of what is known about the glands of internal secretion in their relation to mental abnormality.

They then return to the methods of psychology and psychiatry. They describe the better known rating-scales for the description of personality; and give short delineations of what they term 'personality-types'-the manicdepressive type, the neurotic type, the 'shut-in' type, and the ego-centric type.

Three chapters are devoted to the part played respectively by psychoses, by psycho-neuroses, and by epileptiform disturbances in producing disorders of conduct: and two additional chapters are devoted to the more special problems of suicide and of drug-addiction.

The volume concludes with a section of a more practical bearing, dealing in separate chapters with the problems of education, vocation, and criminality. Much stress is rightly laid upon maladjustment, both in school and in business, as a factor in anti-social conduct. The treatment of these topics, however, is somewhat narrow. In dealing with educational maladjustments the writers are thinking chiefly of the epileptic, the syphilitic, and the mentally defective. Milder and commoner defects of temperament and intelligence are touched upon but lightly. The problem of the neurotic school-child, however, receives due recognition. In discussing vocational maladjustments, they are again interested in the rarer problems of mental deficiency and of insanity, more than in the more ordinary causes of inefficiency and discontent. The large amount of work done on vocational guidance for more normal individuals hardly receives sufficient recognition. In discussing modern methods for the correction and prevention of delinquency they take a broader standpoint. They still emphasise the bearing of recent psychiatric knowledge upon the treatment of delinquency. But they recognise that disorders of intelligence and temperament of a milder kind equally need diagnosis and treatment.

In the main, the survey is admirably eclectic. All the more important lines of contemporary research and speculation are duly but not disproportionately noticed. The whole of the discussions are rendered admirably concrete by the introduction of nearly a hundred and forty brief case-studies to illustrate the main points made. Each chapter has attached to it an excellent bibliography for supplementary reading. The book is written in non-technical language; and thus forms an admirable introductory volume, not only for the student of psychology and medicine, but also for the parent, the teacher, the magistrate, and the social worker.

C. BURT.