Mind
a Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy
No. 1. Edited by George Cboom Robertson, M.A. London.
It is not usually the custom for one journal to review another, but in justice to ourselves, we feel bound to make a few remarks on Mind, as the editor, in his preface, has made a glaringly erroneous statement, which we must positively and emphatically contradict. He says: ?’’ The first English journal devoted to Psychology and Philosophy, Mind, ap- pears in circumstances that call for some remark. That no such. journal should hitherto have existed is hardly surprising.” Now, the first number of the “Journal of Psychological Medicine,” under the editorship of Dr. Forbes Winslow, appeared as far back as January 1st, 1848, and in that journal numerous articles have from time to time been published, oil philosophical and psychological subjects, precisely of the same charac- ter as those to which Mind is to be devoted. We will give a list of a few, and only a few, of the numerous critical disquisitions on philo- sophical subjects which have appeared in it, in order to prove how completely the editor of Mind is mistaken :?
April, 1858. “Mind and Body,” by Robert Jameson, M.D. July, 1858. “Psychology of Kant,” by Professor Hoppus. January, 1859. Ditto. ditto.
July, 1859. ” Sir Wm. Hamilton’s Lectures on Metaphysics.” April, 1860. ” Bain’s Psychology.”
July, 18G8. ” On the Law of Certainty,” by the Eev.W. G. Davies. But, setting aside entirely all personal feeling on the subject, Ave cannot congratulate the editor of Mind on the originality or brilliancy of the articles. They are little more than a rechauffe of the dangerous dogmas of the modern materialistic school ot philosophy, which lias led its admirers to imagine that the use of obscure pedantic phraseology is adding to our knowledge of the operations of the human mind.
Here is one specimen of the style, in one of the articles on the ” Theory of Evolution’.’:?” Shall Ave say that progress consists in in- creasing complexity of organisation, or (to use Mr. Spencer’s more precise phrase) in more and more definite coherent heterogeneity of changes in the liA’ing being correspondent to changes in its environ- ment?” From all Ave glean from the first number of the journal, Ave think it might as Avell be called Matter as Mind.
The notes of neAV foreign works at the end of the journal are very useful in shoAving what our Continental neighbours are doing in the fields of Psychology and Physiology.
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