Mind and Personality: An Essay in Psychology and Philosophy. By William Brown, M.D., D.Sc. (University of London Press. Pp. 344. Price 12 s. 6 d.

In the words of the preface, this book represents 'an attempt to obtain a synoptic view of personality, as considered from the standpoint of the

various sciences—especially from those of psychology, psycho-pathology and philosophy'. It covers a wide field, as the titles of the various sections clearly indicate (Personality and Physiology, Personality and Psychology, Personality and Experimental Psychology, Personality and Ethics, Personality and Evolution, Personality and Religion, Personality and Value, Survival of Bodily Death); and throughout this field it gives evidence of its author's erudition, breadth of interest, sympathetic understanding and literary ability. But while the amplitude of vision leaves little to be desired, the interrelations of the different parts of the spectacle that is unfolded lack a corresponding clearness. The reader is often transferred with somewhat uncomfortable abruptness from one field or one point of view to another, and receives less help in making these transitions than he might perhaps reasonably expect. Thus at one moment he is grappling with the mysteries of correlation formulæ and their application to the problems of general and specific abilities in mathematics, at another with questions of hypnosis and dissociation, then with the psychology of Plato and Aristotle, and again a few pages later with the relation of music to morals; and as each successive field is entered, he will find it difficult to see exactly how the present discussion bears upon what went before. It is only fair to admit that these difficulties are not entirely of the author's making. In the present state of psychology the different methods of approach and the data obtained through these methods are in fact still very inadequately related to one another. But this is only an additional reason for avoiding all unnecessary abruptness in passing from one field to another and for a careful treatment of the process of transition, especially in a work t