Lew. Wallace - "The Prince of India"

John H. Parker - "The Gatlings at Santiago"

Captain Wilbur Lawton - "The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash"

Abraham Lincoln - "State of the Union Addresses of Abraham Lincoln"

The Journal of Abnormal Psychology vol 10

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REFERENCES

A. Brill--Piblokto or Hysteria among Peary's Eskimos. Journal of Nervous
and Mental Disease, Vol. 40 No. 8--1913.

S. Freud--Totem und Tabu--1913.

E. Kraepelin--Vergleichende Psychiatrie. Centralblatt f. Nervenheilk. U.
Psychiatrie. Bd. XV. July, 1904.



TWO INTERESTING CASES OF ILLUSION OF PERCEPTION

BY GEORGE F. ARPS

The Ohio State University

THE first case here reported came to the notice of the writer through the
attending physician; the second case was reported by the father of the child
after the attending physician had failed of satisfactory treatment. The
second case is especially interesting and serviceable in connection with the
phenomenon of visual space perception.

The first case is that of a boy, nine years of age, healthy, vigorous, who
in his play ground and street reactions parallels that of any normal boy of
his age. Aside from measles and an occasional disturbance of digestion he
has been singularly free from childhood's common diseases. The father and
mother are strong Hanoverian Germans holding with puritanic strictness to
the dogmas of the Lutheran religious faith. So far as is ascertainable there
can be no question of faulty inheritance, at least not so far as the
immediate parents and grandparents enter into the problem.

The child upon retiring and usually while still wide awake uttered wild
screams of terror. Upon inquiry the child complained of falling and
clutched vigorously to the bed clothes and the arms of the parents. Usually
the phenomenon disappeared when he was taken out of bed and walked about but
reappeared when he lay down. He complained of pain in his eyes, neck and
fore- and after-parts of his head. No amount of persuasion dispelled the
illusion. It should be emphasized that the illusion occurred in full waking
state and rarely as a dream.

An attempt was made to correlate the illusion with the momentum of the day's
activity. According to the parents the illusion appeared in aggravated form
when the neighborhood boys congregated in a cluster of trees at the edge of
the village and when playing "train" in which case the barn-top functioned
as the locomotive while a high board fence and an adjoining neighbor's barn
functioned as the cars and caboose respectively.

The village physician offered no explanation. He prescribed a hot bath and
a "closer supervision of the evening meal." The dilatation of the cutaneous
capillaries consequent to the bath lowered the cerebral circulation and to
some extent reduced the intensity of the illusion.

The cue to the cure appeared when the child, in expressing his fear,
complained because he could not see the parent who sat beside him on the
bed. Upon lighting the room the child seemed pacified but still held tightly
to anything within reach. As a rule the illusion disappeared within thirty
minutes after illumination. It was then suggested that the child be put to
bed in a well lighted room. This was done but the phenomenon reappeared
although in a less aggravated form. Degree of illumination and intensity of
the illusion appeared related. The phenomenon failed to appear at all when a
coal oil lamp was placed beside the bed not over two feet from the child's
head. For six months the boy went to sleep facing the full glare of the
lamp. Gradually the lamp was removed until it occupied a position in the
hall. Whenever the illusion recurred the lamp was replaced in its original
position.

It is quite probable that the intensity of the visual stimulus (the lamp)
deflected the nervous current from the neural processes underlying the
illusion and thus changed the direction of attention. Any intense
distraction, other than the one employed, would probably have served the
same purpose. At the end of a year and a half the phenomenon entirely
disappeared.

The second case is that of a six-year-old girl, the daughter of highly
educated parents. With reference to this case two interesting phenomena
were observed: (a) that of mirror-writing of the common variety and (b)
that of ambiguous interpretation of the retinal impressions.

The phenomenon of mirror-writing here observed parallels that of many other
cases in which the left-right direction is reversed. These commoner cases
take on an added interest when considered in connection with a case of
double space inversion. Such a case is on record.[1] The double inversion
consists in writing all verbal symbols and digits up side down and backward.
In this case the boy had perfect pseudoscopic vision at the beginning of his
school work. Stratton, by a system of lenses, artificially produces the
same distortions and throws some light on the phenomenon.[2]

[1] G. F. Arps, a Note on a Case of Double Space Inversion. Annals of
Ophthalmology, July, 1914, Vol. XXIII, p. 482.

[2] Psychological Review, Vol. IV, pp. 341-360 and 463-481.

It is in the phenomenon of ambiguity in the interpretation of the retinal
eye processes that this case finds its value. At the dinner table the child
complained of the decrease in size of a number of objects in the room,
especially was this true of the apparent size of the father's head. The
frequency of the complaint led the father to seek the advice of an occulist
who pronounced the child's vision perfect in every way. Over and over again
while seated at the dinner table the child would exclaim, "O father how
small your head is!"

The explanation of this phenomenon is found in the method employed to
dispell the illusion. It was suggested that, at the moment of the
appearance of the phenomenon, the child be requested to fixate the end of
the father's index finger which was revolved, in the air, to form various
geometrical figures. This had the desired effect. Clearly we have here a
case of the object altering its apparent size without altering its distance.
Under normal conditions a change in size is followed by a corresponding
change in the distance. It is probable that we have here inadequate
convergence and that the optic axes do not intersect at the object but
beyond, so that the axes are more or less parallel. Thus the feeling of
convergence is less intense than experience teaches is necessary to perceive
the object as such a size and at such a distance. If degree of convergence
is a criterion for distance and if distance is a measure for the apparent
size of an object then we have the conditions necessary for the appearance
of the illusion.

Here we have the retinal image constant for the apparent and the real size
of the object (head). Obviously the retinal processes are constant for the
two interpretations of magnitude and the ambiguity is due to the concomitant
factor of convergence.

The conditions necessary to decrease the real size of an object while still
maintaining an unaltered image are produced without artificial means.
Wheatstone, a long time ago, arranged his stereoscope so that a negative
correlation obtained between the degree of convergence and size of the
retinal image.[3]

[3] Philosophical Transactions, 1852.

Very interesting is the fact that Stratton demonstrated by artificial means
what was naturally the case in that of the boy reported in the Annals
referred to above. Wheatstone demonstrated by artificial means what was
naturally the case in that of the girl here reported.



REVIEWS

FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS, ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES. By H. H. Goddard. The
Macmillan Co., N. Y., 1914. 599 pp., illustrated.

Two comprehensive attempts have been made in recent years to study the
inheritance of mental abnormality, one in England at the Eugenics Laboratory
of the University of London, the other in this country under the leadership,
more or less immediate, of the Eugenics Record Office. Both the English and
the American school of workers agree that different grades of mental
ability, mental defect and insanity are strongly inherited. But the two
schools have reached very different conclusions as to the manner of
inheritance of mental traits and mental defects. Each school entertains
profound disrespect for the scientific methods and conclusions of the other
and with the frankness and honesty which devotion to truth demand has freely
criticised the other. By this criticism, at the bottom friendly though
sometimes caustic, science has undoubtedly profited. The later work of each
school begins to show the chastening influence of adverse criticism.

The English school has leaned backward in its devotion to the inductive
method of accumulating inheritance data, ostensibly without prejudice for or
against any particular theory but in reality with an ill-concealed bias
against anything savoring of "Mendelism." The American school recognizing
in Mendelism a great advance and an important instrument for the discovery
of new truth, has ignored the possibility that other undiscovered laws of
heredity may exist and has cast aside as superfluous the valuable biometric
tools wrought with much patient toil by Galton and Pearson. It will be the
part of wisdom for students of genetics to imitate the hostile attitude of
neither school, but to utilize the positive results of both. This is what
Dr. Goddard has done in the work under review.

He apparently began studying the inheritance of feeble-mindedness without
theoretical prejudice, but with a practical end in view, to discover, if
possible, the causes of feeble-mindedness so as to deal intelligently with
the inmates of the Vineland (N. J.) institution with which he is connected.
Goddard received inspiration and suggestion from the Mendelian principles
which dominate the work of the Eugenics Record Office, but has published his
observations in detail so that the reader may test by them any theory he
likes. This method can not be too highly commended for it gives permanent
value to the publication, however much prevailing theories may change. The
book contains a detailed study of 327 "cases," each being the family history
of a different inmate of the Vineland institution, as made out by trained
investigators who visited the homes of the inmates and held interviews with
their parents, relatives, friends and neighbors. English criticism of
American work of this sort had prepared the reader to expect carelessness of
method and inaccuracy in the accumulation of data, but Dr. Goddard is
evidently on his guard against this. He goes very fully into the method of
obtaining and verifying the data, and in doing so gives a very strong
impression that the data are "reliable." His treatment of the data is also
cautious but thorough, so that when he works his way to a conclusion it
stands firmly established. The conclusions reached are numerous and
important, but the one of greatest theoretical interest is this, that
feeble-mindedness is inherited as a simple recessive Mendelian
unit-character. This conclusion, so far as earlier publications were
concerned, might be regarded as insufficiently established, but the evidence
presented in this work renders it, I think, beyond question. Goddard was
himself apparently considerably surprised at the conclusion reached. He had
expected to find different kinds or grades of mental defect independently
inherited as units and confesses to leanings toward views of the
physiological independence of different mental functions, but his "cases"
give him no evidence of such inheritance. He finds only that feeble minds
are minds of arrested development in regard to all functions, and that
different grades of feeble-mindedness correspond with different stages of
normal mental development completely arrested. How different grades may
occur in one and the same Mendelian unit is apparently a puzzle to Goddard,
who does not attempt its explanation. It is indeed an absurdity to the "pure
line" Mendelian, but not to one who appreciates the fact that Mendelian
units are subject to quantitative variation sometimes continuous, sometimes
discontinuous. An example of the former is found in the hooded pattern of
rats,[4] of the latter in albinism and other Mendelizing characters which
assume multiple allelomorphic conditions.[5] Pearson has steadfastly refused
to admit that albinism in man is a Mendelizing character, because it may
assume various forms ranging from colorless to quite heavily pigmented
conditions (blondes). We now find that albinism in guinea-pigs shows an even
greater range of variation,[6] yet there can be no doubt of its fundamental
unity as a Mendelian character, each grade of which is allelomorphic to
every other grade and to normal pigmentation.

[4] Castle and Phillips, 1914, Publ. No. 195, Carnegie Inst. of Wash.

[5] Castle and Fish, Amer. Nat., Feb., 1915.

[6] Wright, S. Amer. Nat., March, 1915.


Goddard's findings as regards feeble-mindedness fit in perfectly with this
scheme. That Goddard was unaware of it when his conclusions were reached is
all the more evidence of their soundness because it shows that they were
reached independently. Among albinos every higher grade of pigmentation
dominates all the lower grades in inheritance, and so apparently it is with
mental development; the higher grades dominate the lower. At every point
there appears to be agreement in method of inheritance between albinism and
feeble-mindedness. Each is a unit character but showing graded allelomorphic
conditions which correspond probably with different stages of arrested
development of pigmentation or mentality respectively.

The fact noted by Goddard that the feeble-minded resemble savages, that is
backward races of low mentality, has much interest to the student of
evolution. It indicates that the evolution of intelligence has occurred by
a gradual progressive advancement, stages in which reappear as the higher
grades of feeble-mindedness. Of course it is not certain that the
ontogenetic stages, at which mental development may be arrested, correspond
accurately with earlier phylogenetic stages, but the idea receives
considerable support from the observed resemblance between the mentality of
morons and that of savage peoples, if the observation may be accepted as
accurate. I do not understand however that Goddard makes any claim to
first-hand familiarity with the mental life of savages, so that no great
emphasis should be laid on the point. But the mere fact that RETROGRESSIVE
variation in mentality is GRADED favors the view that its PROGRESSIVE
evolution has been gradual, rather than the view that it has arisen by
mutation or sudden loss of inhibitors. (Bateson, Davenport).

Goddard points out that a high grade moron may be a useful and
self-supporting member of society in some environments (usually rural)
whereas he would be quite helpless in the keen competition of urban life.
This suggestion leads the reader to wonder whether many peasant and peon
populations of the old and new world represent survivals of an older and
lower grade of mental evolution than has been attained in the more advanced
nations, or whether it is merely lack of opportunity that makes these
populations backward. The fact that in every generation great men come from
the lower social levels shows that the lower classes are not entirely devoid
of capacity; nevertheless it seems probable that a low grade of intelligence
would stand a better chance of escaping elimination in the struggle for
existence when placed in a simple environment than when placed in a complex
one. Consequently, under modern conditions, we might expect a peasant or
peon population to average lower in mental capacity than a community more
advanced in civilization. Whether the peasant population would equal in
average intelligence a band of North American Indians or a tribe of native
New Zealanders is very doubtful, for in such peoples natural selection for
intelligence was undoubtedly severe because of their intense struggle with
nature and with other tribes, unaided by the accumulated knowledge and tools
of civilized communities. Among such peoples greater demands were probably
made on inborn intelligence than among modern industrial populations.

As regards the CAUSES of feeble-mindedness Goddard's findings are wholly
negative, but not less valuable on that account. His case histories
statistically studied indicate no causal relation to a number of reputed
agencies in the creation of feeble-mindedness, such as alcoholism (which he
regards as oftener a symptom than a cause), tuberculosis, sexual immorality,
insanity, syphilis, accident and consanguinity. He recognizes HEREDITY as
its principal source, i. e. he recognizes feeble-mindedness as a stage of
mentality already existing and transmissible by the ordinary mechanism of
heredity, but does not attempt further to account for it, either as a
survival or as an atavism.

That humanitarian governments by shielding and supporting the moron without
putting a limit on his naturally high reproduction will speedily increase
this class at the expense of the more intelligent classes of the community
is self-evident, if it is admitted that feeble-mindedness is hereditary, as
all who have investigated the matter carefully now declare. Goddard shows
further that a large percentage (probably more than half) of the alcoholism,
pauperism, prostitution, and crime, of the United States are directly
traceable to hereditary feeble-mindedness, another strong reason for taking
measures to reduce it.

How is this to be done? Goddard has no cure-all to offer but urges first of
all that the mental grade of each individual be accurately determined and
education and occupation be provided suited to his capacity. This will tend
to make the moron a useful and contented member of the community, not a
menace to it. Segregation is recommended so far as practicable, but in view
of the large number (estimated at 300,000 to 400,000 in the U. S.) Goddard
considers segregation of all impracticable. Nevertheless he urges further
and energetic efforts in this direction, that as many as possible may be
segregated as a safeguard against their reproduction. In individual cases
"sterilization wisely and carefully practiced" must be employed to insure
non-reproduction.

In this volume there is a pleasing absence of the rant which pervades some
eugenic literature. The author has something of importance to contribute to
science and he presents his contribution in a sober, dignified manner in
keeping with the important character of his contribution. W. E. CASTLE.



CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM. By J. B. Hannay.
(Francis Griffiths, London; pp. 394).

This is an attempt to expound the symbolism of the Christian religion. It is
divided into three main parts: ancient cults (phallism and sun worship);
ancient cults in the Old Testament; ancient cults in the New Testament. The
author's main thesis can be stated in a sentence: the essential constituents
of every religion, and the underlying meaning of its symbolism, are
phallicism and sun worship. Of these the former is the more important, more
primary, and more wide-spread; the latter is a superimposed layer better
adapted to more civilized and educated people, but rarely penetrating into
the hearts of the common people to the extent that the former has. "The
great branches under which all the religious systems of the past have
developed may be classed as based, on the one hand on the consideration of
our world and the continuity of life upon it, expressed in Phallic
symbolism, and on the other hand, on the Sun as the great giver and
sustainer of man, expressed in Solar symbolism." (p. 21). "As the Phallic
cult was much the older, it retained its position after the rise of the
Solar cult. It required a much higher intelligence to grasp the facts of
Solar worship, so it never entered the 'hearts' of the common people as did
the Phallic worship, but it had a much more intelligent priesthood, and was
the arbiter in all questions of dates, and regulated al) feasts; and, what
was more important to the people, fixed the time for payments of debts or
interest, and regulated the times of sowing and harvesting, so it became a
much more 'official' religion than Phallism." In support of these
conclusions the author marshals a huge number of facts, so that the work
becomes a veritable encyclopaedia of symbolism.

Now in spite of the fact that the reviewer fully accepts the main thesis of
the book, as stated above, and therefore has no prejudice or hostility on
the score of the conclusions encunciated being distasteful, his judgment of
the book is entirely unfavourable, for the following reasons: In the first
place, any presence of the book to be a scientific, and therefore impartial,
contribution to knowledge is invalidated by the author's moral bias evident
from beginning to end, against religion in general, and Christianity in
particular, which he maintains is the most phallic of all religions. His
point of view is that of the older rationalists, to whom religion is nothing
but an unfortunate instinct for "delight in the miraculous," expressing
itself in phallic and sun worship, and fostered by the exploiting tendencies
of priests. His desire seems to be, in writing the book, to "show up"
religion and, by discrediting it, hasten its end.

In the second place, there is not a single new idea in all its closely
packed pages, and therefore no excuse for writing them, since the material
here laboriously brought together is easily accessible in other books. It
never seems to dawn on the author that pointing out the sexual basis of
religion, which countless other writers have already done, is but the
beginning of the problem, the starting-point of all sorts of complex
riddles. Having dogmatically divided all religious symbols into male and
female, he is self-satisfied enough to think that he has explained religion.
There is no inkling of the points of view suggested by such words as
determinism, significance, genesis, so familiar to the modern psychologist.

Side by side with all this goes a disorderly arrangement and very imperfect
powers of criticism. The latter feature is especially marked in the field
of etymology, where the author fairly lets himself run wild. The following
gem is a typical example (p. 110): "Bacchus became degraded into the God of
Wine, and his fetes became drunken orgies, but he was originally the
beneficent sun who ripened the fruits, and hence God of Wine, from which,
indeed, is derived the English name of all our gods, angels, prophets, or
even parsons,--"divines," "dei vini," "Gods of Wine." Jesus was the "True
Vine."

The merits of the book are that it may direct the attention of some people
to the connection between sex and religion, if there are any who are still
unaware of this, and that it possesses a good index that may be useful to
readers with limited facilities for looking up particular symbolisms; it is
also well illustrated. ERNEST JONES.



LAUGHTER: AN ESSAY ON THE MEANING OF THE COMIC. Henri Bergson. Translated
by C. Brereton and F. Rothwell. (Macmillan, London, 1913. Pp. 200).

In this stimulating little book Professor Bergson propounds his theory of
the comic, which is shortly to the following effect. Noting first that
laughter is purely a human phenomenon, and therefore probably has a social
significance, he seeks for this by trying to define what are the essential
features of the comical. He reduces the various characteristic features in
the main to one, namely, automatism on the part of the comical person or
thing. This automatism is of a special kind; especially is it an automatism
that is out of place, that occurs at the expense of spontaneity, vitality,
and freshness. It may thus be defined as "something mechanical in something
living," "a kind of absentmindedness on the part of life." "The comic is
that side of a person which reveals his likeness to a thing, that aspect of
human events which through its peculiar inelasticity, conveys the impression
of pure mechanism, of automatism, of movement without life." "To imitate
anyone is to bring out the element of automatism he has allowed to creep
into his person. And as this is the very essence of the ludicrous, it is no
wonder that imitation gives rise to laughter. "This bald statement of
Bergson's conclusion is, in the reviewer's opinion, made very convincing by
the delicate analysis he proffers of numerous illustrations.

Up to this point Bergson's theory of the comic fairly well coincides with
that of Freud. The latter author, it is true, summarises his conclusions in
different language. But the meaning is not very different. For him the
feeling of comicality is an "economy of ideational expenditure," and it is
evoked by the sight of another person who in a given performance displays
either a lack of mental activity or an excess of physical, i.e., who is
either stupid or clumsy. Compare this formulation with Bergson's. The latter
says that the opposite of the comic is gracefulness, rather than beauty. "It
partakes rather of the unsprightly than of the unsightly, of rigidness
rather than of ugliness." The replacement of mental by physical activity is
insisted on in the following passage: "Any incident is comic that calls our
attention to the physical in a person, when it is the moral (i. e. mental)
that is concerned." Again, he compares a comical person to "a person
embarrassed by his body." His automatism is essentially a lack of mental
nimbleness, a formal lack of mental elasticity, a defective capacity for
rapid adjustment, in short, a mental laziness. And especially is this defect
one of consciousness. The failure is on the part of the higher mental
activities, which should be the most alert, and what happens is a relapse
into unconscious, automatic modes of functioning, a form of absentmindness.
"The comic is that element by which the person unwittingly betrays
himself--the involuntary gesture or the unconscious remark. Absentmindedness
is always comical. Systematic absentmindedness, like that of Don Quixote,
is the most comical thing imaginable . . . . . . . No one can be comical
unless there be some aspect of his person of which he is unaware, one side
of his nature which he overlooks; on that account alone does he make us
laugh."

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