SQUIBS AND MARVELS.

Eyeless Sight. By Jules Romains. Trans. by C. K. Ogden. (G. P. Putnam's Sons. 58.)

A Critical Examination of Psycho-Analysis. By A. Wohlgemuth, D.Sc. (Allen and Unwin. 10s. 6d.)

So fantastic to old-fashioned minds seem the ideas of latter-day science that one may imagine a generation not too far ahead humbly resifting its lunatic asylums, for fear it may have shut up an Einstein. And M. Jules Romains now finds we can see to read through any part of our body. There were serious doubts of his sanity, one may be sure, in the minds of the " Academy. of Sciences, the Academy of Moral Sciences and the Sorbonne."-

who refused to listen to him, and are trounced accordingly. But then the devotion of scientists to truth, as they understand it, seems often to breed a paralysis elsewhere, and a little

child may lead them by a very decent margin where the intuitions are concerned.

And so it proved in the case we mention. M. Remains started with a humdrum query ; he wished to know upon what evidence it had been affirmed that the hederiform expansions in the human skin were labelled as receiving " the lightest tactile impressions, those of brushing and tickling," and he found none. Might they not, then, be organs of sight? He worked upon this assumption and found that they were ; and no one believed him. Paralysis declared itself. And yet what could be more delightful to a naive and unprejudiced person than to know that he, too, is full of eyes before and behind ?

One can forgive the scientists more easily when one considers the skin. Its complexity is amazing. It'contains the arbori- form terminations of Dogiel, the corpuscles of Ruffin,, Golgi- Mazzoni and Pacini ; the monolobar corpuscles of Meissner, the network of Langerhans and the menisci of Ranvier, " also called hederiform expansions or intra-epithelial baskets."

A very dazzling list, and M. Romains probed the question accordingly. With ascetic integrity he experimented upon others and then upon himself. " The mouth remaining closed, the nostrils are carefully plugged, and if the supplementary

precaution is taken of introducing a powerful odour by the previous insertion of a plug of wadding strongly impregnated with perfume "—one can hardly see how the subject survived. Yet even so, with the eyes shut, sealed and bandaged, colours

were perceived. He relates the dawn of extra-retinal vision in his own case :-

" A dozen sittings, spread over about a month, none of which lasted an hour, passed without the faintest sign of vision appearing. The next sitting lasted several hours. . . . I obtained a result. . . . The yellowish cover of a pamphlet, in the form of a brownish- yellow patch . . . a yellow travelling-bag with nickel catches, the bag itself as a very confused mass of a vague yellow-red . . in a still vaguer and more fleeting way, the floor of the room and' the best lighted wall. It lasted two or three minutes : then absolute blackness returned for a full quarter of an hour." '

Later on :— " a sudden new increase of the function, in an entirely unexpected direction . . . heterocentric and especially sternal vision . . . 31 sittings in all."

Heterocentric vision means that the subject no longer seems to see with his head—does not seek to place the object in the space which would be his ocular field, if he were not bandaged. Before it comes, if we mask a part of the face, he " has an impression as if a switch had been turned off." But one day heterocentric vision—the power to "see " through other parts of the body. (and sternal or breast vision sees objects most brightly of all)—suddenly appears. " The experimenter notices with surprise that when his head is raised he sees with his chest an object in front of him. Nothing," says M. Romains, very credibly, " is more astonishing• to feel than this phenomenon . . . The subject has the impression that his face is stuck in an absolutely black hole, while there is a bright light at the level of his chest." The attention mean- while " goes down in some way from its usual position in the head to establish itself in the torso."

After examining every possible alternative hypothesis, supernatural, telepathic and the like, M. Romains was forced to the conclusion that there are microscopic eyes, or " ocelli," in the skin. People saw through their hands, necks and back, under the most critical experimental conditions. Why should he delay to experiment more widely ? He began, of course, with the blind.

"On the 16th of September, 1918, fatiguing attempts" secured him at last " two blinded soldier patients, under all sorts of em- barrassing reservations. . . . On the 19th of September, a little before noon, Michel, one of them, recognized the digit 4; placed' under glass in a developing frame, following with his finger the outline on the glass.. . . After the 28th of September,.1 did not• see them again . . . polite but evasive intermediaries . . 4 fatigue,' ' passing indisposition.' " In "1920 the book was published. Influential scientists- conspired against the " trickery," and for two years the author was forced to remain silent. On January 11th, 1923, however, Anatole France and high professional' authorities signed a report upon eighteen experiments wherein they saw a subject identify persons, statuettes, colours and farms, and read text. It seems as if the day was ""woh; We"

must wait, meanwhile, to see if the new marvel will really . make sight available for the " blinded " in our time. And let the scientists hesitate no more ! Let them invert their order of procedure, conceive the seemingly fantastic—and then find it true, in this universe of wonders.

The skin of Dr. Wohlgemuth, however, will creep in a very familiar way if he reads such heresy. He is a die-hard of the physiological school of psychology and will, it seems, believe nothing proved in this domain unless a change in the constitution of a neurone accompanies the process integrally. But who has ever seen a neurone changing ? Is there no mythology in the very belief that it changes at all ? The whole question of synaptic resistance is still sub judice, and yet Dr. Wolilgemuth orders Freud to the gallows because he doubts• his " orthodoxy," as he himself under- stands the word. The book might itself, indeed, prove the formidable resisting power of its author's synapses, if he cared to prove his case that way. Otherwise, it is merely a learned and diverting squib, and no one can fail to be entertained by his trenchant power of caricature. He damns the psycho-analyst for prejudging every case he handles : if a Hyde Park complex were fashionable, says this critic, every country cousin who landed at Liverpool Street and was met by an analyst would find himself at Hyde Park before sundown. With such psychologists, therefore, " every dream-interpretation is the via regia to the uncon- scious—of the interpreter." Let us hope that the book will be widely read by the Freudians, and produce what it certainly deserves—an equally amusing riposte from the