C URRENT LITERAT LIRE.
THE ELEMENTS OF MIND.
The Elements of Mind : being an Examination into the Nature of the First Division of the Elementary Substances of Life. By H. Jamyn Brooks. (Longmans and Co. 10s. 6d.)—The author of this pretentious book claims to have solved the riddle of the universe, to have penetrated the mysteries of life and death, and to have unveiled divinity itself. He pleads for an " exhaustive investigation" of his theory and of his ideas, which are, he says, "perhaps antagonistic to those of some of the pro- foundest thinkers the world has produced." The appearance of the book, he tells us, is due to the encouragement of Professor William James and Dr. J. Beattie Crozier, to whom it is dedicated. The present writer has fruitlessly endeavoured by close perusal and reperusal of the volume to obtain touch with the mind of the author, and to disregard as accidents his use of incomprehensible jargon, his abuse of terminology, his somewhat patronising references to distinguished philosophers and men of science, and his frequent confusion of ideas in relation to the elements of philosophic and scientific thought. The following are characteristic phrases :—" Red bricks may possess the apparently immaterial property of colour ; but they also possess the real sub- stance of the red-ray light " ; "That sound is a sub- stance, and that it is the vibrations of this substance, not merely
the vibrations of the air, which strike the tympanum when the air is pumped out of the vessel—it [sound] is pumped out with the air; and the inference is, if the experiment be carried further, it would go to prove that all the other forces would be pumped out with air or ether in ratio to their energy." It is diffi- cult to dissociate Mr. Brooks's theory from the pie-crust of pseudo- science in which it is embedded. He tells us that scientists gener- ally agree that life is composed of mind, matter, and force, "each of which, it may be assumed, possesses its own various elements." He informs us that the elements of matter and force have been more or less successfully indicated and described. (What Mr. Brooks means by "force" we have not the least idea.) He claims to have discovered the elements of mind, "which, when compounded with those of force and matter, constitute the mysterious substance called Life." Mr. Brooks asserts, as an experimental fact, that these mental elements are hidden in " feelings" ; that "each feeling has a principal element or essence which imparts to it its peculiar character"; that these elements "are not entities with a separate existence," but that "each would have a solitary inner consciousness of its own," which (presumably) enables the various elements to compound and produce complex intelligence and become "outwardly conscious when the compound obtains possession of some of the organs of the brain." Mr. Brooks's theory is therefore based on the " self- compounding " capacity of his elements. Now "self-compound- ing" would be impossible if the elements were without volition. The difficulty is got over by attributing to the elements an inner consciousness that enables them to compound according to the theory. But Mr. Brooks also attempts to deny the fact that "self-compounding" of forces or matter is impossible. He then proceeds to his second great assumption. He assumes (it is inconsistent with the first assumption, which denies that the elements are entities) that "there is but one ele- ment of each sort in the universe and that each of them pervades space" ; that the elements of organic and inorganic matter are only portions of these elements ; and that life is "a quantitative aggregation and combination of those elements which exhibit a greater amount of the so-called vital characteristics than others." It will be noticed that this definition of life assumes the existence of "vital character- istics," and is, therefore, no definition. There are higher. grade and lower-grade mental elements which struggle for mastery in life. All the phenomena of life and of the universe are merely temporary combinations of portions of the universal elements. God or the Universal Ego is the combination of the whole of the universal elements : " The same pains, the same emotions, the same temptations go on within Him as within ourselves, but as His elements are perfectly balanced, His actions must be perfect." The world will progress by the development of the higher-grade elements at the expense of the lower, and there may be immortality, as the combination of elements that formed a man would have a tendency to re-form after his death. The book exhibits some misplaced ingenuity in the elaboration of a cosmic theory from what seem to us quite gratuitous premises, and the best chapter is that on memory. We are convinced that Mr. Brooks does not possess the scientific or philosophic equipment for original investigations, and should advise him to study Dean Mansel's volume on "Metaphysics." We have done our best to give a critical account of Mr. Brooks's strange work, but must add that on no account can we open our columns to any discussion of the theories it propounds.
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