In this erudite article the author points out that Brunetière is wrong, when, in his study of La Pathologie Mentale des Rois de France, he states that Auguste Brachet invented a new science, having for its object the explaining of historical facts by biology and pathology. This method of studying history is almost as old as history itself, and the author supports this view by a formidable array of facts.

This question, the author says, cannot be treated from a theoretic or metaphysical point of view; it ought to be dealt with, on the contrary, by the positive method of observation and experience. One has been taught that psychological life is bound up with the presence of a nervous system. As we descend the zoological scale the nervous system gradually simplifies its structure and finally disappears. No one has demonstrated with certainty the presence of nervous substance in the protozoa. Are we, therefore, to conclude that there is no psychological life in these simple animals? The author considers that the continuity, which in zoology binds the most simple phenomena to the most complex, leads us to think that even among the infusoria there may be rudimentary psychological phenomena.

Questions were circulated by an Italian psychological society among psychologists, professors, and others concerning antipathy, its relation to other antagonistic states, its description and analysis, its various forms, its course and transformations. Something over a hundred replies were received, and many are here reproduced. They are often interesting and suggestive, but, as might be expected, sometimes contradictory. Gambara and others consider antipathy fundamental and instinctive. Stepanoff, on the other hand, who regards antipathy as chronic opposition, argues that acute opposition arises earlier than the chronic form, which is not known in young children, and presupposes so considerable a social education that it is not one of the first even of chronic psychic states. Assagioli regards it as a reaction of defence, derived from the instinct of conservation, and not easily distinguished from other states of opposition. Foà, however, believes that the oppositional states are easily determined, and are aversion, hate, repugnance, and antipathy; he regards antipathy as fundamental and primitive. Boncinelli and others believe that antipathy is simply a complex result of many mental states, and that it has no special function, while Vacca regards it as a purely artificial conception, and mainly negative.