The savers of souls, if they had mastered to a slight degree even the comprehension of the psychopathical secondary factors, would be astonished to see how many people there are in the case of whom medicine is more effective against “spiritual” vexations than pastoral advice, and that often such advice, being one-sided and starting from false assumptions, does harm only. They would see in the peculiarity of the religious needs and tribulations of many a man a psycho-pathological abnormality; they would come to understand how the otherwise unintelligible badness of many another has its source in a pathological basis: they would not regard and hail as absolutely good, moreover, many “good impulses”;—all this they would find out if they had learned to note and comprehend what the import is of such persons being descended from neurotic ancestors, of their exhibiting palpable indications of degeneration, and having also perhaps insane, idiotic, whimsical, and epileptical brothers and sisters. They would furthermore perfectly comprehend, that in the case of people who are descended from healthy parents, but who from being in times past happy and joyful Christians are now struggling with distractions of soul, it were often better first to inquire after the state of their organs of digestion. And they would be able to deal quite differently from formerly with many a soul entrusted to their care, perhaps also more easily to conquer, or at least to endure, some secret burden of their own lives. The import of the book for the educator is easily inferrible from the remarks made. For the jurist, who has to deal with the problems of accountability and the administering of punishment, its importance is manifest. Sociology, too, the deeper it enters into its problems, will not be able to dispense with psychopathology, and in this field it is precisely the psychopathical secondary factors that eminently demand attention. In that which concerns its connection with history we need only mention the names of Lombroso, Emminghaus (_Allgemeine Psychopathologie_) and Möbius (_Rousseaus Krankheitsgeschichte_), to point out the importance of a work like that before us. We recommend it without reserve to all whom it touches. CHR. UFER. Altenburg, July, 1891. ÉMILE LITTRÉ. Some debts there are that make the debtor proud; So ours to him, who could philosophise With common-sense, and sweep from starry skies The brain-spun webs that darken like a cloud. We loved him, for his highest thoughts avowed Our own akin and less than ours allies; Born of the common soil but born to rise And light the labor of the laurel-browed. Justice he traced to truth; morality, Back to the brutish primal needs of man; And stood himself for all the best might be.