apart from it a sufficient amount of not too easy intellectual discipline? Secondly, is minutely supervised and regulated play real play? Les Principes du Droit. Par EMILE BEAUSSIRE, Membre de l'Institut. Paris To this work the author's Principes de la Morale, reviewed in MIND Xi. 272, is introductory. The idea of "right," he holds, must be based on the idea of duty; and this idea the theory of law has to take, without further investigation on its own account, from ethics. "Le devoir sert de base au droit comme l'espace à la géométrie. Le droit laisse à la The mu"Le morale le soin de remonter au delà du devoir, comme la géométrie laisse à la métaphysique le soin de remonter au delà de l'espace." The volume is divided into an Introduction (pp. 1-31) and three Books: i. "Théorie générale du Droit" (pp. 33-69), ii. "Droit public" (pp. 72-199), iii. "Droit privé" (pp. 202-420). In his Introduction the author seeks to maintain the conceptions of "state of nature," "social contract" and "natural rights," in senses defined by him. The "state of nature," in his view, is not a primitive state that preceded society, but a state that always persists side by side with the "legal state ". It includes all those relations of men to one another and to that which is outside them that do not come under political control. Similarly, the "social contract" is not an agreement deliberately entered into when first the legal state was substituted for the state of nature, but is a tacit contract implied in the constitution of every society. The conception of "natural right" is required to give positive law its "legitimacy," as positive law is required to give natural right its "indispensable guarantees". tual relations between politics and natural right are thus defined. droit naturel n'embrasse pas la politique, et il n'est pas embrassé par elle. Le premier devoir de la politique est de respecter le droit naturel, et l'un des objets principaux du droit naturel est de juger la politique, de l'approuver ou de la flétrir suivant qu'elle est juste ou injuste." The general principle which the author makes the foundation of his philosophy of law is that right is "the guarantee of duty". "The rights of man ""embrace all that each man needs to do or to possess in order to accomplish freely the moral law" (p. 46). "Life and liberty are logically the first of rights, since they are the first and the most constant condition of the accomplishment of duty" (p. 390). M. Beaussire, starting from divisions made by Grotius and Reid, divides rights into rights to "respect" and to "assistance". "So long as a man can by himself fulfil all his duties, he has only the right to fulfil them in peace (ie., to be respected in the fulfilment of them); but so soon as he cannot entirely suffice to himself, assistance is due to him, not for the sake of him personally, but for the sake of the law which governs him and of which all men are the subjects and ministers" (p. 53). Esquisse d'une Philosophie de l'Etre. Par J. E. ALAUX, Professeur de faculté, Professeur de philosophie à l'École des lettres d'Alger. Paris F. Alcan, 1888. Pp. 105. The author here presents a summary of a philosophical system which he hopes to develop at some future time. In its present form, he says, "c'est l'esquisse d'une tentative de renouveler la theodicée, qui, stationnaire, ce semble, depuis Leibniz, ou ne se développant que dans le sens du panthéisme, laisse tomber ceux que ne satisfait pas un insuffisant optimisme dans un pessimisme d'autant plus redoutable que la logique ne permet point de choix entre la foi en Dieu et le désespoir ". The relation of the author's doctrine to that of Leibniz is explained on pp. 82-4. His system is a monadism, according to which "each substance is the cause of the phenomena that reveal its own being, in virtue of the being that is in it, and under the excitation of other beings". The "law of being" at which he arrives is summed up thus: "Tout possible est une puissance propre, qui tend à l'être; tout réel est un conscient résultant d'une synthèse de deux termes contraires et identiques, un moi et un non-moi qui, suscités par Dieu et se suscitant l'un l'autre, se font, sous cette action du suscitateur suprême, exister l'un l'autre, de degré en degré, de réalité en réalité, d'être en être, jusqu'à la perfection de l'être, jusqu'à l'universelle communauté de vie en Dieu ". La Morale de Socrate. Par Mme. JULES FAVRE (née VELTEN). F. Alcan, 1888. Pp. iii., 328. Paris : This is a companion volume to La Morale des Stoïciens, noticed in MIND Xiii. 136. Translated passages from the Memorabilia and from Plato are arranged according to the general plan of the author's former volume; each group of extracts having for introduction a sketch of the teaching of Socrates on the particular point. The book is in two parts: i. "God-Duties towards God” (pp. 5-40), ii. "The Soul -Duties towards the Soul" (pp. 41-323). Socrates is viewed as the precursor of Christian morality. Critique de la Raison Pratique. Par EMMANUEL KANT. Nouvelle Traduction française avec un Avant-Propos sur la Philosophie de Kant en France de 1773 à 1814, des Notes philologiques et philosophiques, par F. PICAVET, Agrégé de philosophie. Paris: F. Alcan, 1888. Pp. xxxvii., 326. M. Picavet's edition, with preface, of Condillac's Traité des Sensations, was mentioned in MIND Xi. 303. He here puts forth a translation of the Kritik d. practischen Vernunft, executed with characteristic care, and prefaced by a very interesting account of the appreciation that Kant had found in France before the time when, according to the usual statement, Kantian studies first begin. He shows that Kant's works were common subjects of discussion among French students of philosophy during the whole period treated of; that, from the appearance of the Kritik d. reinen Vernunft, its importance was recognised in France as in Germany; that, during the Revolutionary period, it was the usual remark of those Frenchmen who occupied themselves with Kant, that the Kritik was making a revolution in philosophy not less far-reaching than the contemporary political revolution; and that, when the exposi tion of Kant's philosophy by Villers appeared in 1801, protests justifiably made themselves heard on all sides against his assumption that French philosophers had neglected Kant. Thus, instead of coming at the beginning of the period of French occupation with Kant, Mme. de Staël, "the most illustrious of the writers who admired Kant or caused him to be admired," comes at the end of a period during which his doctrines had been repeatedly expounded and discussed. M. Picavet brings his sketch to a close with 1814, the history of Kantianism in France from that time being well known. After a page of final summary, he concludes with these sentences. "Nous nous demandons si l'on pourrait, vingt ans après l'apparition des œuvres capitales d'un Comte, d'un Spencer, d'un Darwin, trouver en Allemagne autant d'hommes célèbres à des titres si divers, qui aient tenté de les com prendre, autant de travaux importants qui aient eu pour but de faire connaître, d'apprécier les doctrines nouvelles, de mettre même en relief la valeur du penseur dont les conclusions auraient été combattues comme inexactes. Et cependant les contemporains de ces trois penseurs n'ont pas été mêlés à des événements aussi terribles et aussi peu propices à la spéculation que ceux dont ont été témoins les hommes qui vécurent de 1789 à 1814" (p. xxxvi.). To the translation are appended some valuable "Philosophical Notes" (pp. 297-323). Etudes de Psychologie expérimentale. Par ALFRED BINET. Paris: Octave Doin, 1888. Pp. 307. Four studies by one of the most active and effective of French investigators: (1) "Le Fétichisme dans l'Amour (pp. 1-85); (2) "La Vie psychique des Micro-organismes (pp. 87-237); (3) "L'Intensité des Images mentales" (pp. 239-77); (4) "Le Problème hypnotique" (pp. 279-98); followed by a "Note sur l'Ecriture hystérique" (pp. 299-306). The third and fourth are of special value in relation to questions which the author himself has done as much as any man to invest with their present interest. The second is a very elaborate and careful study in a new field. In the first, certain morbid forms of erotic passion are brought under psychological law. L'Hypnotisme et la Liberté des Représentations publiques. Lettres à M. le Professeur Thiriar, Représentant, Suivies de l'examen du Rapport présenté par M. Masoin à l'Académie de Médecine. Par J. DELBOEUF, Professeur à l'Université de Liège, &c. Liège : Ch. Aug. Desoer, 1888. Pp. 111. In these "Letters" Prof. Delboeuf utters a protest against the attempt that is being made in Belgium and other parts of Europe to suppress public representations of hypnotic phenomena. He contends both that the dangers of hypnotism have been exaggerated, and that the best means of guarding against those that really exist is publicity. Against the school of the Salpêtrière he maintains the position, defended by him on other occasions, that hypnotism is in no way connected with neurotic diseases. The phenomenon with which it can best be compared is ordinary sleep; and perfectly healthy subjects are often much easier to hypnotise than hysterical subjects. Hypnotic suggestion' is by no means all-powerful; and memory of what has passed in the hypnotic state" can be perfectly revived". That the practice of hypnotism should be legally restricted, as has been proposed, to medical men, would not prevent its abuse. It is, indeed, only by general knowledge of its effects that its dangers can be obviated. To establish the proposed monopoly would, besides, be to show ingratitude to those who, after all, were the means of forcing hypnotism on the attention of the medical profession. Kritik der reinen Erfahrung. Von Dr. RICHARD AVENARIUS, Ord. Professor der Philosophie an der Universität Zürich. Erster Band. Leipzig: Fues's Verlag (R. Reisland), 1888. Pp. xxii., 217. It is now twelve years since the author's Philosophie als Denken der Welt gemäss dem Princip des kleinsten Kraftmaasses, or "Prolegomena to a Critique of Pure Experience," saw the light (MIND i. 298). The present volume, which is the first part of the projected "Critique," has the importance of philosophical work that has been long meditated and carefully elaborated. Its form, which, as the author admits, presents some difficulty, has been deliberately chosen. The use of symbols that characterises it, besides being adopted as a means of directing the attention to the facts of experience apart from any traditional scientific or philosophical way of looking at them (p. 15), is also connected with the author's conception of philosophy as the formulation of experi ence from the point of view of a disinterested spectator (p. 10). This conception requires, in his view, that consciousness should be temporarily abstracted from, and, accordingly, that the relations between the observed organism and its environment should be presented in a mathematico-mechanical form. A few elementary symbols having been selected to designate fundamental conceptions, the author proceeds, by constantly ramifying distinctions, to work out the relations of man to his surroundings, physical and social. The most important of the conceptions symbolically designated is that of "System C," or the part of the central nervous system that gathers up in itself the changes proceeding from the periphery, and distributes to the periphery the changes that have to be set going from the centre (pp. 35-6). The relation of the conservation of system C to the conservation of the organism having been formulated, the conditions are sought of the "vital conservation" of system C itself. Certain "fictions," such as that of "ideal surroundings and of "the ideal system C in not ideal surroundings" are introduced, and the conditions of approximation to them investigated. After expressions have been found for the changes of system C and the conditions of its conservation (in less or greater degrees up to the "conservation-maximum") and of its destruction, the maintenance of the individual system C is considered in its relations to the corresponding systems of other individuals and their conservation. This leads to the formulation of the conception of the "congregal system," or "EC," the conditions of the maintenance and growth of which are then determined. The most favourable condition thinkable for the maintenance of the "total system"-whether C itself or EC-is found to be "when no partial system maintains itself by diminution, but each by augmentation of the vital conservation-value of others; so that that case would be designated as the perfect relation in which each single partial system should maintain itself perfectly under the greatest thinkable increase of the vital conservation-value of the greatest thinkable number of other partial systems, and in which accordingly the total system also should maintain itself perfectly under the greatest thinkable increase of the vital conservation-value of each single partial system" (p. 165). At the outset of the detailed analysis (p. 25), the question was put: "In what sense and how far can the constituent parts of our surroundings be taken as the presupposition of experience?" The result of the whole is summed up in a hypothetical answer to this question, given in the author's symbolical terminology, on pp. 199-200. Kritik der Kantischen Antinomienlehre. Von Dr. FRANZ ERHARDT. Leipzig: Fues's Verlag (R. Reisland), 1888. Pp. 83. 66 The author of this criticism of Kant's doctrine of the Antinomies, while recognising the solution Kant gave as right in principle," aims at showing by detailed argument that the antinomies are "in themselves false". The rejection of the doctrine of the antinomies, he contends, does not weaken Kant's system; for the ground of the Kantian transcendental idealism is not in the doctrine of the antinomies but, if any. where, in the Transcendental Esthetic. Alles in Allen. Metalogik-Metaphysik-Metapsychik. Von LUDWIG HALLER. Berlin: C. Duncker (C. Heymons), 1888. Pp. xv., 480. This (incomplete) posthumous work is an attempt at a speculative doctrine in the spirit of Parmenides and Spinoza. It manifests a certain feeling for the larger constructions of philosophical thought, but is hardly articulate enough for anything definite to be said as to its out come. (1) Ueber Kant's Zahlbegriff, and (2) Stuart Mill's Zahlbegriff. Von Dr. CARL THEODOR MICHAELIS. Berlin: R. Gaertner (Hermann Heyfelder), 1884, 1888. Pp. 18, 18. The first of these pieces is a criticism of Kant's theory of the foundations of arithmetic. The author finds that not arithmetic but geometry is the starting-point of Kant's critical investigations; that he arrives at certain philosophical results from the consideration of geometry, and then tries to bring his conception of number into harmony with these. When arithmetic is considered independently, it is seen that number is the expression of synthesis generally, while space and time are only expressive of synthesis in a special form (p. 13). The conclusion, as regards the relations of the mathematical sciences, is that "geometry is applied arithmetic" (p. 15). The second piece is more a criticism of Mill as representing the traditional English philosophy than a special examination of his conception of number. The starting-point of philosophy, according to the author, ought to be a "reflection" (Besinnung) like that of Descartes and Kant, not empirical psychology, as with the English school (p. 16). While Kant's doctrine of number, although he has not rightly understood the nature of arithmetical synthesis, may be corrected by means of his own system, Mill's doctrine is fundamentally defective because based on empirical psychology. Allerlei aus Volks- und Menschenkunde. Von A. BASTIAN. Erster Band. Mit 3 Tafeln in Lichtdruck. Zweiter Band. Mit 18 photolithographischen Tafeln. Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1888. Pp. xi., 512; cxx., 380. No less comprehensive title than that which it bears could describe the wealth of material that is to be found in Dr. Bastian's latest contribution to the study of the minds of peoples. The second of the two volumes is illustrated by a series of plates (with explanatory text extending from p. 240 to p. 358), which may be regarded as a supplement to the ethnological atlas that accompanied the author's immediately preceding work (see MIND Xiii. 306). The ideas selected for illustration are chiefly Buddhistic and Christian. There is nothing new in the way of theory, but the accumulation of facts by which the author seeks to exhibit his ideas in concrete form is perhaps more extraordinary than ever. In vol. i., pp. 465-504, he returns to the subject of Theosophy and "spiritistic hocus pocus" discussed by him at some length in a former work (MIND xii. 308). FRIEDRICH UEBERWEG's Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Dritter Theil. "Die Neuzeit." Siebente, mit einem Philosophen- u. Litteratoren-Register versehene, Auflage, bearbeitet u. herausgegeben von Dr. MAX HEINZE, ord. Professor der Philosophie an der Universität Leipzig. Berlin: E. Mittler u. Sohn, 1888. Pp. viii., 568. The two earlier parts of the latest (seventh) edition of this standard work were noticed in MIND xi. 588. The third part here follows, and |