things, and not man. The Sophistic philosophy is a huge error, and this same Sophistic philosophy is very powerful to-day. It endeavors to make man the measure of all things, and this view remains purely Sophistical, even though the single individual may be replaced by society, or a great number of individuals by the average man, or the Zeitgeist. All these theories of the day represent the purely human and overlook the importance of the deeper reality from which the human has developed. To be sure, the peculiar form of Platonism has become untenable in the course of further experiences and considerations, but the substance of it remains, and may be called the existence of an independent world of spirit.

The spiritual world forms a contrast to the physical or material world from which it arises. But if the former tries to ignore the latter, it cannot escape punishment. The spiritual life is dependent upon the surroundings of reality and cannot dispense with it. It must struggle with it and conquer it, and through its conquest rise to greater heights. If the surrounding reality be neglected, our experience in the history of philosophy from Plotinus to Hegel proves that the spiritual life grows abstract and dry. It degenerates into soulless formalities unless it be separated by experience. The contrast that obtains must not be denied but must be conquered, not by a compromise but by the appropriation of the material through the spiritual.

The contrast between the spiritual and the real shows itself in all departments of life, and appears in science as the eternally renewed struggle between empiricism and rationalism, which are disparate life-processes that exclude one another and not merely two sides to one and the same reality. The problems offered by the contrast in which the spiritual finds itself with the sensual and material, find their solution in various propositions. Some try to deny the existence of evil. Such is the philosophy of optimism as represented by Leibnitz. He thinks of denying the reality of evil by inducing man to change his position and view his life from the standpoint of the All. Philosophy, he claims, will recognise the harmony of the world as soon as 'the eye is placed in the sun." This is the way in which optimism endeavors to free the world from irrationality. Suffering is regarded as a means of education, and even the moral evil or guilt is justified in the scheme of salvation. But we cannot regard evil as a mere accidental phenomenon, and the more the dialectic of optimism is accepted the more artificial appears its position.

Another solution is proposed by those who fly from the world of misery into the realm of the beautiful. Finding it impossible to deny the existence of evil, they seek a harmonious world in the empire of art, but even this is futile for art cannot avoid the abysses of misery, doubt, and sufferings, for wherever it does so, it becomes shallow and trivial.

A third solution is offered by naturalism which regards an independent world of spirit as an illusion. But naturalism, too, is untenable, because it chokes all joy of work, and is a resignation and suppression of all spiritual life. It leads to another solution which is called pessimism.

Pessimism is the resignation of all happiness and leads through a contemplation of the vanity of the world to a contempt for the world, which sometimes appears as a conquest of the world. Pessimism has many advantages over optimism, but its practical consequences are impossible. Whenever pessimism attempts to end in absolute negativism, it will quickly come into contradiction with the real nature of ourselves. By adhering to the principle of negation it surrenders reason, the norm of the spiritual, and the impossibility of such resignation becomes soon enough apparent. A man may resign for himself, but he cannot resign for the totality of mankind and for the whole of the spiritual world. He can resign his subjective happiness. He cannot give up the ideality of his nature. The endeavor to live and to work is not merely physical; it is also metaphysical. We have not only to maintain our individual, and, as it were, "pointlike " existence, but also the spiritual process which ensouls us, for we are coworkers in the design of a spiritual world, and we wage a battle for our soul. The whole life of man, from this standpoint, appears as a duty, which is not a creation of our own arbitrary will, but depends upon the inner necessity of our spiritual existence and upon our relations to the invisible order of all things. Misery and suffering are indispensable in the struggle for a spiritual existence, the aim of which does not lead to nothing, but to the construction of a new world. The old ego may be destroyed, but life is resurrected in a new and spiritual self. The lower impulses of life may be rooted out, but the higher aspirations will persist, and their reality becomes the more apparent. The deepest tendency of life is not identical with the yearning for selfish pleasure, and the energetic struggle for life is possible in full contrast to the lower hunger for life, because man in such cases does not stand up for his own individual cause alone. Thus, the reality of evil does not disappear, but loses in its predominance and supremacy in life.

Thus, it is not mere existence which we aspire for, but we must give to existence a content which is the creation of a spiritual world with spiritual significance. Upon this basis a new world-conception must be created which will renew the old ideals that are found in religion, which is not a mere sentiment but endeavors to build up the life of the spirit. Eucken would not confine himself to the forms of our traditional religion, but declares that philosophy should take a view of the whole from a more general standpoint. Yet he feels himself in agreement with the spirit of religion, which is expressed in its ethical aspirations.

P. C.

GRUNDZÜGE Der wissenschAFTLICHEN UND TECHNISCHEN ETHIK. VON Dr. Fred Bon. Leipsic: Wilhelm Engelmann. 1896. Pages, 166. Price, 4 Marks. Dr. Fred Bon's position is perhaps most clearly characterised on pp. 14-15 of his pamphlet where he declares that every individual of a species must on the one hand compete with all other individuals of the same species who have the same wants and need the same means for the satisfaction of their wants, and on the other hand struggle against individuals of other species, who are either utilised for his

benefit or destroyed to provide him with food. The former condition produces a tendency to hostility or isolation, the other a tendency to mutual approach and combination. Thus all life is dominated by “isolation and conclusion," and our author finds "the ethical maxim in conclusion" as against "isolation which is the maxim of egotism." Thus he formulates the definition of ethics, which is the main result of his considerations in the preface (p. 4), as "a superordination of the conclutory interests." The term "conclutory" is original with the author and cannot (from a philological standpoint) be regarded as a happy formation. Since the author intends to elevate ethics, which so far has been a mere science, to an art that should be the most powerful branch of social politics" (p. 11), he proposes to lay down the outlines also of the "technic ethics," which is "the noble task of the ethics of the future."

The contents of the booklet are subsumed under the headings of "the law of moral evolution" and "the raising of mankind" (Menschheitszucht), the latter containing some indifferent discussions of sexual love and various other moral considerations regarding the place of the individual and its individuality in society, moral commandments and an appeal to voluntary complaisance, the influence of moral ideals, etc. On the last page of the book we are told that ethical conflicts will be decided not by arguments or logical deductions but by action and energy. The strongest will conquer.

The author quotes Nietzsche, Wundt, Ihering, Hegel, and Schopenhauer indiscriminately and remains always on the surface. He scarcely touches the real problems of ethics, which is not a "super-ordination of the conclutory interests," not a mere submission to the common will of society (Gesammtwillen). Is it not possible, nay, even a frequent occurrence, that one individual is morally right in opposition to all others? It is true that the strongest will conquer, but the question is who is the strongest? Is the tiger stronger than man, and is there no strength whatever in logical argument or in truth?

P. C.

SÖREN KIERKEGaard als PhilOSOPH. By Harald Höffding, Professor der Philosophie an der Universität Kopenhagen. Mit einem Vorwort von Christoph Schrempf, Lic. Theol. Stuttgart; Fr. Frommanns Verlag (E. Hauff). 1896. Pages, 170. Price M. 1.50.

GUSTAV THEODOR FECHNER. By Kurd Lasswitz. Stuttgart: Fr. Frommanns Verlag (E. Hauff). 1896. Pages, 204. Price, M. 1.75. HOBBES LEBEN UND LEHRE.

By Ferdinand Tönnies. Stuttgart: Fr. Frommanns Verlag (E. Hauff). 1896. Pages, 232. Price, M. 2.00.

Imitating a practice which has been extensively developed in America and England, a German publishing house has begun the publication of a series of Philosophical Classics, being monographs on the life and work of the leading philosophers of all times. The series, which is edited by Prof. Richard Falckenberg, of Erlangen, begins with the three volumes before us, and will be supplemented by the

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following: 'Galileo," by Dr. Natorp, of Marburg; "Bayle," by Dr. Eucken, of Jena; "Hume," by Dr. Riehl, of Kiel; "Kant," by Dr. Paulsen, of Berlin; "Rousseau," by Dr. Höffding, of Copenhagen; "Feuerbach," by Dr. Jodl, of Vienna; "Auguste Comte," by Dr. Windelband, of Strassburg; and "Spinoza," "Hegel," "Schleiermacher," "Herbart," "D. F. Strauss," Herbert Spencer," and "Fr. Nietzsche," by other competent writers. It is intended to publish from three to four volumes yearly. From its cheapness and promised solidity the series will doubtless be a valuable acquisition to the popular literature of the history of philosophy, and although some of the subjects have been much overworked, there are several concerning which it would be difficult to find the same information in other places. This is notably the case with the three initial volumes of the series"Fechner," "Hobbes," and "Kierkegaard." These three philosophers receive here excellent treatment at the hands of recognised authorities, who have, in addition, suggestive material of their own to offer.

The personality of S. Kierkegaard, although a commanding figure in Danish life and thought, is little known outside the boundaries of his native country, and, if we except the accidental acquaintanceship made by superficial students of Danish literature, even this knowledge is shared only by men of kindred spirit, whose aspirations run in the same channel. Of that great movement which has now for a quarter of a century been slowly gathering irresistible force, and whose aim is to reach a juster and more practical conception of the laws regulating human conduct, and particularly to harmonise the traditions touching this matter with the reasoned thought of the present, Kierkegaard was one of the greatest forerunners and most powerful exponents. The importance and power of Kierkegaard, like that of Socrates (he was the Socrates of Copenhagen), lies mainly in his personality. The mainspring of his entire thought and action was his colossal hypochondria, his distinctest patrimony, stamping every lineament of his life. His subjectivism in philosophy, his individualism in ethics and in religion are its logical issues, and in it, too, we find the full psychological explanation of the scheme of philosophy which he elaborated. His works are numerous and bear mainly upon the burning ethical problems of existence. They have all an intensely practical bearing, and, in style, the incisive forcefulness which comes from straightforward and honest effort. His prose, direct, homely, and vivid, joined to great persuasive power, wealth of metaphor, satire, and invective, stands unrivalled in Danish literature. If he is not more widely known it is mainly because of his singular excellence in this regard. For although some of his work has been translated into German, like Carlyle and Emerson, he must be read in his native language to be adequately appreciated-and students of Danish are few.

As to his philosophy, its fundamental features are determined by the predominantly religious cast and effort of his thought, which studied psychology and ethics merely as the propedeutics of a mode of life. His interests were never purely theoretical or scientific, but ethical, educational, and salvational. It is the main and

only proper aim of thought, he contends, to discover the methods by which man is best fitted to lead a moral life in this world. He attempted this by first seeking a method of life for himself and afterwards establishing its validity for others. He regarded it as his duty to raise difficulties" in the world of thought, which has, by the way, always been the philosophical method, and to exhibit the breaches between the logical consequences of ideas and the practical compromises which the world, by the exigencies of historical evolution, has been forced to make. He was bent upon unmasking the illusions and deceptions which man had thus imposed upon himself. His criterion of truth was absolute subjective clearness on all points -a view which had its roots in his intense and supersaturated egoism—and, this clearness reached, the courageous and honest adoption of the alternative presented as the upshot of such investigations. Either-Or, was his motto, the title of one of his most important works, and the name by which his unique figure was known even to the gamins in the streets of Copenhagen.

This same feature leads to an important characteristic of his general scheme of thought, which he has termed the leap or saltus-the cold plunge of resolution, the mental acrobatic feat which precedes all momentous decisions and which, in his view, marked even the growing action of nature. He knew nothing of evolution, and did not even permit its most natural and primitive intimations to affect his system. There was no continuity for him either in the natural or in the mental world-all went by breaches, ruptures, solutions of unity. He had absolutely no sense for the organic, nor even for the determinative aspects, of existence. Things leapt into existence, they became not. By such magic somersaults the world grew; by such its institutions were born, and by them man, too, was destined to carve out his salvation. In the same indeterministic fashion Christianity was catapulted into existence, and, having existed, illogically enough was foreordained to continue ever after as it originally was, unmodified by history or circumstances, and admitting of no compromise with the world or worldliness.

Kierkegaard's battle for the rehabilitation of primitive Christianity in its purest, rigidest, and most unadulterated form, was the crowning achievement of his life. It brought him into conflict with the ruling church, which he repudiated as a dishonest and hypocritical compromise with the worldly spirit of the times, and subjected him to not a little annoyance in the way of petty persecutions, which were rendered more easy by sundry grotesque features of his thought and personality. He was a standing figure in the comic journals of Copenhagen,-a distinction which he resented bitterly,—and having been once maliciously accused of a discrepancy in the longitude of his trousers' legs, gravely refuted the charge in his diary. But these were mere wrinkles on the anatomy of his greatness. His ideality, moral earnestness, his great literary power and puissant manliness, render him a gigantic figure in Denmark, and certainly one of uncommon stature in the race. For as a religious thinker, even by the world's standard, he will stand high, although as a philosopher his position is not so lofty; and it is not the least of Prof.