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scious man the subject is perceived as the absolute and knowledge as identical with existence, but not without the negative aspect that the subject is absolute only in so far as it is the agent of a creative mimicry, or mimicking creation, of existence, and knowledge only the ideal equation of Being. Again, all knowledge comes from and goes back into individual minds. Therefore, if the progressive development of knowledge, the spirit of the thought of a time, is to be understood, our understanding of it must be sought in the individual spirits from whence it took its new trend of development. Such are the systems of the great philosophers which Mr. Schellwien has undertaken to study in the light, and as corroborations, of his views, beginning with Spinoza, whose philosophy, after the author's formal introduction, takes up the bulk of this first part.

PRENOZIONI DI FILOSOFIA SCIENTIFICA.

Ugolino Delbello.

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By Prof. Carlo Salvadori. Montegiorgio: 1894. Pages, 312. Price, L. 3.

This little volume is designed as a text-book of elementary philosophy for students in lyceums and colleges. It professes to give no more than mere hints, accenni, on the subjects which it treats, and might be compared to the manuals which are widely used in German universities under the name of "encyclopædias "—works giving bird's-eye views, skeleton-outlines, definitions, etc., of the subjects treated. The general idea of the book is excellent. According to the more modern point of view it begins with psychology and ends with logic and ethics. Under Psychology Professor Salvadori treats man's mental nature in all its comprehensive entirety, relegating to logic and ethics only what is included under those heads in their restricted sense. The author is unusually well acquainted with the philosophical and scientific literature of England, France, and Germany, and has made valuable use of the results of the most recent writers of those countries. Upon the whole, he has produced a concise, useful, and suggestive little manual, in a line where such books are much needed. μικρκ.

PHILOSOPHIE und ErkenntniSTHEORIE. By Dr. Ludwig Busse. Leipsic: S. Hirzel. 1894. Pp. 288.

The philosophical investigations which form the body of this work grew up in Japan in connexion with the lectures and exercises which Dr. Busse conducted while Professor of Philosophy in the Teikoku Daigaku, the Imperial University, at Tokio, and are dedicated to his old Japanese students. The book possesses not a little of interest through this association, as many will be desirous to know what manner of philosophy is provided to the young men of that rising nation. Dr. Busse is now Privatdocent of Philosophy in Marburg, Germany. The three teachers whom he cites as his masters, and as having furnished the stimulus to his thought, are Lotze, Kant, and Hume; but he has borrowed nothing from these men, he claims, that he has not made thoroughly his own, so that his philosophy is entitled to independent rank.

Dr. Busse aims to find some tenable position, in the struggle now waging between dogmatic philosophy and the critical theories of knowledge respecting the possibility of metaphysics. Man is a dogmatist, he contends, by birth and nature. The ingenuous clown sees and thinks the world as it appears to him, and no scepticism can dissuade him from his convictions. Even the doubt of the philosopher is based upon the ineradicable dogmatic prejudice that his doubting thought is true. If my doubt, as Descartes said, like my thought, proves my existence, it also proves the validity of my thought, for that is always assumed in the doubt. Now, belief in the objective validity of necessary thought is the assumption on which all metaphysics rests, and the point at which it is attacked by its opponents. And since that very belief and confidence in reason lies also at the basis of the scepticism which the critics of knowledge offer, the attempt is naturally in order, to investigate the position of these opponents of metaphysics, and to show to what extent they have made use of the very dogmatic and metaphysical prejudice which they combat. It may turn out, as Kant has said, that they never think but they lapse themselves into metaphysical affirmations.

This investigation forms the subject of the first part of Dr. Busse's book. His method is to analyse the assertions of the anti-metaphysicians, and to develop their consequences, so as to reach the final assumptions on which they rest. Those assumptions are then probed and their own dogmatic and metaphysical character laid bare. Thus he shows that the denial of the possibility of truth is itself a procedure which presupposes the truth and validity of the laws of thought and consequently nullifies its own results; in a word, the very attempt to establish scepticism nullifies scepticism. In a similar way he proceeds to consider idealism, subjectivism, phenomenalism, etc., as forms of modified or conditional scepticism. He then takes up the critical and transcendental philosophies. In all, he finds that the antimetaphysical speculations are vitiated by the very notions and methods which they profess to reject. A criticism of reason by reason is impossible in the sense of determining the possibility of objective metaphysical knowledge. To prove metaphysics impossible is itself impossible. Reason is incompetent to criticise reason. Epistemology, as a theory of the nature and origin of knowledge and of its relations to its objects, but as resting on metaphysical knowledge, is a possible and important branch of philosophy; epistemology as a critical and fundamental science is impossible. Then follows a brief section directed against the theological objections to metaphysics; the dogmatic innate prejudice respecting the validity of reason for all reality needs no assistance nor criticism from theology.

The second part of the work is positive and is devoted to what might be called the encyclopædic" exposition of the author's philosophy. It gives the outlines of his philosophical system as it takes form under his fundamental assumption of the objective validity of necessary thought, which is shown to be not equivalent to the speculative construction of all reality from pure reason, but admits other independent sources which although not affecting the validity of reason, nevertheless share

with it some of its prerogatives. First, the fundamental constituent elements of reality are ascertained. These are "principles," "facts," and "values," which cannot be expressed one in terms of another. Secondly, philosophy, as universal science, or world-wisdom, is divided into theoretical philosophy, which determines the nature of existence, into practical philosophy which investigates the so-called "values," and into religious philosophy which unites the results of both in the Absolute. This division is made on the ground of Kant's simple formulation of philosophy as consisting of the answers to three questions: "What can I know? What shall I do? What may I hope for?" Here all the questions are discussed that are usually classified under these three heads in the philosophical systems. The third part, which is not yet published, will go more into the details of the criticism of the traditional systems, which in this book is only indicated.

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RICHARD AVENARIUS' BIOMECHANISCHE GRUNDLEGung der neuen ALLGEMEINEN ERKENNTNISSTHEORIE, EINE EINFÜHRUNG IN DIE KRITIK DER REINEN ERFAHRUNG." By Friedrich Carstanjen. München: Theodor Ackermann. 1894. Pp., 129. Price, M. 3.

According to Mr. Carstanjen, the Kritik der reinen Erfahrung of Prof. R. Avenarius marks a crisis in modern philosophical thought, being unique in all epistemological literature. That work consists of two parts: a biological part and a psychological part. In the first, a biomechanics is developed in which the process of cognition is reduced in toto to biological phenomena, being a complete doctrine of the changes and groups of changes of the central nervous organ according to purely logical points of view and wholly apart from the assumption of "psychical factors" of any sort whatever. Part II. is psychological, being devoted to the description and classification of the Aussagewerte, or predications of the individual as having psychical value. Rising from a broad physiological and anthropological basis a rigid parallelism is established between the changes of the central organ and the contents of the predications, both of which, member for member, are linked together like functions in mathematics are, or rather like the functions of a symbolical logic. The reading of Avenarius's works is a difficult task. His pages bristle with hybrid formulæ and imitations of mathematical nomenclature; and although the time, it seems to us, has not yet come for his commentators, it is perhaps well, just owing to this strange and forbidding physiognomy of his work, that some one should assist the timid student to approach him with confidence and hope. For one of the profoundest thinkers of our era Avenarius is; and tackle him we must, whether at first hand and originally in his own works or through Mr. Carstanjen's Introduction. At any rate, to supply the place of the magnum opus itself is not Mr. Carstanjen's intention. That, he says, must be studied by itself; worked through, pen in hand, not read through. All Mr. Carstanjen has sought to do is to give his own impression, as a sort of self-satisfaction, hoping that the fruits of his arduous labors will help others. The résumé seems to be a trustworthy one.

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THE MANDÛKYOPANISHAD. With Gaudapâda's Kârikâs and the Bhâshya of S'ankara. Translated into English by Manilal N. Dvivedi, Bombay: Tookaram Tatya. 1894. Pp. 188. Price, one and one-half rupee.

Mr. Dvivedi is a well known and acute Hindu writer on philosophy. The present translation of the Mândûkya with its several commentaries, was undertaken by him at the request of Col. H. S. Olcott and in behalf of the Bombay Theosophical Publication Fund, generously donated by Mr. Iyer of the Madras High Court. So far as the translator knows the Bhâshya of S'ankara and the Kârikâs of Gaudapâda are not yet rendered into English, and he is satisfied that the Mândûkya itself will be much better understood in the light of those commentaries,—a belief to which the student of the subject will no doubt yield his assent. Mr. Dvivedi has prefixed to the translation an excellent historical and expository introduction of fifty pages, giving a brief résumé of the doctrines of the six well-known schools of Indian philosophy with their various tendencies, but chiefly expounding the Advaita system, or philosophy of the absolute. Mr. Dvivedi is a zealous champion of the Advaita1 system and knows how to connect its formal teachings with all the grave questions of modern society. With regard to the idea of publishing in English translations the records of the acute ancient Indian schools of thought, all scholars will be of the same opinion with Mr. Dvivedi that "it will be proved ere long that the generous gentleman who conceived the idea of accomplishing this work has rendered valuable service to the cause of literature and philosophy in general."'

We have also just received a little pamphlet by this author on the Purânas, being a lecture delivered at the International Congress of Orientalists held in Stockholm in 1889. (Leyden: E. J. Brill.)

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ALLGEMEINE PHYSIOLOGIE. Ein Grundriss der Lehre vom Leben. By Dr. Max Verworn, Privatdocent der Physiologie an der medicinischen Facultät der Universität Jena. Jena G. Fischer. 1895. Pages, 584. Price, 15 M. "The elementary constituent of all living substance and the substratum of all "elementary phenomena of life is the cell. If, therefore, physiology finds in the "explanation of vital phenomena its fundamental task, it is plain that general phys"iology can only be a cellular physiology." Such is the thesis which Professor Verworn has placed at the foundation of his exhaustive treatise of General Physiology. A cursory glance at its contents will give us the best idea of its import and scope. First, we have a discussion of the aims and methods of physiological research, including a statement of the problem of physiology, the history of its development from ancient times, and a description of modern methods and theories. We shall only stop here to note (1) that Verworn's solution of the problem of body and soul, objectivity and subjectivity, consists in the simple assumption of a psyche, of which objects are mere groups of sensations; and (2) that there is no one exclusive

1Advaita (literally "non-duality") is what we call Monism.

physiological method, but that all methods are admissible, provided they lead to the one physiological goal-the elucidation of life. The second chapter treats of the chemical and physical composition of living substance,-giving the elements of its morphology,—and of life and death; the third of the elementary phenomena of life, metabolism, cellular development, and the vital forms of energy; the fourth of the present and past conditions of life, biogenesis, and the history of death; the fifth of cellular irritation; the sixth and last of the physical machinery of life, cellular mechanics, and the economy of cellular states. The book is a portly one, richly illustrated (268 cuts), and contains full and adequate descriptions of the newest laboratory appliances.

As will be seen, the plan of the work leaves nothing to be desired, in everything that goes to constitute a historical and systematic presentation of the rudiments of general physiology. Much of the material is gathered from scattered and mostly inaccessible sources, and all is subjected to examination under new synthetic points of view. Stress is laid upon the importance of the comparative method as employed by Johannes Müller, to whose memory the work is dedicated. As the task here undertaken has never been attempted before on so extensive a scale and as an organic whole, the author asks his colleagues' forbearance and solicits from them rigorous and outspoken criticism. That criticism, however, is not for us. Professor Verworn's work supplies a profound want in the general literature of this subject, and will be of valuable assistance, by its easy style, not only to students and professors of physiology, but also to the cultured reader and scientist generally, be he philosopher or physician, botanist, zoologist, or what not. It remains to state that Professor Verworn contributed an article to The Monist, somewhat over a year ago (April, 1894), on 'Modern Physiology," which he has incorporated in the present work, and to which the reader may be referred for a succinct statement of his views.

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A HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS. By Florian Cajori, Ph. D. New York and London : Macmillan & Co. 1895. Pages, 422. Price, $3.50.

There is no subject with which history as a rule is so little associated, nor any which in some of its parts derives so much profit from it, as mathematics. The history, for example, of the origin and growth of the calculus of variations is imperatively necessary to a profound apprehension of its principles. The chief function, however, of the history of mathematics, as a constituent of instruction, or collateral reading, is the stimulus which flows from the human and romantic features that adhere in such variety and number to the development of the science, as also the heuristic glimpses which it affords of the way in which knowledge generally is constituted. Intellectually nothing could be more refreshing than the anecdotes which De Morgan, say, recounts in his mathematical biographies of the wit and idiosyncrasies of the giants of mathematical thought, and physically, no doubt, many a lean-faced pangeometric youth will be spurred on to wholesome athletic efforts by

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