546 CBITICAL NOTICES : are a system. Even if the idea of Causality is reduced to that of logical or necessary connexion, it is difficult to think of a con- nexion which exists neither in matter nor hi any mind. Dr. McTaggart asserts the Unity of things as vigorously as can be desired : but the Unity which happens to be formed by a number of minds not one of which understands or purposes the plan of the whole is a Unity which is, to put it at its lowest, less easy to under- stand than the Unity which the Universe possesses for those who think of it as understood by a single Mind to whose will is due the existence both of the lesser souls which together with Him make up the whole and of those ordered procession of phenomena which are ultimately His and their experience. In conclusion, I will only add that the book before us is one of consummate ability, which Philosophers of every school have got to reckon with. H. EASHDALL. The Nature of Truth. An Essay by HABOLD H. JOACHIM. Ox- ford : At the Clarendon Press. 1906. Pp. 182. Price 6s. MB. JOACHIM deserves the thanks of all students of philosophy for having tackled so boldly a subject which is so rarely attempted in a spirit of thoroughness. Although there are few philosophers who have not given us their definition of ' Truth,' too many have found it easiest to slur over its difficulties with a convenient formula, which at best contained itself but the statement of the problem, not its solution. All the greater is the credit due to Mr. Joachim for his minute and searching analysis of some current theories of truth. And if he has offered us no new theory in the place of those which have fallen before his criticism, we have, perhaps, no right to com- plain. For it is something, as he pleads himself, to have cleared one's mind of false and ill-understood doctrines. It prepares the ground for reconstruction. And in this critical work Mr. Joachim has succeeded admirably. There seems no escape for those who hold the views he criticises, and his book should cause much search- ing of hearts in more than one philosophic quarter. No doubt, defenders will hurry to the rescue and attempt to patch up weak places. And we may expect in due course a stream of deliverances on the nature of Truth. Let us hope that her cause will be bene- fited thereby. Mr. Joachim's book is full of good things. Chapter iv. on ' The Negative Element and Error ' seems to me the best. But the second chapter, which criticises the theory that Truth is a quality of independent entities, is a very good ' second ' indeed. It is refreshing to have Mr. Joachim's emphatic insistence on the dynamic character of the ideal. And no less welcome is his vigorous protest against the facile expedient of explaining away error as being merely imperfect knowledge. Indeed, the recognition that ' error is dis-
