BOSMINl'S ORIGIN OF IDEAS, U. 311 He cannot escape from the natural helplessness of the dissatisfied social unit : and the perusal of his last word only strengthens in us the feeling that the one consistent attitude of the would-be dynamic sociologist must be an attitude of "refined despair". In order to start his Utopia he has nothing to do save to convert the world: but then . In short, he could do a great deal if only he had a vov a-w. In this vicious circle, Mr. Ward's Dynamic Socio- logy, it seems to us, revolves aimlessly, and leaves the real work of evolution to be still performed by the much despised agency of natural as opposed to teleological causes. ALLEX. Tlie Origin of Ideas. By AXTOXIO ROSJIIXI SERB ATI. Translated from the Fifth Italian Edition of the Nuovo Sagyio sulV Oriyine delle Idee. Vol. EL London : Kegan Paul, Trench, 1883. Pp. xxiii., 501. Having in those sections of the Nuovo Saggio, which the Trans- lators issued some months ago as Vol. i., criticised and repeated all previous theories respecting the origin of ideas, Eosrnini pro- poses his own theory in the elaborate section which makes up the present volume, and we thus reach the positive part of his doctrine. But there is in it little more than reiteration in lengthy detail and in continuous systematic form of the occasional short statements of his discoveries and views which were found here and there in Vol. i., and summed up in MIND XXXI. And it is doubtful whether the expansive treatment of this volume does not make his position more obscure and questionable. He begins with an examination of that innate intuition of possible and quite indeterminate or characterless Being, which he takes to be the sine qua non of intellection or knowledge in general. For a suffi- cient account of this innate idea or " concept " of being, see the notice referred to. " Being is the light shining in our mind by nature ". Every intellectual act supposes it. Every other idea is purely derived from it, or compounded of it with matter of sense. Our first principles of reasoning are only so many ways of applying it. From it, he gets our concepts of Cause, Substance, Body " animate and inanimate," Time, Motion, and Space. This is the sum and substance of the present volume. Great pains is taken to show that the priceless concept does not come of sense, because it is objective or in-itself, only possible or ideal, " simple " and characterless, one and always the self- same, universal, necessary, immutable, and eternal. Nor will Locke's reflection give it, nor abstraction or generalisation ; and, yet, Eosmini calls it " the last of abstractions," and says " Be- yond this it is impossible for abstraction to go without our losing all object of thought, or in other words, ceasing to think " ! There may be an obstinate doubt in some minds whether this consummation which the pessimists so devoutly desire, would not
