This work gained for its author the Crouzet prize, awarded by the Academy of Moral and Political Science. As its title indicates, its subject is a large one, and it is dealt with seriously and at considerable length. The general thesis it maintains is that evolution should be regarded, not as a universal law of the objective universe, but as a regulative concept which finds its place in the genetic study of natural processes. With this notion of evolution, however, the author finds the prevailing evolutionary philosophy of the present day, and especially that of Herbert Spencer, to be at variance. The "Synthetic Philosophy" he regards as the modern representative of the pre-Kantian speculation which led to a purely mathematical conception of reality, and of which Spinozism is the extreme and typical example. In all such philosophies, he claims, the method must be deductive, and the outcome a merely abstract knowledge. On the other hand, the legitimate employment of the idea of evolution is to be found in its application to inductive science, which deals with concrete realities. Even here the dominant conception is not that of evolution as a mere series of metamorphoses, but that of a cosmos, implying consciousness or thought as the subjective aspect of the life of the universe. To reach this conclusion, a critical examination is made of the idea of evolution as related to biology, psychology, and sociology. The philosophical position of the author is that of an idealist, and the trend of the work is strongly opposed to a purely mechanical explanation of nature.
There are few works that would be more warmly welcomed by students of ethical science than an adequate and comprehensive exposition of Hobbes's moral and political philosophy. The system of this, in some respects, most typically English of speculative thinkers, has received but scanty attention at the hands of his fellow countrymen. We can, therefore, only receive gratefully the monographs relating to him which appear from time to time in France, Germany, and Italy, though they but to a limited extent supply what is needed. The book before us covers somewhat the same ground as that of Signer Tarantino, noticed some time ago in this Review. While the latter work, however, was mainly explanatory, that of Signer Mondolfo is more directly critical. His contention is that Hobbism contains within itself such inconsistencies as, when developed, render the system self-contradictory. He points out the existence of two imperfectly reconciled factors in Hobbes's thought, the ethical and the political; wherever the first emerges, it is admitted that morality, or, in Hobbes's language, 'natural law,' springs from human reason, and has an objective and permanent value. When the second predominates, there is a denial of the claim of reason to
