philosophical method among English thinkers. It confines itself, therefore, to the most general conceptions of the problem and procedure of philosophy. The book starts with Bacon, who at the very beginning impressed upon English philosophy the experiential character which it has always kept. Hobbes corrected Bacon's neglect of deduction and brought to light the need of discovering the basis of knowledge in experience. To this problem Locke and his successors addressed themselves. Their results, however, were largely vitiated by their confusion of epistemology and psychology and the consequent breach between experience and reality. This problem was taken up by the Scottish School, which never succeeded, however, in escaping entirely from the subjectivism of its predecessors. In this connection Dr. Forsyth touches briefly upon J. S. Mill's theory of matter and discusses somewhat more at length Spencer's theory of the Unknowable. The consummation of the development away from subjectivism was reached only in the conception of "Experience the Material of Reality" (Ch. VII). This discusses Ferrier, John Grote, T. H. Green, and Mr. Bradley, who is regarded as bringing this phase of English philosophy to an adequate conclusion. Chapter VIII, "Knowledge as Relative to Practice," gives a summary of the treatment of this problem in English philosophy, beginning again with Bacon and concluding with a short account of Pragmatism. Chapter IX, the last of the historical chapters, is a more than usually detailed account of Mr. Hodgson's view of philosophical method.
Though the book is mainly devoted to history, the author's purpose is constructive. He calls the work his 'voyage of discovery' and he states in his Preface that the study of English philosophy has created in him the conviction that at least three principles, all equally essential, may be regarded as established. These are "the experiential method, the fundamental identity of experience and reality, and the relativity of knowledge generally to life or practice" (p. vi). Postulating an experiential method from the start, English philosophy has progressed mainly by developing the implications of such a method. This development has followed a number of separate lines, by the combination of which Dr. Forsyth believes that it is now possible to obtain a total view of the nature of philosophy (p. 216). The results are summed up at greater length in the last chapter of the book, but the three principles mentioned in the Preface are the essence of them. As an historical study, Dr. Forsyth's work is seriously injured by the presupposition with which he approaches English philosophy. He regards it, not as one chapter in the development of philosophical theories, but rather as an example of philosophical development generally. "Each different course of philosophic development is but a special instance of the unfolding of the principles, the one philosophy that works itself out in all" (p. 3). "It would seem to be not unreasonable, therefore, to take one development as illustrative of all" (p. 4). Having taken this radically non-historical attitude toward English philosophy, Dr. Forsyth inevitably falls into certain difficulties. He is compelled, for example, to treat English philosophy without reference to the foreign influences that have acted upon it. At two points in particular this
