Page:Philosophical Review Volume 23.djvu/222

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.
[Vol. XXIII.

since the author admits with Espinas that the family is in many ways inimical to the formation of wider association. The only advantage is that it develops certain talents that may make easier the development of wider associations. The emotions are said in one place (p. 406) to be forces that increase the effect of the instincts, sexual and parental, and so contribute to the formation of the family. Later (p. 418), in criticism of Sutherland, the emotions are identified with instinct, in harmony with the earlier definition. Among intelligent forces are mentioned invitation, the recognition of kind, communication, made possible by the development of vocal organs and the nervous system, and leadership. The theories that have laid emphasis upon these different forces are briefly reviewed with the conclusion that "all of the writers—McDougall, Petrucci, Adam Smith, Sutherland, Giddings, Kropotkin, Tarde, and Durkheim—have made important contributions to the analysis of social evolution, but it is evident that all of their theories are too unilateral and do not include all of the factors in social evolution."

On the whole the volume provides a useful resume of a wide range of the literature in English, in general biology, nervous anatomy and physiology, and psychology, that bears upon human behavior. It is of course impossible for any one to be equally familiar with all parts of so wide a field, there must be occasional slips and there would necessarily be difference of opinion as to the emphasis that should be put upon different parts of the field; but in spite of its faults the work should be a convenient work of reference for the student who has not the time or opportunity to read the summaries of fact in the different realms of knowledge from which Professor Parmelee draws his material.

W. B. Pillsbury.

University of Michigan.

Prinzipien der Erkenntnislehre. Versuch zu einer Neubegründung des Nominalismus. Von E. v. Aster. Leipzig, Quelle & Meyer, 1913.—pp. 408. Geh. M. 7.80; Geb. M. 8.60.

The subtitle proclaims this work to be an attempt to ground anew the doctrine of nominalism. The proposal bids us pause, for who is unmindful of the three centuries of 'monkish quarrel' when wrangling schoolmen drew out in fine-spun distinctions every theological impliction of this doctrine, made logic confront itself, asked of psychology impossible questions, framed definitions in general terms where the meaning of general terms was itself the matter in dispute, and drove the whole controversy afield into boundless regions of metaphysical speculation? It is true nevertheless that nominalism