The essays on "Hamlet" and "The Pessimistic Element in Goethe" need not detain us long, though together they occupy about seventy-five pages. Both belong to a kind of criticism which is only too familiar, but which hardly commends itself to the serious student of philosophy. To seek the 'inner meaning,' the 'underlying philosophy,' of the works of a notable literary man, means, in the great majority of cases, to commit the 'psychologist's fallacy.' Particularly is this true in the case of a poet like Shakespeare, whose genius is essentially dramatic. One objects, when Hamlet is regarded as the "type" of humanity "eternally striving to fathom the infinite" (p. 111); and not less, when the author says of Faust and Hamlet in a breath that they "imply a whole philosophy" (p. 171). One might almost dogmatically say of Shakespeare's works, at least, individually and collectively, that they do nothing of the kind. But one may, of course, read into them more than one philosophy,—as has frequently been done. With Goethe, to be sure, the case is somewhat different; but even he, though deeply interested in philosophy, was too true a literary artist to submit to the fetters of any particular metaphysical system. The 'law of compensation' holds, and Goethe chose what was for him the better part. It may be noticed in passing that, while in other parts of the book insisting upon a morality so stern that any trace of utilitarianism gives offense, the author takes the traditional indulgent view of Goethe's 'development' (e.g., p. 156).
The chapter on "Berkeley, Kant, and Schopenhauer" has only very indirectly to do with the problem of Pessimism proper. The key-note of this long and somewhat tedious chapter is perhaps sounded, when the author says, "Nevertheless, taken broadly, Realism and Nominalism have been fighting out the ancient battle over nearly the whole field of modern speculation" (p. 173). The later development of Berkeley's thought, with its "realistic" tendencies, is much insisted upon. Hume is regarded as a neo-Berkeleyan, in the same sense in which we call F. A. Lange and his followers neo-Kantians. The presentation of the different interpretations of Kant contains little, if anything, that is not familiar; and the same may be said of the criticisms of Schopenhauer. It is to be doubted if the author does justice to Schopenhauer's metaphysical acuteness, though he concedes that the great pessimist's criticism of Kant in his principal work is "much the most subtle, and in many ways conclusive, criticism to which the transcendental method has been subjected" (p. 224). It is to be wished that those who attack
