frequently the natural result of the fact that several series of thought have revealed themselves to his genius without his being able to follow them out far enough to discover their reciprocal contradiction. And it may be of the greatest importance that these different series of thought are introduced. Of course it is best when fertility and consistency go together.
An attempt at the statement of a problem or at its solution may be doubly interesting. In the first place, it may be regarded as a tendency, as the historical expression of spiritual movements. Regarded from this point of view, the history of philosophy is a part of the universal history of civilization. Secondly, such an attempt may be tested with respect to the actual, definite clearness which has been attained by it. This view is more especially philosophical. These two sides from which philosophical phenomena may be regarded will naturally stand in a very differently opposed relation with reference to different phenomena. At times, indeed, the historical interest will be in an inverse ratio to the purely philosophical.
As peculiar to the presentation which I have given, I will mention first the special weight which I have put upon the personal factor, and upon the relation to the empirical sciences, as also upon the historical significance of philosophical phenomena. And in the second place, I would call attention to my endeavor to put more emphasis upon the statement of the problem than upon its solution. The solutions may pass away, and yet the problems will continue to live; otherwise philosophy would not have enjoyed so long a life as it actually has.
The first volume, which opens with the Renaissance and closes with a review of the French Illumination, is nearly ready. The second and concluding volume will be issued early in 1895. A German translation of the whole work by Bendixen is already under way at the press of O. Reisland, Leipzig.
Mattoon M. Curtis.
from the posthumous edition of 1777, and edited, with an introduction, comparative tables of contents, and an analytical index, by L. A. Selby-Bigge, M.A., Fellow and Lecturer of University College. Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1894.—pp. xl, 349.Every teacher and student of the History of Philosophy will cordially welcome this volume. It is one of the few recent text-books in the department of Philosophy of which one may say, without a touch of sarcasm and in the full sense of the words, that they 'satisfy a long felt need.' Six years ago the Clarendon Press issued a reprint edition of the Treatise of Human Nature, which has proved of the greatest value for class use. This was edited by Mr. Selby-Bigge, who, with characteristic modesty, gave us an elaborate index of sixty-eight pages of fine print, in place of a critical
