REVIEWS OF BOOKS.
Professor S. W. Dyde and Messrs. George Bell & Sons, his publishers, have done the English-speaking public a service in bringing out this work of Hegel on The Philosophy of Right. In these days of popular works on progress and poverty, the ownership of land, and the claims of socialism, it is a fine thing to be able to point out a thoroughly satisfying treatise on the subject of the institutions of civilization. Hegel's Philosophy of Right is such a work. It embodies all of the great positive ideas of Kant's and Fichte's treatises on the philosophy of right and also on ethics or morals. To these it adds a series of wonderful insights, drawn from sagacious study of the history of rights and morals in the nations of the world, past and present. No one since Aristotle has shown such power of seizing the net results of history as Hegel has done. He differs from the three great philosophers whom he succeeded, namely Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, by his ability to penetrate the inner meaning of a historical movement. This great power did more to give his philosophy a central poise than anything else. He habituated himself from the time of his early association with Schelling to see in philosophical doctrines not mere abstract principles, but moving forces which determine the thoughts, feelings, and actions of men. Nay, more than this, philosophical principles are the moving forces that explain nature, nature as we find it in time and space, and with minerals, plants, and animals. Even gravitation is to him the first negative reaction of being, which has been projected outside of itself by absolute reason. In gravitation things struggle to return to a point,—that is, they struggle to return out of their externality into true being, which is mind or spirit. Could gravitation attain what it struggles for, all matter would return to a point and be annihilated. Thus according to Hegel the material, even matter, gives evidence of its lack of true being and its dependence upon mind. Hegel has equally interesting thoughts in the Philosophy of Nature regarding light, and cohesion, and heat, and also magnetism. In the plant, the first living being, he finds self-determination, and hence the first element of the will, but he finds also in it the separation of the being
