trines, and had he then pointed out the elements of permanent value in the same. In conclusion he might have developed his own views on the lines of Schopenhauer's thought. In this way, we might have received something much more clear and definite. Perhaps the original "lecture form" of the work accounts for these defects.
Another unfortunate characteristic of Professor Caldwell's work is its vagueness and uncertainty. The author never seems to be quite sure of his ground. After stating an opinion he frequently retracts it, or at least qualifies his remarks in such a manner as to deprive them of their original force and meaning. For example, one of the chief contentions of the book is that Schopenhauer is an illusionist, and that his illusionism is due to his acceptance of idealism, which is the source of all his troubles. Professor Caldwell's discussion of this point is an interesting piece of intellectual vacillation. First he tells us that Schopenhauer's philosophy is "undoubtedly realistic and dynamic, and at least half materialistic" (p. 65). Then we are informed that "Schopenhauer is always an idealist in the sense that he believes that reality is not always just what it seems to be" (p. 66). On page 67, we read that Schopenhauer is a transcendental idealist or a transcendental realist; on page 71, that "the system retains to the end an illusory character bred of its erroneous initial acceptance of subjective idealism"; on page 72, "anyhow, it is true that idealism in Schopenhauer leads to illusionism, and that illusionism leads to nihilism, etc."; on page 78, "Schopenhauer could not satisfy his mind with the results of idealism, just because he believed that it meant reducing in this way the world into terms of mere knowledge, i.e., into a sort of pan-phenomenalism"; on page 79, "it may be said … that the very fact of Schopenhauer's seeking a bridge between the subjective and the objective again proves that he was not a consistent idealist"; on page 83, "it is his unfortunate provisional acceptance of subjective idealism which gives to his philosophy its transcendental character"; on page 84, "the idealism, however, which Schopenhauer on the whole assumed to be true … was not so much mere subjective idealism as 'ordinary' or 'empirical' idealism." Professor Caldwell evidently regards Schopenhauer as an illusionist because he taught that "knowledge somehow falsifies things" (p. 117). And after having said this, he takes pains to show us how, according to Schopenhauer, "the meaning of things is always something that one feels and sees rather than thinks and infers," and that we come face to face with the world-principle or the real reality, the will, in our own consciousness. It seems, then, that
