Page:Philosophical Review Volume 6.djvu/459

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443
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
[Vol. VI.

leniently and to exaggerate his importance. He not only emphasizes the part played by the English philosopher in the development of ethical and political theory in England, France, and Germany, but also credits the latter with a great influence on the thought of Spinoza, Leibnitz, Locke, and Berkeley. As already stated, he finds in Hobbes the germs of Spinoza's Monism, and he complains that the debt which Leibnitz owed to the English Positivist has been entirely ignored. "Locke," he adds, "softened and rendered more palatable" the psychology and epistemology of his predecessor; while Berkeley drew his metaphysics from the same source and reached his spiritualistic point of view by "a slight reconstruction " of the doctrine of Hobbes. While it may be true, as Tönnies asserts, that Hobbes has not received from his countrymen the recognition which is his due, it seems probable that the German author has overstated his case.

In scope and aim this work is similar to the compact little treatise on Hobbes which we owe to the late Professor Croom Robertson. It is scarcely necessary to say that it is written by one whose name has been long associated with that of Hobbes, and who is well qualified for the task he has undertaken. When we compare it with its English counterpart, however, it must be confessed that the latter contains a better outline of Hobbes' system as a whole, and presents a clearer conception of its unique place in the history of philosophy. The English work, moreover, has the advantage in precision and sobriety of statement.

David Irons.

Summary of Recent Ethical Treatises. By R. Nakashima, Ph.D. Tokyo, F. Tamiyama, 1896.—pp. 240.

This work is designed to aid Japanese students beginning the study of ethics by giving them, as a handbook, an analysis of the most important ethical treatises in French, German, and English. Reissues, as well as new books, are included. The books are arranged chronologically from Schurman's Kantian Ethics and the Ethics of Evolution, issued in 1881, to Watson's Hedonistic Theories, issued in 1895. Over ninety works are analyzed, thus witnessing both to the active interest in ethical questions in the period covered and to the wide reading of the author. The most original part of the book is contained in two appendixes,—one a lecture before the Tokyo Philosophical Society on the Order of Studies in Philosophy, and the second a more extended analysis and criticism of the neo-Kantian movement in England. As the author is an authority upon Kant, his essay upon this subject should be made accessible to the non-Japanese students of occidental philosophy.

W. F. Willcox.

The following books have also been received :

Dynamic Sociology. By Loster F. Ward. Second Edition. New York, Appleton & Co., 1897.—pp. xl, 706, 690. }}