ation, are marshalled for review, 'all,' that is, with such exceptions as Butler, the Scotch Intuitionalists, and Green. That under these circumstances the treatment is "compressed," is hardly surprising. More serious is the fact that a number of the criticisms rest upon misunderstandings (page 76, line 1; page 187, line 5); others depend upon the assumption that what an author neglected to explain, his theory, either as he left it or with slight modifications, is incapable of explaining (page 70, line 32; page 137, line 21); others again are hardly more than statements that the views in question are not in harmony with those of the historian (page 185, line 28; page 129, line 21). As a supplement to Sidgwick, this volume will make a place for itself; but its criticisms are too subjective to make it a contribution to the solution of the great problems of ethics.
A review which confines itself to a discussion of the treatment of fundamental problems must necessarily do injustice to a work such as this, whose defects in certain directions are atoned for by great merits in other respects. The exposition is all that could be desired; it is clear, precise, and logically articulated. Furthermore the haze which permeates many works on ethics is entirely absent to our great satisfaction and the glory of the general will. For that treacherous atmosphere may be made to cover as many sins as charity—indolence, an attempt to stand in two places at once, and even downright dishonesty. Moreover, the book is never dull and never fails to be suggestive; and, especially in Part I, it presents a great deal of valuable material. These two volumes are well worth the labor their translation must have cost. We may not accept the laws of psychical evolution which lie at the foundation of much they contain. We may be disposed to look upon the "law of the three stages" and the "law of heterogony" in very much the same light in which Professor Wundt himself looks upon the generalizations of Buckle. But no one can read this account of the development of the moral life, and the history of systematic reflection upon that life, without carrying away ideas and facts in abundance to incorporate into the structure of his own thought.
Frank Chapman Sharp.
Collège de France; directeur de la Revue Philosophique. Paris,
Félix Alcan, 1897.—pp. 260.We have here, according to the preface, the first of a series of volumes which will "comprehend all the parts of psychology " and will, it is to be inferred, treat the various functions of mental life from the
