BOOK REVIEWS.

HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSophy, from Nicholas of Cusa to the Present Time. By Richard Falckenberg, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Erlangen. Translated with the Co-operation of the Author, by A. C. Armstrong, Jr., Professor of Philosophy in Wesleyan University. New York: Henry Holt

& Co. 1893. Pp., xv and 655. Price, $3.50.

The appearance of Falckenberg's Geschichte der neueren Philosophie in an English dress supplies a welcome addition to the facilities for the study of modern philosophy. The aim of the work as stated by the translator in his preface, is to be at once scientific and popular, standing midway between the exhaustive expositions of the larger histories and the meagre sketches of the compendiums." The book itself will bear witness to the unusual degree of success which has attended the execution of this purpose. Dr. Falckenberg has been peculiarly well qualified by his experience as a teacher, as well as by his extensive and accurate acquaintance with the history of modern philosophy, to produce a work that combines, in convenient compass, an adequate presentation of the outlines of modern thought, with practical adaptability to the requirements of students in the class-room.

The leading features which distinguish Falckenberg's work are the following. First, its treatment of the transition from Nicholas of Cusa, the "path-finder" of modern philosophy, to Descartes, its real founder, in a section which is not only very important in itself but also serves as a valuable introduction to the movements which follow. Secondly, its style, which is a model of compactness and perspicuity, being almost entirely free from that obscurity and involved phraseology which is so common in German philosophical writers and so perplexing to English readers. The influence of such masters as Kuno Fischer is here quite manifest. Thirdly its intelligent and sympathetic treatment of English thought. Schwegler set the bad example which most of the Germans have followed, of regarding English thought as a kind of side issue and giving it but cursory attention. Falckenberg, on the contrary, belongs to that group of contemporary German writers who have awakened to the fact that there has been a real movement of English thinking and that it possesses great historic importance. An English reader might not fully concur

in his estimate of Bacon, for example, but he could find little to criticise in his full and intelligent treatment of Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, the English deists and moralists and the representative thinkers of the eighteenth century. No other German, in a work of the same size, has treated the movement of English thinking so fully or with more intelligent appreciation. A fourth characteristic which is a distinctive feature of the work, is its thoroughly objective method, Falckenberg aims to be a simple interpreter of systems and movements, keeping his own subjective opinions in the background and using criticism as sparingly as possible. Such a method has its limitations, of course, and there is room for honest divergence of opinion as to the extent, for example, to which the historian may go in the employment on abdication of the critical judgment. The advantages of the objective method as conceived by Falckenberg, are, however, too apparent to require specification; and his employment of it, his manifest impartiality and his clear and masterly expositions, will tend to disarm criticism.

The work with which this treatise of Falckenberg's is likely to be brought into the closest comparison, is that of Windelband which has also been favored with an English dress. But the two works occupy different places. Windelband is specially adapted to the requirements of advanced students and presupposes that elementary acquaintance with the contents of systems and historic movements which is so admirably supplied by Falckenberg. Falckenberg's treatise will hold a place of its own as the best accessible historical Einleitung to the study of modern philosophy. The translator has performed his part with conscientious fidelity and with marked ability. Enjoying exceptional facilities for his work, he has succeeded in making into excellent English a very faithful reproduction of the original. Professor Armstrong, like the author, is an experienced teacher and has been guided in his labors by the same sense of the practical needs of the class-room. An important addition which appears in the English version is found in the chapter on philosophy in Great Britain and America which has been completely re-written and greatly enlarged. Some other changes of minor importance have also been made. The work will doubtless be welcomed as an important addition to the text-book facilities for the study of philosophy in our colleges and universities.

A. T. O.

BASAL CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY. An Inquiry into Being, Non-Being, and Becoming. By Alexander T. Ormond, Ph. D., Professor of Philosophy in Princeton University. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1894. Price $1.50. Pages, 308.

A note of high and noble seriousness pervades this work, which, differ from it how we will, strongly commands our respect and attention. The emphasis which it lays upon the religious problems of philosophy, the strong and determined stand it takes against the faule Weltweisheit of the day, the moderation and tone of its criticism, place it apart, immeasurably apart, from the flippant and intemperate productions of the period. The masses of the intelligent are espousing agnos

"ticism, not as the result of any reasoned conviction, but out of sheer inability to "rise above the middle axioms of human thinking. . . . The spirit of the time is not lacking in scholarship or zeal for the truth: what it needs most is a fresh baptism "in the fountain of insight." "The greatest thought of the human spirit is the "thought of God." "The human soul is the highest actualisation of the spiritual potence that is immanent in the world." Who would not give assent to the spirit of such utterances? In them Professor Ormond places his finger on the central problems of philosophy, and characterises clearly the fundamental defect of a great part of modern thought. Yet, having said this, we must say, too, that from his chief results, and especially from his method, we differ in toto.

Professor Ormond is a successor of Dr. McCosh and now occupies the chair of philosophy at Princeton. His theory is, broadly speaking, Realism. "The world is a "solid and firm-jointed reality which confronts the knower and fills his categories "with objective content from the beginning to the end of the process of experience." His method is the ontologic method ("ontologic" being understood here in its historical sense), and is diametrically opposed to the method of the Positive philosophies. Positive philosophy goes up from facts to abstractions; ontologic philosophy comes down from abstraction to facts. It sets itself such problems as these: "How does the Absolute become the Relative, especially the Imperfect Relative?" Answer, through Non-Being. In this art Hegel is the greatest adept. The extent to which Professor Ormond adopts this method may be seen from the fact that he regards Hegel's "restoration of the negative as a necessary philosophic datum " as a great stride in philosophy. He says: "The world is the other of Absolute spirit. "... In going out from itself it others itself, and this other is its negative or not-self. "The not-self is the world, and thus the world and its process are mediated by ne"gation."

The universal complaint of German philosophers, says Heine, is das Nichtverstandenwerden, "not being understood." "Nur einer hat mich verstanden," said Hegel plaintively on his deathbed, "Only one man ever understood me," and, as the appalling implications of that confession dawned upon him, he turned and added in his last gasp, und der hat mich auch nicht verstanden," "and he didn't understand me either!" Yet it would be wrong, from Heine's witticism, to suppose that Hegel's work was all for naught in the history of philosophy.

We shall now quote a few passages which will show what Professor Ormond's theory of knowledge is. He says: "Knowledge is founded in categories, and its "successive stages arise not primarily, out of the generalisation of facts, but rather "out of the emergence of new categories under which our generalisations are to pro"ceed. We not only generalise facts, but our reflexion rises from categories of space "and time to those of substance and cause, and only rest finally in the supreme "ideas of unity and ground." In another place: "Self-consciousness is the first "principle of knowledge." And again: "The psychological categories must be "translated from subjective to objective universals."

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The main motive of the volume is a desire to restore the primacy of certain conceptions which are in danger of disappearing from our modern thinking." Dissenting from monistic pantheism on the one hand and from agnosticism on the other, the author has sought in laudably small compass to reconstruct philosophy "upon the trinal categories of being, non-being, and becoming." Of the whole inquiry the aim has been to penetrate the mysteries of the Absolute only so far as may be 'necessary in order to discover how it rationally grounds the relative order." With respect to religion, we have as data, "(1) a transcendent Absolute whose energy "functions creatively in the world as an immanent spiritual principle or potency; (2) "the human soul a spiritual principle passing perpetually from potence to actuality "and thus epitomising the world-progress from mechanism up to actualised spirit: "(3) the logos which functions immanently as man's ideal law-giver and transcen"dently as the organ of divine communication to the human soul."

Being, Non-being, Becoming, the Absolute, the Negative, the Logos, the a-Logos-such are the conceptions whose primacy Professor Ormond wishes to restore. Students who are unaccustomed to the symbolism of the ontological school will find this book difficult and baffling reading. But Professor Ormond expresses the hope that "the discerning reader will penetrate the shell to the kernel that it conceals." We hope that in a second edition of the work Professor Ormond will add an index, or at least an analytical table of contents.

T. J. MCC.

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THEOLOGY. By W. L. Page Cox, M. A.

Skeffington & Son, 163 Piccadilly, W. 1893. Pages, 180.

London:

It will be interesting to examine the views of a vicar of the Church of England, who prefaces his work with the words of St. Paul: "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good"; for we should expect much of enduring value from the work of a man who, though he adopts a scientific criterion of truth for religious researches is yet inclined by calling and by nature to do justice to the historico-religious beliefs of humanity. In examining first why theology should be studied as the other sciences are studied " Mr. Cox finds that the modern disturbance of faith is not due so much to the apparent collision of the doctrines of religion and the truths of science, as to the fact that the doctrines of religion are supposed to lie for the most part outside of the scope of a strictly scientific inquiry. This, he contends, is not so. Theology is just as much a legitimate field of scientific research as are the other departments of knowledge. The trouble hitherto has been that theologians have doggedly adhered to exploded methods whilst scientists have studied the subject chiefly with implements which are not perfectly adapted to the ascertainment of truth in this province. Having overthrown the arguments of the dogmatists, having undermined their positions, the scientist has not yet established the real truth. Apart from all controversy, unprejudiced people will admit that the impugned articles of Christian faith do represent in some measure the actual teaching of Christ, that they have inspired the purest morality that has been exhibited on earth, and all re

ligiously minded people must feel that somewhere the process of reasoning is defective by which it is contended that the fundamental articles of the Christian faith are unworthy of belief. The fact is, that the scientists who have studied this question have not studied the question "scientifically," and have rejected certain classes of truths which are of the very essence of the subject. One party places too much emphasis on one side of the question, the other on the other. The best hope of final agreement about the subject-matter of religious belief is to be looked for in the adoption by all of a common method of inquiry. This reform must come from theologians who have nothing to lose and much to gain by coming down from their high standpoint of authority and a priori reasoning. The work must be done by them and not by hostile hands. Theology must be made a science in the truest sense of that word, exactly as ethics has been made a science. But it may be objected that theology relates to God, and hence its subject is without the range of human observation. This, however, only shows the difficulty of the science, and not its impossibility. Theology, Mr. Cox contends, deals with a class of facts which are only discernible and appreciable by those whose intelligence is illuminated by purity of heart. By inductive reasoning it can be proved that the "things of the spirit of God" ought to be "spiritually judged." Certain facts concerning the nature and will of God are only ascertainable in the first instance by those in whom high intellect is combined with high character, to whom sources of knowledge are opened to which men of less mental elevation cannot penetrate.

It may be interpolated, that this view, true as it undoubtedly is, is exactly that which led to the present state of things in the ecclesiastical world. It is the argument, which most theological philosophers and churchmen use; it is the organon for the discovery of God which Professor Knight sets up; and it is the "illative sense of Cardinal Newman by which the whole Roman Catholic theology is justified. But it is scarcely more true in theology than in other fields. Even in exact science, profound instinct and rich experience are necessary for great discoveries, By its admission, too, there is almost as much danger of the engenderment of authoritative scientific guilds as there is of the creation of infallible ecclesiastical authorities. But every one will see that between the two cases an absolute comparison is not to be made. The world of gross natural facts is always at hand, and definite decisive experiments can be performed upon it at any moment. But experiments decisive of the laws of ethics and theology take generations and generations, nay, even centuries. When it is reflected, as Gauss intimates, that even the foundations of dynamics were historically verified, we shall not be surprised that the important and necessary truths of the difficult domain of ethics and theology must wait ages for their scientific establishment.

The following, according to Mr. Cox, are the points upon which students of religious truth ought to arrive at some consensus of opinion: (1) That statements of the Bible concerning scientific matters should be treated exactly in the same way as similar statements in all other books; for example, the Genesis account of the origin