cognition, only psychological states considered as such, and fails to discover the right road, so long closed by Locke with his "false way of ideas.' Kant and Reid both endeavoured to break through the charmed circle of ideas, and reach truth and objective knowledge. Mr. Rogers does scant justice to Reid's efforts in this direction, and, perhaps, fails to distinguish between the genuine theory of presentative knowledge and the crude form in which it is presented in the writings of the Scottish philosopher. Kant is naturally treated with more favour. Yet Mr. Rogers's unfortunate reluctance to grapple with problems of epistimology, and his praiseworthy determination to avoid technicalities at all hazards compel him to minimise the importance for Kant of these very questions, and his analysis of the earlier kritik is thereby rendered incomplete. He does not dwell sufficiently on the objectivity of knowledge as understood by the great German. We do not suggest that this defect arises from incompetence or from a want of comprehension of Kant's doctrines. But in Mr Rogers' attempt at simplification he is almost betrayed into a confusion of the foundations upon which Kant built, and in any case a beginner in reading Mr. Rogers' exposition, would have great difficulty in understanding the vast revolution brought about by Kant with his Copernican reversal of the standpoint from which knowledge is to be regarded. The treatment of Kant's ethics is fuller and more systematic, but scarcely any mention is made of the Critique of Judgment. Mr. Rogers again follows Höffding in discounting the importance of the Romantic philosophers, Fichte and Schelling, and, strange to say, his exposition of Hegel's system is perhaps the weakest thing in

his book.

Too much stress is laid on the historical method of Hegel, evidently through fear that a discussion on the Hegelian metaphysic might prove beyond the capacity of those for whom the work is intended. For a far more satisfactory exposition both of Kant and Hegel, we would refer the reader to the author's former work, A Brief Introduction to Modern Philosophy, a little volume well worthy the attention of all who are interested in philosophy and its methods. Here also we look in vain for an appreciation of Hegel's contribution to the Theory of Knowledge and of his relation in this connection to Kant. An interesting parallel might be drawn between the

line of development from Kant to Hegel and from Aristotle to Plato. The English Empiricists had ground-down knowledge into a fine powder, very much in the same way in which the context of experience had been disintegrated by Heraclitus and the Sophists; and Kant had endeavoured to reduce the manifold to unity by importing, like Plato, a system of universal conceptions derived from without, and which differed from those of the Greek philosopher mainly in their subjective character. The great aim of Aristotle, and that of Hegel, was to grasp the concrete as given in experience, and to view the world of individual fact in its relation to the universal principles, implicit in it, by means of which it was to be interpreted. Just as Aristotle rejected the Platonic xwpisεīv of ideas and sought for the immanent forms held in solution, so to speak, by individual things; so Hegel refused to accept Kant's distinction between the form and the matter of knowledge. Such a duality appeared to Hegel both artificial and erroneous. Kant's matter of knowledge and his forms of knowledge stood too much apart, the result was too much that of empiricism and rationalism placed side by side, rather than the complete reconciliation of both. For Hegel, on the contrary, sense and thought are no longer opposed; thought is indeed, as Leibnitz hinted, explicitly what sense is implicitly, and we must beware of interpreting the work of thought as an external addition to, rather than as a development of, the work of sensation. But this is not the place to pursue the parallel any further. Of philosophers since Hegel, Mr. Rogers devotes most attention to Schopenhauer, that curmudgeon of genius, as Dr. Caird has recently called him. His doctrines are carefully summarised by Mr. Rogers, whose exposition follows closely the lines laid down by Professor Caldwell in his valuable monograph on Schopenhauer. The Positivist school is next dealt with, somewhat cursorily it must be admitted, and Mr. Rogers concludes with a brief summary of the present position of philosophy as he understands it. This also should be read in connection with the concluding chapter of his earlier work.

We have discovered only one bad blunder on the book, which Mr. Rogers should correct in a second edition. On p. 357 it is stated that Berkeley entered at Oxford (sic) in 1700. Of course it was at Trinity College, Dublin, that the author of the famous "new principle" matriculated in that year, and it was

there that he carried on the studies which resulted in the publication of the New Theory of Vision in 1709, soon after Berkeley's election to a Fellowship.

It will be seen that we are inclined to rate highly Mr. Rogers' performance, and it is not too much to say that his work ought to prove of real assistance to young students commencing the study of philosophy. It would be impossible, perhaps, to write a history of philosophy which would prove entirely satisfactory to everybody, but we think that Mr. Rogers has, on the whole, done his work well, and that he deserves the thanks of both teachers and learners for having provided them with a short, readable, and cheap introduction to the subject. We would specially commend the frequency with which he quotes the thoughts of philosophers (whenever possible) in their own words or in accredited translations, and there is little doubt but that this may, as he suggests, be the means of arousing a real interest in philosophical literature which could never have been awakened by any bald summary of facts and doctrines. Attention may also be directed to the lists of references for further reading which are added to nearly every section, and which are sure to prove helpful to the earnest student. These references are, we think, rightly confined to works in English and to translations, for experience has convinced us that it is useless to endeavour to get the average learner to consult treatises in French or German. In any case Mr. Rogers has supplied sufficient material to satisfy the needs of the most omnivorous reader. It is needless to add that in print and general get-up the volume, like all Messrs. Macmillan's publications, is excellent; but we notice that, like many books issued in America, it is inconveniently heavy to handle.

W. VESEY HAGUE.

GLIMPSES OF IRISH IRELAND IN THE

THE

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER.

HE Penal days in Ireland form a period of our history with which every Irishman should be perfectly familiar. Practically they lasted for a century or more, during which the philosopher or historian may find unparalleled examples of the cruelty of rulers and the sufferings of a people whose chiefest virtue ever has been to respect and love legitimate authority.1 That, however, is by no means the only, or even the most, attractive feature of these years. We can forgive and forget that bitter past so far as to tear from out our hearts those feelings of hostility or of hate which the remembrance of such scenes will frequently excite. Nowhere, indeed, to my mind, has that Gospel precept of universal love found fitter soil than here within our own shores; nowhere have suffering and wrong met victims more resigned; 2 nowhere has kindness, even insignificant or tardy, won greater recompense from those but lately oppressed or injured.

There is a higher interest and a deeper significance for us in the record of those days. There is the story of a people that should have sold its faith to look upon the sun and live, but did not do so; there is the story of a nation that should have been brutalized by legislation, but was not; there is the story of a race that should have been plunged in the darkest night of ignorance, but who through all were walking in the clear light of knowledge, and listening to the sweet music and the songs their fathers or their children sang them. There is the old, old tale of religion triumphant over earth and all its powers; and there is the strain so new, and yet so welcome to

1 "The nation will gladly continue subjects as long as they may be protected and justly governed. For there is no nation or people under the sun that doth love equal or indifferent justice better than the Irish." Sir J. Davies, AttorneyGeneral of James I.; apud Lecky, Ireland, vol. i., p. 25. In this century the English executed one king and dethroned another.

2 "We cannot forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the labouring class have generally exhibited under suffering greater, we believe, than the people of any other country in Europe have to sustain."-Words of Devon Commission quoted approvingly in Lecky, İreland, vol. i., p. 408, note.

us now, of a soft old tongue, with centuries of tradition intertwined, which cheered our fathers' lives, and urged them through the danger and the gloom to realise ideals of intellectuality and refinement which seem to have died completely with the language which they loved.

On that former victory we shall not further touch to-day. Full often have its episodes been recounted to us, and as often have they deepened and made more firm in our souls the principles of that faith which was their inspiration. Ours will be the somewhat more novel task of glancing briefly at the evidences of that other triumph. We shall endeavour to point out, how, in spite of sufferings almost inconceivable from poverty and persecution, and notwithstanding the manifold endeavours of a powerful government to utterly destroy all books and schools for Catholics, the poorest portion of our people, by ever clinging to the past, evinced and satisfied a wondrous thirst for knowledge, and remained almost to our own day, wherever the Irish language lived, high-souled, refined, and intellectual.

3

It is singularly easy to grasp the external features of the main portion of the period in which we are to travel. Upon the land there lay a code of laws perfectly fitted in all respects to debase and destroy even the elemental human nature of those subject to them.5 Never before in history, perhaps, had such various and such powerful influences concurred to degrade the character and blast the prosperity of a nation." Unusually complete in the ordnances for destroying all material progress, they amounted in the department of education, as Lecky says, to absolute and unlimited proscription. No schooling, not even the most elementary, should Catholics receive, and swift and sure the punishment that fell on such as were detected in the unlawful work. Then, too, there was dire poverty and destitution in the land. Travellers describe un

3 "I may assure the reader that such has been the eagerness to obtain education that children have been known to acquire the first elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic, without a book, a pen, or a slate. The place of meeting was no other than a graveyard. The long flat stones with their inscriptions were used as books, while a bit of chalk, and the gravestones together, served for all the rest."-Anderson, Native Irish, p. 205.

4 It will be remarked that all of the character referred to in following pages was formed in eighteenth century.

5 Burke apud Lecky, Ireland, vol. i., P. 170.

6 Lecky, Ireland, vol. i., p. 240.

7 Lecky, Ibid.,

p. 148.