to revile in ignorance. He appreciates the scientific services of "the sages of antiquity from Thales to Galen" (p. 43), and, as Sir Frederick Pollock says should be done at the beginning of every scientific study, he in effect takes off his hat to the great "Master of those that know," who after centuries of half-blind worship and a long period of cheap contempt is at length in our age coming to be known and valued aright. And along with this appreciation of the Greeks goes a due emancipation from the foolish English notion that Bacon was the father of modern science. Fortunately, as Mr. Huxley points out, scientific men praised Bacon but did not follow his advice. "Even the eloquent advocacy of the Chancellor brought no unmixed good to physical sciences." It is not the searching for "fruits," the desire to increase the comforts and conveniences of life, but the desire for knowledge which has led to the progress of science (p. 56). In Descartes and not in Bacon Mr. Huxley finds the true initiation of modern thought,-scientific and philosophical. Mr. Huxley's history of philosophy-though he might not like to have it put in that way-seems more Hegelian than Comtist.

In turning to the political essays, we find the same war against "abstract thinking" which is characteristic of the great German Idealist, and the same striving to recognize the elements of truth in opposing and one-sided theories. Thus Mr. Huxley can appreciate the value of the idea of organism as applied to society without ignoring the value of the notion of "Social contract" (p. 272). The criticisms of Anarchy and of State-Socialism in the essays of 1890 may seem at first sight to imply too contented an acceptance of the status quo,—another link of sympathy with Hegel,-but in his closing paragraphs Mr. Huxley says what should correct that impression and even falls back on Fichte's "Closed Industrial State" as an ideal (p. 429). I think that Mr. Huxley has hardly done justice to the full significance of Rousseau, though unlike most people who attack that epoch-making writer, he does recognize the inconsistency of the theories of the "Contract Social" with the too fruitful paradoxes of the earlier "Discourses" (p. 298). But in his diagnosis of recent cases of conscious or unconscious Rousseauism Mr. Huxley lays his finger on the diseased parts with unfailing promptness and precision. Thus Mr. Henry George's notion that every man has an equal “natural right" to the soil of the country is shown to be quite incompatible with the nationalization of any particular land by the section of the human race that happens to be

living on it at the time. This gap between the political rights of the citizen, which admit of historical explanation (and, therefore, as is sometimes forgotten, of modification by legislation) and any alleged natural rights of the whole human race was pointed out long ago by Bentham in his "Anarchical Fallacies," but as anarchical fallacies live long after they have been scientifically vivisected, what Mr. Huxley has written on this matter is "most wholesome doctrine and necessary for these times." As he says himself, "We shall never think rightly in politics until we have cleared our minds of delusions; and more especially of the philosophical delusions which have infested political thought for centuries" (p. 424). Similarly, he more than once calls attention to the population difficulty which all socialistic schemes either ignore or evade by too great a trust in the beneficence of Nature in all her works,-except the production of the present system of society. On the other hand, Mr. Huxley understands the conceptions of biological evolution too well to accept the mere struggle for existence due to pressure of population as any ethical or political solution whatever. "The creature that survives a free-fight only demonstrates his superior fitness for coping with free-fighters,-not any other kind of superiority" (p. 428).

Adopting from Locke the maxim that "the end of government is the good of mankind," Mr. Huxley defines this ethical and political end, in terms suggested by Spinoza, as "the attainment by every man of all the happiness which he can enjoy without diminishing the happiness of his fellow-men" (p. 281). Here again, as in his metaphysics, Mr. Huxley only takes us to the beginning of the ethical problem; but what he practically means is evidently the same as T. H. Green's conception of a "common good." Even Green, it may be necessary to remind the more vehement of antihedonists, defined positive freedom as "a power or capacity of doing or enjoying something worth doing or enjoying, and that, too, something that we do or enjoy in common with others." Mr. Huxley does not leave "happiness" quite unanalyzed. "If we inquire," he says, "what kinds of happiness come under this definition, we find those derived from the sense of security or peace; from wealth or commodity, obtained by commerce; from art,whether it be architecture, sculpture, painting, music, or literature; from knowledge or science; and, finally, from sympathy or friendship." There are, indeed, problems lurking under these phrases more difficult perhaps than Mr. Huxley fully realizes. "No man is any

worse off because another acquires wealth by trade, or by the exercise of a profession." Not necessarily, perhaps, but the sentence (written in 1871) seems to imply a rather fuller belief in the universal beneficence of economic competition than would be accepted now even by fairly orthodox economists. Even with regard to the enjoyment of art, does not the kind of picture, the kind of music, etc., make a good deal of difference in the possibility of its enjoyment by many? And should we be obliged to say that that was always ethically the best which could be enjoyed by most? Even friendship, as Aristotle warns us, cannot be extended indefinitely without becoming "watery." Mr. Huxley's conception of the ethical end is, like Bentham's, intended only as a rough guide in legislation; but, like Bentham's, it seems to involve that very dogma of the natural equality of mankind against. which both protest. DAVID G. RITCHIE.

JESUS COLLEGE, Oxford.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE BEAUTIFUL. Vol. II. Being a Contribution to its Theory and to a Discussion of the Arts. By William Knight, Professor of Philosophy in St. Andrews. London: John Murray, 1893.

Professor Knight contributes two volumes on the "Philosophy of the Beautiful" to the series of University Extension Manuals issued by Mr. John Murray, of London. The first, which appeared a year ago, contained a "History of Esthetic," of which Professor Knight himself says, "It was not my aim to trace the organic evolution of dogma from school to school. My purpose was to give an impartial account of the greater theories seriatim, along with an outline of the more important treatises on the Beautiful.” In the second volume the author devotes eighty-four of his two hundred and eighty-one pages to a discussion of the theory of æsthetic, being occupied throughout the remainder of the book with a discussion of the several arts and with short sketches of Russian and Danish æsthetic.

Professor Knight cannot be congratulated either on the arrangement or the treatment of his subject-matter. The most essential characteristics of University Extension Manuals-brevity, lucidity, and the presentation of the most salient and essential features of the subject dealt with-have been sacrificed. By refusing to trace the organic evolution of thought in this matter, Professor Knight has given us, in his first volume, a chronicle rather than a

history, and, in his second, a meagre abstract statement of æsthetic theories detached from the illuminating considerations of time, place, and circumstance. The result in the mind of the student will be, it is to be feared, a confused mass of ideas about Beauty, without order or organic connection either logical or historical. Time and space are wasted in both volumes over matter not strictly relevant, while the main issues are not satisfactorily worked out. Professor Knight's own point of view is not quite readily ascertainable. His apparent indefiniteness in æsthetic seems to belong to an apparent indefiniteness in his theory of Reality. We are told of an "underlying ding an-sich," to which Beauty leads us, and of an "Archetype of Beauty," after which Art is the endeavor, without any clear idea being given us of what these terms imply for Professor Knight. We hear of "Beauty which cannot appear or disappear, but which always is, always was, and always will be at the very core of things, and at the centre of the universe;" we hear that art conducts us to "the sphere of the One, which is also the realm of the infinitely vague, a realm where Truth, Goodness, and Beauty reside in their elements, and which we are only able to interpret by analogy, while we see it through a glass darkly.'' Perhaps this means something which would be most illuminating if one could understand it, but it is not easily understood. To the present writer, at least, it does not appear that Professor Knight has made any real contribution to the theory of æsthetic.

M. S. GILLILAND.

LONDON.

ALBERT BRISBANE. A Mental Biography. With a Character Study. By his Wife, Redelia Brisbane. Boston, Mass.: Arena Publishing Company, 1893.

Albert Brisbane (born 1809, died 1890) was an independent representative of the social side of the Transcendental movement, with whose best-known leaders he had at one time a relation of a certain sympathy in views and of some personal friendship, although never of any closer discipleship. He himself was known as a disciple of Fourier, for whose social theories he during a considerable period attempted to win a hearing in this country. He was rather a man of personal experience than a scholar, rather a maker of humane projects than a consecutive or constructive thinker, and rather a wanderer than anything else. It is in his character as wanderer that this book, the product of the devotion of the wife

who cared for him in his old age, chiefly presents him to us. The writer was married to him in 1877. Taking a deep interest in his thoughts as the product of his career, she persuaded him at one time to dictate to her a series of confessions, which she was able to guide into autobiographical channels. The result is a somewhat fragmentary account of his youth and early maturity.

Such a book attracts not from any value as an exposition of doctrine (for to such a value it makes no claim) but from its simplicity as a confession, and as a revelation of a type that has now passed away. This natural Transcendentalist (for such, in our vague American sense of the word, our subject was, despite his unwillingness to accept metaphysical formulas) was born in Batavia, New York, "within hearing of the roar of the cataract of Niagara." His father was of Scotch, his mother of English descent. From the former, Brisbane acquired a scepticism in matters of religion; from the latter's varied home-teaching he gained a wide curiosity as to the things of the world and of life. A great love of nature attracted him to early meditations on universal problems. At fifteen years of age he was visited by a mighty "intuition," as to the problem of his life, which was henceforth to find "What is the work of man [ie., of humanity as an organic whole] on this earth?" This intuition was from the start, as he later remembered it, at once universal and fairly definite. It was distinct from mere personal ambition for political success of any sort. It was a vast desire to know the place and business of the human race viewed in its wholeness. In the light of this intuition, Brisbane, as a youth, devoted some time, under his father's general supervision, to study in New York city. The study resulted in a good knowledge of modern languages; but there was little systematic general education at this stage of his career, or, for that matter, later, although in time, through his extensive curiosity, he plainly acquired much information. In 1828, in pursuit of the now ardently desired solution of the "mystery of man's destiny," Brisbane went abroad, listened in Paris to Cousin's lectures, and then, in 1829, proceeding to Berlin, heard Hegel, and took personal instruction in the Hegelian philosophy from Michelet. Both in Paris and in Berlin, and later everywhere in the journeys here recorded, Brisbane appears as both skilful and fortunate in his social relations, however busy he might be in study. The result of the study of Hegel's doctrine, in view of the crabbedness of the Berlin teachers, and the hopeless unpreparedness of Brisbane's enthusiastic young mind,