NEW BOOKS. 273 Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker. Eine Entwickelungs- geschichte des Lebensproblems der Menschheit von Plato bis zur Gegenwart. Von RUDOLF EUCKBN, Professor in Jena. Zweite umgearbeitete Auflage. London : Williams & Norgate, 1897. Pp. viii., 487. This book is a contribution towards the " struggle for spiritual existence," which Prof. Eucken regards as one of the leading characteristics of our day. Men have become dissatisfied with the purely objective point of view taken by science, and subjectivity is once more claiming its own at first, indeed, with a wantonness which promises little if we cannot recognise in it the necessary preliminary fermentation which is to clear the way for a great movement. By way of furthering this movement, Prof. Eucken proposes to consider the different conceptions of human life which have been held by great thinkers. In his introductory chapter he tells us that his aim has been neither to write a History of Philosophy in general nor to offer an anthology of notable passages on human life, but to so present the thoughts of great thinkers as we find them revealed in their systems on this subject, that, by reaching the essence of their thought on the problems most immediately bearing on human life, we may gain a clear and vivid conception of their personalities. And it is to personalities rather than to any " apotheosis of abstractions " that Prof. Eucken looks for the solution of the Lebensproblem. While his intention is to let these thinkers speak for themselves, rather than to supply any explanation or criticism of their doctrines, the fact that such a work necessitates choice both as to what thinkers are to be included and in what order and connexion their ideas shall be presented renders it impossible to entirely exclude the author's own convictions. Nor is this to be regretted. For it is justice rather than indifference which is required in the execution of such a project, and justice presupposes certain ideas and canons. The book is divided into three parts. Part i. treats of the thinkers of antiquity, amongst whom the foremost place is given to Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. Part ii. is devoted to Christianity to its foundation and to the different forms it has assumed in ancient and modern times. Part iii. deals with the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Age of Criticism and the search for new paths. Prof. Eucken's last word, as it is his first, is "das Subjekt und xri,ie Innerlichke.it ". It is moral character alone that can judge of the depth and truth of life. Our age must evolve its own morality out of its own experience and by means of its own powers, but it can gather much from the study of spiritual struggles in the past and more especially of the great turning-points of thought which were effected, e.g., by Plato, by the establishment of Christianity, by Luther and by Kant. E. MEYER. Geschichte des Unendlichkeitsproblems im abendlandischen Denken bis Kant. Von JONAS COHN, Dr. Phil. Leipzig : Engelmann, 1896. Pp. 261. This essay in the historical Orientierung of a subject of much import- ance in the evolution of thought is a prolegomenon to a forthcoming theoretical disquisition in the same field. It professes the double aim of analysing the development of the idea of Infinity in Western thought and of revealing the nature, interplay and conflict of the " logical and a-logical factors " in that development. The inquiry is thus concerned with the history of psychology as well as that of philosophy. 18
