Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/135

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
No. 1.]
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.
121

with a physical and the latter with an ethical problem. The substance of the discussion on Matter was published in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 1884; the second part was delivered as lectures to the Plymouth School of Applied Ethics during the summer of 1891. The author is not concerned with the problem regarding the ultimate nature of matter as the supersensible cause of our sensations, although he maintains that "we have an unextinguishable faith that there are such causes" (p. 25). His inquiry is into the nature of the material world as given in experience, and his conclusion is that "Reality (so far as material things are concerned) is not to be opposed to sensation, but is sensation, actual or possible. Matter is a general name for the sensations viewed on their objective side" (p. 66). In the second portion of the book the author defines Ethics as that which deals with what should or ought to be, in so far as this depends upon us for its realization. The "should be" is absolute, irrespective of any condition and of whether the person to whom it applies has any sense of its truth or not. What should be, or the ethical ideal, Mr. Salter holds to consist in such a realization of the nature of each particular thing as does not involve injury to itself or harm to other beings. Intuitionism and Utilitarianism both take account only of parts of our nature, the realization of whose total capacities is alone absolutely good. The truth of both is included in the theory which regards perfection or self-realization as the end.

J. E. C.


Die Philosophie der mittleren Stoa in ihrem geschichtlichen Zusammenhange dargestellt. Von A. Schmekel. Berlin, Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1892. — pp. viii, 483.

In this history of the philosophy of the Middle Stoa, almost the entire space is devoted naturally to Panætius and Posidonius, the representative philosophers of the school. Very brief account is further given of Hekaton, Mnesarchus, and Dionysius. Biography and external history furnish the subject of a short introduction. In Part I sources are discussed, more particularly Cicero, Polybius, Sextus, and Varro; in Part II the systems of the several members of the school are treated under the divisions of physics, anthropology, ethics, politics, and the exact sciences; in Part III, under the same divisions of philosophy, the relation of the Middle Stoa to the philosophies immediately preceding and following it is discussed. Review of the book will follow.

W. H.


Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters. Texte und Untersuchungen. Herausgegeben von Dr. Clemens Baeumker, O.Ö. Professor an der Universität Breslau. Bd. I, Hefte 2, U. 3. Avencebrolis (Ibn Gabirol) Fons vitae, ex arabico in latinum translatus ab Johanne Hispano et Dominico Gundissalino. Ex Codicibus Parisinis, Amploniano, Columbino primum edidit Clemens Baeumker. Fasciculi I et II. Münster, Aschendorff'sche Buchhandlung, 1892. — pp. 1-71, 72-209.

The initial contribution in this series was the treatise de Unitate noticed in another part of the present number of this Review. The text of Baeumker is