Improvements of detail are numerous. The summaries are much fuller and much more thoroughly done. The statement of Leibnitz's doctrine has been worked over and rectified. Riidiger, Crusius, Reimarus, and Hissmann receive more adequate and discriminating treatment. The frequent misprints and faults of style which dotted the pages of the original, have been carefully eliminated from the revised text. Indeed, there is hardly any point touched on by criticism of the first edition which the author has not been at obvious pains to justify or correct. Within the limits which the method of citation prescribes, the completed work is plainly intended to be as valuable as Dr. Dessoir can make it. And there can be no doubt, to judge from the present instalment, that it will possess a very high value, not only relatively, but absolutely, for the student of historical psychology.
This is the first monograph that has been published on the relation of Hume's Treatise to his Inquiry. The author has, in general, done his work with much care and skill; but the problem is a difficult one, and is of such a nature that different critics in dealing with it can hardly be expected to arrive at unanimous conclusions. The book falls into four divisions: (1) the doctrines of the Treatise; (2) the doctrines of the Inquiry that had previously appeared in the Treatise; (3) the new material introduced in the Inquiry; (4) the parts of the Treatise that were omitted in the later work. It may be questioned whether it would not have been better to have adopted a more topical method of treatment in dealing with a subject of this nature.
The author finds that the point of view, or aim, of the Inquiry is different from that of the Treatise in two important respects: (1) while the Treatise aims to give an account of the different kinds of knowledge, graded according to their relative degrees of certainty, the main, almost the only, subject of discussion in the Inquiry is the question of causation; (2) while the Treatise is a theoretical discussion of the ground and possibility of knowledge, the chief aim of the Inquiry is to overthrow every false system of metaphysics; hence the later work is largely polemical, and carries out more thoroughly than the Treatise the consequences for morality and religion of Hume's philosophical doctrine. In the discussion of this subject Dr. Brede confuses point of view, or aim, with standpoint, and thus his criticism of the position which I adopted in an article in this Review[1] is not fully justified. I maintained only that the standpoint of both works is the same; every one admits that their respective aims are different. It is admitted by the author that the division of impressions and ideas into those of sensation and those of reflection, is implied in the Inquiry, although it is
- ↑ Vol. iii, pp. 672 ff.
