reading. It is permeated, too, by a fine moral earnestness and fervor, which ought not to be lightly esteemed. The study of ethics is, of course, not undertaken primarily in the interests of practical morality, but in obedience to an intellectual demand. Yet I do not believe it desirable that any man should teach ethics to undergraduate classes who does not himself possess a genuine enthusiasm for the good life which he seeks to understand and expound. And as of men, so of books. It is a satisfaction, also, to place in the hands of students a book, which, in addition to its scientific merits, is a concrete illustration of literary excellence.
edition, carefully revised. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd; New York, G.
P. Putnam's Sons, 1898.—pp. lxiii, 751.In the thirty-three years which have elapsed since Dr. Hutchison Sterling first divulged (or, as some critics have humorously suggested, kept to himself) the secret of Hegel, much has been done, in England and in America, to elucidate the Hegelian philosophy. The brothers Caird, Professor Watson, the late Professor Wallace, and, in his own independent manner, the late T. H. Green, have all lent their service to this task; while quite recently we have had important re-statements of the system, at once expository and critical, by Mr. Bradley, Mr. McTaggart, and Professor MacGilvary. Yet those who learned their first lessons in German philosophy twenty or thirty years ago can never forget the debt they owe to Dr. Stirling, whose Secret was one of the first agencies in their intellectual awakening. It is from them that this new edition of the book will receive the warmest welcome. But even for those who have already learned their Hegel with the aid of these other guides, Dr. Sterling's work must still possess a value of its own, by virtue of its striking originality and individuality. Even the startling quality of its style, a kind of Carlylese, has a psychological value for the student who will take the pains to master it, and is an interesting revelation of the writer's personality. The wide scope and even the philosophic license which he allows himself, while they may detract from the systematic excellence of Dr. Stirling's work, afford the opportunity of many lessons in philosophy and life which it is well worth the reader's while to learn. Indeed, it may be said that the chief and permanent value of the book is the spiritual significance which it discovers in what must seem to the uninitiated the scholastic and abstract discussions of the Hegelian logic. Apart from their value as interpretations of Hegel, these positions are interesting as the mature convictions of a mind of rare philosophic quality. The book as a whole is a 'human document' of peculiar value.
The changes in this new edition are of minor importance, although the author has, with characteristic conscientiousness, made a careful revision of the whole. The most important change is in the form of its publication.
