PHILOSOPHICAL PERIODICALS. 419 methodological.] W. H. Sheldon. ' The Concept of the Negative.' We have two questions : What positive, definite information is implied in a negative judgment? and: Is the negative objective and factual, or merely subjective? The usual logical answer to the second question is that the negative is indefinite (Lotze) and empty (Bradley) ; therefore it cannot be factual. But, in examining the first question, we find that " there is a tendency, as knowledge advances, for negative judgments to equal positive ones as regards the information conveyed. If the field within which knowledge works has been narrowed until two alternatives only remain, . . . the negation gives positive information ; thus its in- definiteness is removed." But, again, this position revives the second question : if definite, why not (in special cases) factual ? Indeed, the negative judgment alwa3 7 s implies some positive knowledge, on which it is based ; it is always a comparison, a relating between a given and a not-given. Hence there is nothing, in the nature of things, to prevent a negation a negative comparison from being objectively valid. A negative conceptual entity (1) may be defined, and must be defined negatively, because no perception is brought in ; (2) has no logical impossibility about it ; and (8) is factually useful, in order to an in- telligible description or explanation of a certain property of space.] Reviews of Books. Summaries of Articles. Notices of New Books. Notes. M. W. Calkins. 'The Psychology of Mental Arrangement.' [Critique of Bentley's paper in American Journal of Psychology, xii.] Vol. xi., No. 6. A. Lefevre. ' Epistemology and Ethical Method.' [The scientific or empirical method in ethics implies an epistemology. It implies " that our primary experiences somehow bring us face to face with reality, and that all further elaboration on the part of thought means the addition of mental predicates and the erection of an ideal system for which we have no guarantee of real validity ". Its premisses " predefine the nature of a fact, preclude from the realm of fact many of the elements that go to make up the complex structure of human knowledge, and predetermine the source of validity and truth ". If we set out for a better epistemology, and hold that knowing is all of a piece, we lose the distinction of ' speculative ' and
- real ' ; we find that the interpreting activity of consciousness is the
precondition of experience at large ; we get our test, not in primitive ' pure experience,' but in " a higher judgment of the coherence of our system of knowledge ". The genetic method is of value to ethics only as describing the way in which a conscious self asserts its personal identity as the underlying unity of its transient experiences.] J. A. Leighton. ' The Study of Individuality.' [" The principle of individuation is an im- mediate state of feeling, which at once constitutes a permanent unity of life and holds a developing and differentiating content of consciousness." " The inner principle of individuality is not to be understood by any process of syllogism or formal inductive inference, but only by the exer- cise of a sympathetic imagination, by an intuitive apprehension akin to that involved in the appreciation of a work of art." This thesis has important bearings for logic and epistemology, for ethics and pedagogics, even for metaphysics. " To know the Absolute, is to appreciate the innermost nature of the individual life, and the various types of human individuality, from the side of their meanings and implications as ele- ments in the organised system of reality."] R. B. Perry. ' Poetry and Philosophy.' [Characterisation of non-philosophical (Whitman, Shake- speare) and of philosophical poets (Omar Khayyam, Wordsworth, Dante). " The philosopher-poet is ho who visualises a fundamental interpretation of the world. . . . The philosopher proper has the sterner and less
