Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/442

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426
NEW BOOKS.

of the present day with Herbart's writings in their original form. Undoubtedly the writer on education ought to study Herbart; but it seems more or less a waste of time for the practical teacher to do so. Herbart's work has been a most important and valuable factor in determining the course of modern psychology: but his psychological system, as such, founded as it is upon an untenable metaphysics, must be pronounced obsolete. Its utter failure to recognise the importance of inherited constitution is in itself enough to disqualify it from forming the basis of a text-book of Pædagogics adapted to modern needs. The translation appears accurate, but it is somewhat unreadable.


Notes on Children's Drawings. Edited by E. E. Brown. Berkeley, Cal.: published by the University, 1897. Pp. 75.

This number of the "University of California Studies" consists of notes, copiously illustrated, of the drawings of four young children. The reports were prepared from a questionnaire of eight questions, and are supplemented by the observations and recollections of the Editor and others. The investigation, independently undertaken, was not finished on the appearance of the works of Sully, Baldwin and Lukens: the Editor has noted the points of contact with and divergence from these authors. A useful Summary discusses the relation of childish to savage drawing, the psychogenesis of drawing as indicated by the four cases reported, etc. The Notes end with a two-page bibliography.


Psychology of the Moral Self. By B. Bosanquet. London: Macmillan & Co., 1897. Pp. viii., 132.

This little book contains a course of lectures given in connexion with the University Extension movement. The author believes "that they will give a useful clue to students who desire to approach moral philosophy with some genuine ideas on the nature and working of mind" (Preface). The work will no doubt fulfil this function: but in our opinion it is scarcely worthy of Mr. Bosanquet's reputation. It is somewhat perfunctory, and tends to lapse into a mere series of quotations.


Les Sciences societies en Allemagne; les méthodes actuelles. Par C. Bouglé, Ancien Eléve de l'Ecole normale supérieure, Agrégé de Philosophic. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1896. Pp. 189.

M. Bouglé is a Frenchman who has studied Social Science in Germany, and the present volume is in the nature of an exposition of the methods, pursued by some of the leading German thinkers, who have devoted attention to social subjects. He has selected the works of four representative professors, and subjected their methods to an acute and comprehensive examination. Lazarus is selected as a representative of the psychology of peoples; Simmel, as a representative of Moral Science; Wagner, as a representative of Political Economy; and von Ihering, as a, representative of the Philosophy of Law. These writers M. Bouglé considers as on the whole the most typical exponents of the newest tendencies in Germany. In Germany Social Science has been dealt with by various methods. In the heroic age of German philosophy, Social Science was treated from a speculative point of view. This was the method of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. It was soon seen that purely speculative methods would not fit the facts of history, and a reaction arose against the speculative school. This reaction was led by men like Savigny and Niebuhr in the sphere of law, and in the sphere of