NEW BOOKS. 127 we tind in society. The triple formula has almost a Hegelian look ; but M. Tarde has given it a somewhat mechanical interpretation. He confesses, in fact (ib., p. 288), that he distrusts "trinitarian minds," like those of Hegel and Comte : he prefers dualist and dichotomist minds like that of Mr. Spencer. And in spite of his primary triad, and in spite of occasional limiting statements, M. Tarde shows himself de- voted to dichotomy. His logic generally brings us to an " either or," and his psychology is of an extremely dichotomous kind (c/., p. 264). The social medium (le milieu) has been used too readily by many sociologists, but M. Tarde seems sometimes inclined to neglect it all together (/&., p. 79). " The general mind is a function and not a factor of individual minds " (Lois Soc., p. 45). But, if we leave out the social factor, is not the individual mind also an abstraction ? M. Tarde him- self in dealing with handwriting admits that every one's writing is a social, as well as an individual, product. To explain the inventions of a Watt or a Stephenson we must surely consider the social medium as well as the brain of the inventor. Of course the social medium consists of other individuals ; but, whereas the individual mind is very difficult to know, we can know a good deal about the general mind ; and M. Tarde himself allows that there can be no " science " of individuals as such (Lois Soc., p. 8). At the basis of his sociology M. Tarde recognises that there lies a metaphysical monadology. But his metaphysics seems too merely " pluralist" or atomist to be called Leibnizian (cf. Lois Soc., pp. 20, 16a ;; titudes, p. 76). Again while pointing out the enormous significance of imitation, and thus escaping the error of those who, like Mr. Kidd (who is referred to as a " profound sociologist " in tftudes, p. 282), use the biological conception of " struggle for life " as a clue to all social evolution, M. Tarde seems to go to the extreme of denying its real value to the conception of natural selection. He disposes of Weismann (the name is inaccurately printed on pp. 118 and 277) too easily when he supposes his arguments against use-inheritance to be refuted b, cases of "inherited" hand- writing. Even if imitation be certainly excluded, a resemblance between the writing of parent and child may be due to both being of the same stock, and not to acquired characteristics. M. Tarde's writing is always interesting and suggestive ; and he has many happy illustrations, which show that he, has a clear eye for the concrete a great merit in psychologist or sociologist. D. G. RITCHIE. L'Art et le reel. Essai de metaphysique fondde sur 1'estheiique. Par JEAN FIBRES. Paris : F. Alcan, 1898. Pp. xii., 208. It is impossible to feel that this essay throws much light upon the nature either of art or of reality. Its obscurities alike of thought and of expres- sion are such as to defy the best-intentioned reader. The author's drift appears to be as follows. He sets out with the doctrine that reality is not co-extensive with existence. Reality, in fact, is existence only in the fullest sense of the term, as opposed to ordinary finite and contingent existence. Of reality in this sense, man possesses a special sentiment or intuition which is blunted by the ordinary routine of life, but sharpened by notable crises of suffering and of action. Now art is one way, and the best of all the ways, whereby we apprehend reality. Thus true art is not concerned with producing ephemeral objects of pleasure. In the things of beauty which art creates are embodied man's highest characteristics as a person, as a moral agent, and as animated by a devotion to what is universal and superior to the category of tune. From an analysis of the
