Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/283

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NEW BOOKS. 269 'physics. By B. P. BOWNE. Eevised Edition. New York and London : Harper Bros., 1898. Pp. xiv., 429. The first edition of this work was issued in 1882. Subsequent editions have been numerous, but no change has appeared in the text beyond a new preface, inserted in the fifth edition. In the present edition, the material is extensively rewrought in order to co-ordinate it with the author's Theory of Thought and Knowledge (reviewed in MIND, April, 1898). Method and standpoint remain substantially unchanged. The method is an elaboration of the categories, and the order of arrangement is the traditional one Ontology (Being; The Nature of Things ; Change and Identity ; Causality ; The World-Ground), Cosmology (Space ; Time ; Matter ; Force and Motion ; Nature), and Psychology (The Soul ; Soul and Body ; Mental Mechanism ; Freedom and Necessity). The most important new matter is probably that contained in the general con- clusion and in the discussions of evolution, nature and the supernatural, and freedom and necessity. The harmony of the author's theistic idealism with empirical methods in the sciences is emphasised by the frequent use of a new phrase, " phenomenal reality ". The thought of the whole work is best summarised, perhaps, in these words: "Mind is the only ontological reality. Ideas have only conceptual reality. Ideas energised by will have phenomenal reality. Besides these realities there is no other. This is what is called my idealism. ... It might be described as Kantianised Berkeleianism. . . . Intelligence cannot be understood through the cate- gories, but the categories must be understood through our living experi- ence of intelligence itself. . . . This may be called my transcendental empiricism " (pp 423-425). The Groundwork of Science : a Study of Epistemology. By ST. G. MIVAET. London : Bliss, Sands & Co. ; New York : G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1898. Pp. xviii., 328. (6s. ; $1.75). There seems to be a fatal novelty about the study of epistemology. Prof. Ladd has recently proclaimed himself a pioneer in the epistemo- logical field ; and Prof. Mivart thinks that a theory of knowledge is " greatly needed at the present time " and that it is worth while to make an attempt " to satisfy this rational desire ". That there was an epis- temology within the circle of the old Greek philosophy : that Locke and Leibniz are representatives of highly developed epistemological theories, the empiristic and the rationalistic ; that Kant inaugurated a revolution in the science, by his appeal to the critical method ; and that there are, at the present day, some half a dozen epistemological schools, each with its position well defined and its cardinal tenets embodied in easily accessible books and periodicals : of all this the reader of the present work will gain no idea. In place of such knowledge he has Prof. Mivart's own disquisitions, which are neither very original nor (what might compensate for lack of originality) very lucid. The chapters of the volume deal with an enumeration of the sciences ; the objects and methods of science ; the physical and psychical ante- cedents of science ; language and science ; the intellectual antecedents of science ; the causes of scientific knowledge ; and the nature of the groundwork of science. The author's position is summed up as follows : ' < >nly through the conception of an active causative principle, under- lying and pervading the material cosmos, together with the recognition of the dignity of human reason, empowered as it is to perceive self- evident, universal and objective truths, can we understand the ground- work of science and attain to a final and satisfactory epistemology ".