106 CRITICAL NOTICES : always sought to interpret Scripture in accordance with his views ; but he did not hesitate to arrive at his views independently of Scripture. " Consider," he remarks in one place, " how these ex- cellent and true ideas, comprehended only by the greatest philo- sophers, are found scattered in the Midrashim" (i. 270). He could not altogether resist the temptation to show that authority was on his side ; but it was impossible for a man to go further in defiance of authority than he did, unless he was prepared like Spinoza to discard authority altogether. Mamionides may be said to have moulded modern Judaism, and to have proved its ability to satisfy the intellectual and moral necessities of different ages by its adaptability to all. He gave the death-blow to the letter-worship of Scripture against which Judaism was always, when rightly understood, a standing protest ; and he rendered Judaism as free from servility as a dogmatic system well could be. There was naturally a reaction against Maimonides, and neither the ultra-radical nor the ultra- conservative is altogether satisfied with him. But no one can think of understanding the course of Jewish thought, and of the general tendencies of the civilised world as influenced by it, without seriously setting himself to the perusal of the philosopher whose greatest work Dr. Friedlaender has so well and ably edited ; and it would, therefore, be hard to exaggerate our obligation to the latest and best expositor of Maimonides. I. ABRAHAMS. Les Maladies de la Personnalttc. Par TH. KIBOT. Paris : F. Alcan, 1885. Pp. 174. This new study of M. Eibot's in the domain of pathological psychology is worthy of its predecessors. The author shows here as elsewhere industry and skill in collecting and utilising curious out-of-the-way facts, and a happy facility in setting forth his conclusions. The subject which M. Eibot has here selected is one peculiarly well fitted to bring out the characteristic excellences of his psychological method. Personality is an idea which in its nature is sufficiently obscure, and which has, no doubt, as the author impresses on our minds, been rendered still more obscure by the disputes of metaphysicians. To dispel this obscurity, ami to do this by help of those very physiological considerations which these metaphysicians regard as trivial and irrelevant was just the kind of problem to attract an advanced student of the newer psychology like M. Eibot. He has manifest!} tin-own him- self into the task with ardour. Works on mental disease, descrip- tions of the curious psychological phenomena which present themselves in the case of tiie eunuch, the hermaphrodite, the double monster and so forth, these and a great deal besides are
