and identifies the future with the "interests of the majority" (p. 65). But if mere length of time constitutes universality, the past has equal claims to universality with the future, and as to a "majority," it is clear that an ideal is not a mathematical quantity. Whereas, if we are to discuss what is meant by "interests" in the phrase "interests of the majority," we set aside the contrast of present and future, and are "transported back" to the "pre-scientific epoch" in which philosophers inquired into the good of man as man. But to open up such an inquiry is to set aside all the principles regarded by Mr. Kidd as characteristic of "Western Civilization."
Mr. Kidd, in his brief review of the political theories of English philosophers, feels "profound surprise" as he reads in Burke the remark that "the State ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern. ... It is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and perfection." Burke belongs to the "prescientific epoch," it is true; but seems to be ranked by Mr. Kidd as an exception. It would not be difficult to parallel Burke's view from Plato, who thought that in discussing the state he was discussing justice, or from Aristotle, who thought that the best citizens were partners in all science, art, statecraft, and wisdom, or from Hegel, the Burke of of Germany, who subordinates trade and commerce to the higher interests of the citizens. Hence it is open to us still to think the true prophets in political theory to be those who, like all the greatest thinkers, look not into the future or into the past, but down to the bottom of what is before them.
Queen’s University.
Kingston, Canada.
The reader will find this book a rather characteristic product of German scholarship. As the title indicates, it contains a summary account of the views of modern German thinkers concerning the problem of the freedom of the will. It also offers a statement of the questions at issue, a brief review of the main positions taken in the history of thought, and some critical discussion intended to define the writer's own attitude. Dr. Miiffelmann contends that the problem is not of such fundamental importance as has often been represented, and that the possibility of ethical life and thought cannot be made dependent upon it. He denies the statement of Mach that "the problem of the freedom of the will is a complete touchstone of one's total conception and view of the world," and that of Du Bois-Reymond that "the stages of the development of human thinking are clearly mirrored in the treatment of the problem of freedom." In
