that translation is reprinted in the present volume. But the Monologium and Proslogium apparently receive their first presentation in English in Mr. Deane's rendering. The translation, to judge from a number of selected passages, is painstaking and for the most part fairly trustworthy. Curiously, the translator has been least happy in his handling of the opening chapter of the Monologium (pp. 35-37). In the very first sentence essentia divinitatis is inexcusably rendered "the being of God,"—with the effect of obscuring the contrast between the theme of the Proslogium (which treats de Dei existentia) and that of the Monologium, which is primarily a meditation on the divine nature and attributes. In the next sentence, the translator mistakes the antecedent of a pronoun; instead of "nothing in Scripture should be urged on the authority of Scripture itself," read "nothing in this meditation should be urged on the authority of Scripture." Later in the same chapter, Mr. Deane omits to translate the words ut quidquid facerem illis solis a quibus exigebatur esset notum et, and thereby makes Anselm say rather absurdly: "I was led to this undertaking in the hope that whatever I might accomplish would soon be overwhelmed with contempt." Similar errors occur occasionally, but less frequently, in other passages. In Monol. XV, Anselm's peculiar antithesis of ipsum and non ipsum (melius ipsum esse ac non ipsum) is rather misleadingly rendered "to be it is better than not to be it "; the sense is simply "it is better than anything not-itself." The translator has a singular fashion of rendering omnino (which assumes almost a technical sense in the schoolmen) by "in general," (e.g., "what is, in general, better"); it means, of course, just the opposite, i.e., "absolutely." In Gaunilon's Liber pro insipiente, the sense of §2 pretty completely disappears in the translation. These occasional failures limit, but do not destroy, the general serviceableness of the volume for the English reader.
Dr. Carus has prefixed to the translation Weber's summary of Anselm's system (a poor summary so far as the ontological argument is concerned), and comments or criticisms on the ontological argument from Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Dorner, Lotze, and Professor Flint. It would have been well to include with these one or two passages,—e.g. Aquinas, Summa I, q. 2, a. i, 2, and a chapter from Father Boedder's Natural Theology,—expressing the negative attitude of later and present-day scholasticism towards Anselm's argument.
Washington University,
St. Louis, Mo
Professor Woodbridge has rightly felt that a compact and inexpensive volume of selections from the English writings of Hobbes, in which the whole system of the philosopher of Malmesbury should be set forth briefly
