Page:Philosophical Review Volume 6.djvu/309

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293
REVIEWS OF BOOKS.
[Vol. VI.

tive") does not quite accurately correspond to the legislative function of the government as we understand the term, for in Hegel's idea of the government the princely function makes the constitution or fundamental law, and the legislative function is limited to elaborating statutes or rules of action in details. Hegel's analysis of the constitution of the State is interesting as affording us a philosophical explanation of the typical European government, in which there is a mingling to some extent of executive, judicial, and legislative functions in each of the great branches of government. There is no successful attempt on the part of European governments to separate these functions in the manner that they are separated by the Constitution of the United States. In the latter there is a direct effort to separate these functions and thereby secure individual freedom to a greater extent than was hitherto possible. Where the three functions are united, there is room for caprice and arbitrariness in the ruler, and hence personal grievances may arise.

After discussing the internal structure of a national government, Hegel considers international law, and then closes his book by some interesting thoughts on world history. Under the former he gives some important thoughts which have special interest to us just now in the discussion of international arbitration; and under the latter he briefly characterizes the great periods of world history, suggesting what is perhaps the most valuable of all Hegel's writings, namely, his Philosophy of History. Professor Dyde should be congratulated upon his success in translating this very difficult work. It is too much to expect that he should please all, or even any, of the special students in Hegel by his selection of technical terms in which to render the ideas of the master, but after making all allowance for what is unsatisfactory in his rendering into English of the subtle distinctions expressed in the German, this translation will remain a great monument of conscientious and successful labor.

W. T. Harris.

New Essays concerning Human Understanding. By Gottfried Wilhelm Liebnitz. Together with an Appendix consisting of

some of his shorter pieces. Translated from the original Latin, French, and German, with Notes, by Alfred Gideon Langley,

A.M. (Brown). The Macmillan Co., London and New York, 1896.—8vo, pp. xix, 861.

This work consists of a translation of the entire fifth volume of Gerhardt's Die philosophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz, compris-