OUTLINES OF THE RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY OF SWEDENBORG. By Theophilus Parsons. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1876. In this work Mr. Parsons attempts to give the outlines of the New Church, or Swedenborgian religion and philosophy, in the clearest and simplest manner of which the subject admits. To the admirers of Swedenborg, Mr. Parsons has for many years been favorably known as the author of "The Infinite and the Finite," "Deus Homo," and other works, all of which are written with admirable directness of purpose and clearness of style. In the present work the author goes over the whole sphere of the New Church doctrines, which gives it special value to persons who wish to make themselves acquainted with all of Swedenborg's religious teachings, and yet lack patience to study them in the original writings. (The book is handsomely printed, of handy size, and cheap. Price, $1.25.) A. E. K. ZWEI BRIEFE UEBER VERURSACHUNG UND FREIHEIT IM WOLLEN. GERICHTET AN JOHN STUART MILL. MIT EINEM ANHANGE UEBER DIE EXISTENZ DES STOFFES UND UNSERE BEGRIFFE DES UNENDLICHEN RAUMES. Von Rowland G. Hazard. New York: B. Westerman & Co. Leipzig: Bernhard Hermann. Mr. Hazard's letters to John Stuart Mill, on the freedom of the will, of which this work is a translation, are too well known to our readers to need further recommendation from us. We can say, however, of the translation, that it is excellently done, and bespeak for it the attention of such of our German friends as prefer to read a work of this character in their own language. The translator is quite justified in giving his reason for rendering Mr. Hazard's work into the German language, as follows: "The admiration which Mr. Hazard has won by his works, even outside of the circle of his adherents, and which was shared by John Stuart Mill in a high degree, suffices to entitle him to a place in the foremost ranks of the metaphysical writers of the present day." A. E. K. HARTMANN, DUEHRING, UND LANGE. ZUR GESCHICHTE DER DEUTSCHEN PHILOSOPHIE IM XIX JAHRHUNDERT. Von Hans Vaihinger. Iserlohn: Verlag von J. Baedeker. 1876. Mr. Vaihinger is, perhaps, known to our readers as an industrious contributor to the Philosophische Monatshefte. The present work is, like his article on the present condition of cosmology and that on the three phases of Czolbe's naturalism, the result of a series of lectures delivered by him before the Philosophical Society of Leipzig. It is a critical essay, in the main intended to elaborate the philosophical systems of the three men after whom the work is named, but giving ample chance for the representation of the author's own views. Hartmann is the representative of the Idealistic Pessimism of these days, Duehring figures as the exponent of Realistic Materialism, and Lange as the mediator of Scientific Criticism. The latter comes in for the larger share of Mr. Vaihinger's exposition. The work is well written, and shows both study and care, though it displays strong, and perhaps at times injudicious, partisanship. A. E. K. GEORGE STJERNHJELM. THE FATHER OF SWEDISH POETRY. By Prof. Bernard Moses. Extracted from the Methodist Quarterly Review for October, 1875. We doubt whether this pamphlet of Professor Moses (now of the University of California) will meet appreciation amongst the American students of Swedish poetry. There may, however, be another claim to the interest of students, in Stjernhjelm's scientific attainments, to which Atterborn ("Siare och Skalder") gives expression as follows: "He saw in our world, in all its shifting forms, an unbroken symbolical revelation of the Divine; and even in mathematics a hieroglyphic in which the initiated finds the key to the glory of that higher knowledge, that jewel of wisdom-the necklace of Minerva." It is well known to all who have studied Swedenborg's works in their entirety that his great glory rests in his scientific works, which his religious followers seem persistently to ignore. And it is strange, though characteristic enough of human perversity-as Edgar A. Poe would call it—that Stjernhjelm's claims on the recognition of his fellow-men should be based by his admirers, not on the services he rendered to physical science, but on his achievements as the Father of Swedish Poetry. A. E. K. PHILOSOPHISCHE MONATSHEFTE. Leipzig: 1876. Dr. E. Bratuscheck, Editor. With this twelfth volume of the Monatshefte, Dr. Bratuscheck, who has been the editor for the past four years, and conducted it, under very adverse circumstances, with remarkable success, retires from his post, his successor being Professor Schaarschmidt, of Bonn. The present volume is full of interesting matter. Among the more important articles we may mention: The Significance of Philosophy, by J. H. v. Kirchmann ; Mechanism and Teleology, by A. G. Todtenhaupt; Concerning the First Principles, by A. Spir; Spinoza as Monist, Determinist, and Realist, by Opitz; Plotinus' Doctrine of Beauty, by Dr. H. Mueller; and Plotinus and Schiller on the Beautiful, by Dr. H. F. Mueller. Amongst the reviews, we note specially Dr. Wiegand's review of Krohn's "The Platonic State," and, above all, a very lengthy review, by Dr. Bratuscheck himself, of V. Stein's "Seven Books in Relation to the History of Platonism." This comprehensive--and, at the same time, remarkably concise and clear-essay on one of the most difficult subjects in the history of philosophy, leads us all the more to regret the retirement of Dr. Bratuscheck from a position which he was so eminently qualified to fill. A. E. K. VERHANDLUNGEN DER PHILOSOPHISCHEN GESELLSCHAFT. Zu Berlin. Leipzig: Erich Koschny. 1875. Hefte I-V. This is a record of the more important papers read at the monthly gatherings of the Philosophical Society of Berlin. The first number has, Prof. Lasson: Causality and Teleology; Dr. Fredericks Die Principien des kritischen Idealismus. : The second number has, Prof. Michelet: Ueber Ideal Realismus; Dr. A. Vogel: Ueber das Problem der Materie. The third number has, Prof. Lasson: Ueber Zwecke im Universum. The fifth uumber has, Dr. Otto Vogel: Haeckel und die Monitistische Phiosophie. In noticing these several numbers we shall confine our remarks to the writings of Professor Lasson, since these have excited unusual attention in the European philosophical world, and both of which deal with the often enough discussed, and yet singularly misapprehended, question of Teleology. Perhaps the absurd terminology of final cause, instead of purpose-Zweck-has been chiefly instrumental in effecting this misapprehension. Stripping the problem of all verbal masquerade, it turns on this question: Is the existence of the world comprehensible as simply a series of occurrences, having need of no other explanation than their existence, or must it be regarded as having an end to fulfill? Mr. Lasson, let us say at the beginning, does not pretend to establish the theory of Teleology so much as to confine the doctrine of causality to its proper limits. In this latter effort he has, we are glad to say, been eminently successful. He starts from the very just supposition that the problem underlying the dispute between the categories of causality and teleology is to be found, not in the phenomena themselves, and the impressions which they make upon us, but in the so-called "laws of our thinking." He, therefore, gives full validity to the causality doctrine, as the only proper criterion to be applied to the phenomena of nature as they appear to us. In this Mr. Lasson is in full conformity with the "Science of Knowledge" of J. G. Fichte. In that work it is shown that the causality doctrine is one of the primary categories of the human mind, and that without it we can arrive at no knowledge whatever. The great trouble with the teleologists at all times has been that they denied to the natural-science men the right and propriety to apply the doctrine of causality exclusively to the phenomena of nature. Now, Dr. Lasson fully recognizes that right and propriety. He repeats, again and again, that the man of natural science is bound to regard all phenomena of nature under the category of cause and effect, or of mechanism, and hails the firm position on this ground of the present school of investigators of nature as a great advance on their former vacillating claims. But, at the same time, Dr. Lasson tells those men plainly that they have no right to exclude the teleological view from the universe, and insists that the phenomena of nature, especially man, cannot be comprehended except under a teleological view. He demands, therefore, equal recognition of both views from the science of philosophy; the man of natural science to keep on using, for his specialty, the category of causality alone; and all men in general, when not investigating matters of special science, to regard the phenomena of nature as having an end-namely, the realization of spirit in the world of matter. In this he is in full accord with Kant and Leibnitz, the latter of whom, particularly, has given the most admirable expression to the teleological view in his renowned system of the Preëstablished Harmony. There is, however, one danger which threatens Dr. Lasson, and of which, even from this distance, we would warn him. This danger is that of turning the teleological doctrine, which he upholds from his present transcendental, to a dogmatic, point of view-that is, of maintaining that the universe has been created at some point in time for a specific purpose. This is dogmatic theology of the worst kind, and which Kant did his best to root out from men's minds. Dr. Lasson, to our surprise, says that he is not yet prepared to take a position on this part of the question. But he ought not, even for a moment, to entertain a doubt on the subject. The rational position of teleology is not that this world was created by some outside power, with a view, for instance, to attain utmost perfection, or to ripen it to utter damnation; but it is this: that man-or spirit, or thought, or mind-cannot help viewing all the phenomena of the world as adaptable to the designs of man, spirit, or thought; and, since the mind cannot help cherishing this view, this view is real and actual, as much so as the phenomena of the world themselves are real and actual; and that, hence, it is quite proper to say that a purpose or design-namely, the subjection of the world's phenomena to man— underlies the existence of the universe. A. E. K. [WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF MR, HERBERT SPENCER.] BY JOHN WATSON. No intelligible theory of the universe can possibly be framed or put into words which does not avowedly, or by implication, rest upon the intelligibility of the universe itself. The denial that Nature is the embodiment of Reason carries with it the assumption that the world is beyond the comprehension of intelligence, and, therefore, in the strictest sense, unknowable. And, as knowledge is necessarily a reduction of particulars to a more or less exhaustive universality, or an expression of universality through the particular, the assertion that the world is known in immediate feeling- the assertion, in other words, that the particular alone reveals what is real― destroys at once the possibility of knowledge and the intelligible reality of things. Of this necessary interdependence of intelligence and reality, the advocates of the correlation of Forces seem to have very little comprehension; and, as a consequence, we find them making intelligence one of a series of equivalent and convertible forces, unaware, apparently, that this involves the absurdity of accounting for intelligence by that which is nonintelligent, and of explaining the reality of the universe apart from that which makes it real. "Various classes of facts," writes Mr. Spencer, "unite to prove that the law of metamorphosis, which holds among the physical forces, holds equally between them and the mental forces. 1 That no idea or feeling arises, save as a result of some physical force expended in producing it, is fast becoming a commonplace of science; and whoever duly weighs the evidence will see that nothing but an overwhelming bias in favor of a preconceived theory can explain its non-acceptance." The theory here indicated is that, as mechanical force is expressible in terms of chemical affinity or vital energy, so either of these is convertible with consciousness. Such a view seems hardly intelligible to those who, believing they can show that consciousness is the condition of all reality, claim that it is absurd to place consciousness upon the same level as the objects it renders possible. Anything like a successful attempt to account for the existence and prevalence of some such theory as that of Mr. Spencer, especially among those whose lives have been devoted mainly to physical science, ought, therefore, to be of some profit. Those who have been led to regard the method of empirical psychology as the only method which preserves the reality of things, by preventing the thinker from overriding and destroying the facts of life, minister to their own self-satisfaction by taunting the speculative thinker with going along the "high priori road" he has constructed for himself above and beyond the real world. The charge can only provoke a smile in those who know how wide of the mark it really is. Speculative philosophy makes no pretensions to the "construction" of reality in the ordinary sense of the word, but only to such an explanation of reality as shall account for the facts in their completeness. Its problem is: Given the world as it exists. to common consciousness and to physical science, to point out the relation of the different elements of it to each other, when these are viewed sub specie æternitatis—i. in their connection with intelligence. The futile problem at which the empirical psychologist works is to explain the universe independ 1 First Principles, p. 217, sec. 71. |