OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. VOLUME XII. EDITED BY WM. T. HARRIS. ST. LOUIS: G. I. JONES AND COMPANY. 1878. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by WILLIAM T. HARRIS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. (1) Sonnet to the Venus of Milo; (2) Emanuel Hvalgren's System; (3) Notes on Hegel and his Critics; (4) Sentences in Prose and Verse. (1) Sentences in Prose and Verse; (2) Spiritual Epigrams; (3) A Fragment of the "Semitic" Philosophy; (4) Dr. Pfleiderer's Philoso, phy of Religion; (5) On the Multiplicity of Conscious Beings; (6) Poly- (1) The Moral Purpose of Tourguéneff; (2) Dr. Parson's Translation - (1) The Universe; (2) Heaven and its Wonders, and Hell; (3) Ueber 108 Nature and of the Elements; (12) Outlines of the Religion and Philoso- phy of Swedenborg; (13) Zwei Briefe Ueber Verursachung und Freiheit im Wollen; (14) Hartmann, Duehring, and Lange; (15) George Stjernhjelm; (16) Philosophische Monatshefte; (17) Verhandlungen der (1) Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie und Philosophische Kritik; (2) Pro- fessor Watson on Science and Religion; (3) Principia or Basis of Social Science; (4) Soul Problems, with other Papers; (5) A Series of Essays on Legal Topics; (6) Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Re- former; (7) Elements de Philosophie Populaire; (8) Inaugural Ad- dress, by S. S. Laurie; (9) The Historical Jesus of Nazareth; (10) A Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant; (11) Philosophische Monatshefte, Leipzig, 1877; (12) Die Phantasie als Grundprincip des Welt Processes; (13) Philosophie de la Religion de Hegel; (14) The (1) Krauth's Vocabulary of the Philosophical Sciences; (2) Stirling's Burns in Drama, together with Saved Leaves; (3) Pfleiderer's Religions Philosophie auf Geschichtlicher Grundlage; (4) Bascom's Compara- tive Psychology; (5) Eucken's Geschichte und Kritik der Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart; (6) Bascom's Philosophy of Religion; (7) American 66 CORRESPONDENCE. BY WM. JAMES. As a rule it may be said that, at a time when readers are so overwhelmed with work as they are at the present day, all purely critical and destructive writing ought to be reprobated. The half-gods generally refuse to go, in spite of the ablest criticism, until the gods actually have arrived; but then, too, criticism is hardly needed. But there are cases in which every rule may be broken. "What!" exclaimed Voltaire, when accused of offering no substitute for the Christianity he attacked, "je vous délivre d'une bête féroce, et vous me demandez par quoi je la remplace!" Without comparing Mr. Spencer's definition of Mind either to Christianity or to a "béte féroce," it may certainly be said to be very far-reaching in its consequences, and, according to certain standards, noxious; whilst probably a large proportion of those hardheaded readers who subscribe to the Popular Science Monthly and Nature, and whose sole philosopher Mr. Spencer is, are fascinated by it without being in the least aware what its consequences are. The defects of the formula are so glaring that I am surprised it should not long ago have been critically overhauled. |