an analysis of Mr. Spencer's system conducted on the some lines; and the whole concludes with a general survey of the present position and prospects of ethical science. The expository portions of the essay also deserve high praise. If the account of Rosmini's system leaves some-thing to be desired in point of clearness, we may safely assume that the fault lies with the inherent confusion of the original rather than with the interpretation of Prof. Vidari. The summary of Mr. Spencer's ethics, though not covering a sufficiently wide area, is, so far as it goes, remarkably luminous and precise. But the author is less happy when he ventures on 'the difficult task of historical deduction and construction. According to his view Europe—with the exception, as is hinted, of England—was from 1815 to 1845 under the dominion of a spiritualistic and religious movement, most adequately represented by Rosmini. To this succeeded another current of ideas, 'derived perhaps from England,' fed with the cries of physical science, opposed to revealed religion, positivist and materialist in its tendencies, represented by Herbert Spencer. Finally, during the last years of the century, we have a reaction against evolutionary monism combined with a more purely scientific way of looking at facts. The time has not come for a definite characterisation of contemporary tendencies; but surely Prof. Vidari takes far too limited of European thought from 1830 to 1845. Much the greater part of Hegel's teaching, the whole activity of the Hegelian Left, and the whole of Comte's Philosophic Positive fall within that period, while the anti-clerical revolution of 1830 forms its exact central point. The author may claim Hegel as an idealist; but no thinker was ever more rationalistic or more opposed to such transcendental ethics as Rosmini's. Again, in politics that period was dominated by the idea of nationality, for which Rosmini had no sort of liking, but rather the reverse. In truth this philosopher, so revered by his countrymen, had no European position; he only represented a group of amiable Italians who dreamed of reconciling the Papacy with the demands of modern civilisation. There was no doubt something remarkable about a nineteenth century metaphysician who tried to harmonise Roman Catholic theology with reason, and the Roman theocracy with individual liberty and religious toleration; but to place him by Mr. Spencer is grotesque. Rosmini was rather an Italian Coleridge, without Coleridge's literary genius, but with far more power of systematic application. Both received a considerable stimulus from German idealism, but rather as a solvent of eighteenth century sensism than as a source of positive truth. And just as Coleridge was thrown back by his German studies on the old Anglican divines, so Rosmini was thrown back on the early Fathers, whose philosophy, itself derived from the later schools of Greece, he attempted to furbish up for modern requirements. The result was a series of verbal quibbles, which there is the less need to expose inasmuch as their fragile texture has been torn to pieces by Prof. Vidari in his theoretical criticism.
In tracing the antecedents of Spencerianism the author says much that is true, if rather obvious, but on the whole he is greatly hampered by ignorance both of things English and also, to a great extent, of Mr. Spencer's writings. That philosophy which he depicts as the natural outcome of triumphant middle-class ideas ran counter to formidable prejudices. Whatever may be the sentiments of the continental bourgeoisie, our middle class from 1840 to 1860 did not make pleasure the principle of moral good (p. 195); nor is it true that it paid no heed to the 'moans and murmurs' of the lower classes. The condition of the people, as we can tell by early Victorian literature, attracted no less attention then than now and was discussed with equal ardour. It was also a subject in
