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142 NEW BOOKS. with impartiality the whole of the work accomplished by Victor Cousin, the author has supplied what remained wanting for the full recognition of its importance, viz., " a complete and detailed monograph founded on dates and texts". While admitting that Cousin's action in stimulating others- was more important than any contributions of his own to philosophy, M. Janet still contends that, besides being a diffuser of foreign ideas in France, he was a real philosopher himself, though not pre-eminently a philosopher. That his originality has of late not found recognition, or has even been altogether denied, is, he admits, in great part Cousin's own fault. He was constantly modifying his works in a literary spirit, and destroying their characteristic features, and in his later years he was under the influence of a religious reaction. This explains the concessions with which he is reproached to common sense on the one hand and on the other to religious orthodoxy. What struck his original hearers, however, was his speculative audacity and his selection of the most abstruse problems in preference to those with more practical bearings. This impression is confirmed by the study the author has made of the earlier editions of his works and of the original records of his courses of lectures. Cousin's later error, M. Janet points out, has not only injured his own reputation but also that of his school ; and to restore to spiritualism its place as a philosophy among other philosophies, to remove from it the accusation of being a mere ancilla, theologice, has been the ungrateful task to which his disciples were long condemned (pp. 396-7). Another reproach against Cousin is the reactionary and stereotyped character of the scheme of philosophical education founded by him. This, the author contends, rests on a complete misapprehension. Cousin's reactionary period conies after the close of his official life ; and his "official" scheme was neither reactionary nor a stereotyped expression of his own philosophical doctrines. He really did for philosophical instruction in France what Descartes did for philosophy itself, separated and enfranchised it from theology and substituted a modern philosophy for scholasticism. The misapprehension of the real character of his adminis- trative activity comes from failure to appreciate the historical circumstances. On many points the opposing parties the advocates of laic and of theo- logical education have changed sides since Cousin's day. The historical view enables us to see also the importance of Cousin in philosophy itself. Ideas that have since become common property were then new. To Cousin's generally recognised merits as "the creator and organiser in France of history of philosophy " must be added the conception and putting into circulation of far-reaching ideas, such as that of treating the ontological problems of German schools of philosophy by the psychological method. After describing all the various sides of Cousin's activity, the author is able to give a most effective summary both of his contributions to thought and of the results of his literary and philosophical influence in France (pp. 451-4) ; and this while recognising as clearly as anyone the " grave defects " of his best thinking, its " want of coherence and want of precision," and above all the predominance in him of the oratorical over the philosophical spirit. In an appendix (pp. 455-485) an article is re- produced that appeared in the Uevue des Deux Mondes on the 1st of February, 1867, a few days after the death of Cousin, containing some personal details that did no"t admit of incorporation in the systematic study. Histoire de la Science Politique dans ses Rapports avec laM orale. Par PAUL JANET, Membre de 1'Institut, Professeur a la Faculte des Lettres de Paris. 3me Edition, revue, remaniee et considerablement augmentee. 2 Tomes. Paris : F. Alcan, 1887. Pp. ci., 608 ; 779. This work still stands so much alone as a serious attempt to cover the