Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/643

630 NEW BOOKS. original ground of all tilings," according to modern science, is found to be " force ". Matter and consciousness are the same in essence, both being alike manifestations of force ; but the law of psychical force is different from the law of physical force, being (as stated by Prof. Wundt) a law of constant increase instead of a law of equivalence. Human consciousness is the result of a process of development out of matter. " The soul is nothing substantial or enduring, and the identity of the Ego is only an apparent identity." What is permanent is the structure of the organism. On the ground of science, therefore, personal immortality must be denied. The antinomies that spring from the Cosmological Idea are due to neglect of the distinction between " material " and " psychical " force and (consequently) causality. Man, as regards his body, is subject to natural laws ; but through the presence in him of spirit he is a cause of the beginning of motion, and is free in so far as he is not under the dominion of impulses from his lower nature. The human will is determined by the divine will ; in which alone necessity coincides with freedom. Passing to the Theological Idea, the author finds that the con- ception of a " world-consciousness " is a necessary conception. For " the history of nature is the history of the progressive victory of spirit over matter " ; and this supposes a directing intelligence. A complete worlcl- consciousness, however, can only be posited at the beginning and at the end of the world-process. That the motion of matter will terminate and the world-process have an absolute end, follows from the law of the degra- dation of all forms of energy into heat. On the other hand, " everything living springs from life ; the inorganic springs from the organic and has been formed by vital activity ". Matter is the " bound," spirit the " free," force. If, then, we proceed from consciousness as the more certain, we must assume that the free world-consciousness has bound itself by laws -willed by itself. Force, therefore, originally present as world-conscious- ness, transformed itself into the unconscious or matter for the sake of an end proposed to itself, and will again emerge from the world-process as world-consciousness. " In the beginning was God, and nothing outside Him. God has transformed Himself into the world, and the world will again return to itself in God." " The world-process is a struggle of the unconscious with itself according to natural laws willed by God before the beginning of Creation." The purpose of the transformation of the unity of the world-consciousness into separate single beings by the intermediate stage of the unconscious or matter, was an intensification of mental force. 'The only other purpose of the world-process that can be known by us is the storing up of memories of a world-history for the sake of the future complete world-consciousness. For although individual memory dis- appears at death, " the unconscious memory of Nature is true and ineradi- cable" ; and the memories of all the states of consciousness of all indi- viduals are preserved, to reappear at " the new birth of the spirit," when all shall again " live in God ". Ethically, all actions are to be estimated by their relation to the world-process. To promote this is "the divine command," which is identical with " the well-understood interest of man ". " Sin is what opposes and prolongs the world-process." Abendrote. Psychologische Betrachtungen. Von PAUL LANZKY. Berlin : C. Duncker (C. Heymons), 1887. Pp. 134. This book is composed of a series 'of detached " thoughts," arranged under twelve heads, on life, philosophy and art. It purports to be written by a once pessimistic thinker, who has become reconciled to human life by retiring into solitude, yet without wishing again to leave his solitude ; for by withdrawal from the world he has both recovered from misanthropy