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120 NEW BOOKS. the second place, the problem which receives the freshest treatment is the Platonic question, which has assumed an entirely new aspect in the light of the most recent researches. The final solution is hardly to be found here yet ; but the papers of M. Couturat and Prof. Ritchie show clearly enough the direction in which the question is advancing. Special mention must be made of a paper by Prof. Berthelot of Brussels on the conception of mathematical physics from Plato to Pythagoras. This is inspired by Milhaud, who was in turn inspired by Tannery, and marks a distinct progress in a line of thought which the French have made specially their own, and which is clearing up a great deal that was formerly obscure. Most of the papers on Modern Philosophy are by professeurs de philosophic in French lycees. They are excellent pieces of work, and their inclusion in this volume gives us a very favourable idea of the new spirit and method which animates the teaching of the subject in France. No country in the world has so many professional teachers of philosophy ; for philosophy does not elsewhere form part of the regular course in secondary schools. It may, therefore, be expected that the value of France's contribution to philosophical literature will be very largely increased in the near future. The prospect of this opened up by the present volume is really its most striking feature, and serves to justify its existence as a part of the recent exhibition. JOHN BURNBT. Le dieu de Platon d'apres Fordre chronologique des dialogues. Par PIERRE BOVET. Geneve : Kiindig, 1902. This is a dissertation presented to the University of Geneva for the degree of Docteur es lettres, and is an extremely able piece of work. M. Bovet has taken up the problem of Plato's theology afresh in order to ascertain what light is thrown upon it by the results of recent researches on the chronology of the dialogues. He has also examined the views of God to be found in earlier Greek philosophy. In this part of his work, he has not, I think, done full justice to the fact that almost all the early philosophers called the one world or the innumerable worlds in which they believed by the name dtos or Qeol as the case might be. This is not a purely poetical habit on their part, though it may be going too far to call their naive cosmologies by the name of pantheism. He is right, however, in holding that none of the earliest thinkers deduced the idea of God from his theory of the world or had recourse to it in order to explain that theory. He is also right in holding that the idea of God has no place in Plato's earlier philosophy strictly so called. In particular, the Form of the Good cannot be identified with God. He is also right in maintaining that Plato's later theory of the soul as the cause of movement led him to formulate for the first time in the history of philosophy the conception of a God who is the source of all motion and the creator of the world No one who follows the argument can hesitate, in my opinion, to accept these conclusions, and they are of capital importance for the history of philosophy. Studies of particular points, such as the present, in the light of the now generally accepted views as to the chronology of Plato's dialogues, are what we need most in our efforts towards a satisfactory solution of the " Platonic question ". JOHN BURNET.