Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/135

This page needs to be proofread.

NEW BOOKS. 121 The conclusion adds little to the value of the essay, for it touches but lightly on several disputed questions, and contains inter alia a not very successful attempt to show that necessity involves the conception of force. R. F. ALFRED HOERNLE. Pythagoras und Heraklit. Von Dr. WOLFGANG SCHULTZ (Studien zur antiken Kultur, Heft 1). Leipzig and Vienna: Akademischer Verlag,. 1905. Pp. 118. It is almost impossible to criticise this book. It appears as the first of a series of studies on the " pre-Socratics " from a " purely philosophical standpoint ". It is difficult to know what this means. We learn, indeed, that ' philosophical ' is somehow contrasted with ' historical ' and ' philological ' ; but this does not carry us much further. The problem is surely to understand certain fragments in the light of state- ments made by trustworthy and competent authorities who had the complete works before them, and there cannot be two right ways of doing this. As the fragments are philosophical, the philological in- terpretation of them is necessarily philosophical ; for otherwise we should have bad philology. A ' philosophical ' interpretation which is not at the same time ' philological ' is nothing at all. The account of Pythagoras is a cento of quotations from ' sources ' of every date and every degree of authority. These are interlarded with fragments of Empedokles, which is quite unjustifiable. We have no right to ascribe the Orphic theology of Empedokles to Pythagoras without more ado. We might as well insert extracts from the Phcedo. The section on Herakleitos opens with an apparently unauthorised re- print of Diels's translation of the principal fragments. Then follows a translation of the imitation in the pseudo-Hippokratean TLepl 8iaiTT)s r strange to say, into German verse ! Anything more unlike poetry than scientific Ionic prose, it would be hard to find ; but Dr. Schultz, having made his version, is able to say (p. 96) that the author of the Tlepl Stamjy reminds him of Goethe. The attempt to show Pythagorean influence on Herakleitos seems to me quite unsuccessful. There are good things in the book, though they are not easy to find. They are mostly in the notes, which are mainly ' philological '. The writer assures us that he has carefully considered the question of method, though he reserves the discussion of it to a later date. This is a great pity ; for it is by no means easy to see what he is driving at, and a clear exposition of his ' methodological standpoint ' would help the reader very much. JOHN BURNET. Ueber Storungen des Handelns bei Gehirrikmnken. Von Prof. Dr. EL LIEPMANN. Berlin : Verlag von S. Karger, 1905. Pp. 161. This small volume is a sequel to the author's Das Krankheitsbild der Apraxie (motorische Asymbolie), in which he analysed a case of unilateral apraxia, a rare if not a unique case. In the present book Dr. Liepmann enters into a general discussion of the nature of apraxia, criticises other recorded analyses, and insists on certain more precise definitions. He indicates the varieties of disturbed action that may occur in cases of brain disease, presents a very detailed analysis (mental and physical) of the real character of apraxia and separates it off from the ordinary forms, of paralysis and paresis. From local lesions of the brain there may