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H. HOFFDING, Geschichte der neueren Philosophic. 407 Hence it would be false to regard Positivism as a mere reaction against the Romantic philosophy. Yet while they agree in the points stated, there is one respect in which they differ ab initio. Romanticism, in its enthusiasm for the unity, overlooks the manifoldness of nature. Convinced of the truth of its ideal, it thinks less of the stringent mechanical conformity to law to which all that abides in nature must submit. Positivism, laying its foundations in what is actually given, appreciates the differences and oppositions of reality, and tries to ascertain the laws accord- ing to which the phenomena of the real world occur and are developed. Positivism, therefore, finds its difficulties when it strives to rise from the actually given to the unity of thought and the validity of the ideal ; Romanticism, when it endeavours to descend from its ideal heights and step into the world of the actual. It is the province of the historian of philosophy, Hoffding thinks, to compare both and decide which of them is the more favourably placed for traversing the interval between starting-point and goal. 'OSos ovia KaVw fjita KOI wvr?7 the saying of Heraclitus in his theory of Becoming is a dictum which may find application also in the theory of Knowing. In the processes of ordinary thought, and even in science, the upward and the downward ways are equally useful and both indispensable, yet, for the purposes of philosophy, no man can travel either, much less both, com- pletely. The poet's, but not the philosopher's, eye may " glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven ". Philosophy demands that the principles of unity and heterogeneity should have even-handed justice done between them. Yet no system has ever succeeded in fulfilling this demand. We still find the Romanticists on the one hand, the Positivists on the other, in hostile camps. Such has been the case from age to age. Whether the discord in human thought, when it tries to grasp the two ways in their whole length as one, will be ever harmonised viderit deus I Meanwhile the history of philosophy remains of more value than any of the so-called systems which it contains. Among the many merits of Dr. Hoffding's work, the greatest is that it succeeds better than any other with which we happen to be acquainted in presenting this history in a connected and coherent form. It impresses one with a feeling of hopefulness for the future of philosophy ; tending to remove the vague, uneasy suspicion that philosophy in the past has been like unto him who twisted a rope of straw, unconscious that an ass behind him ever ate this rope as fast as it was formed. Hoffding's book gives one confidence that something has been done for the solution of the highest philosophic problems ; explains what that something is ; and so states the problems themselves that they appear, if not destined for actual solution, at least instrumental to the higher development of the human mind. We conclude by noting with satisfaction that this work is being translated into English. JOHN I. BEARE.