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LUDWIG STEIN, Die Sociale Frage im Lichte der Philosophic. 91 last importance for understanding their aesthetical character, and in particular cases may perhaps also be required (as, e.g., in the ' contrast ' of the small circle between two big ones) to account fully even for the purely optical effect. At the same time, if this, criticism is well-founded, since we may in any case go on explicitly to conceive of these forces as at work, it is not surprising that all optical illusions should accord (as we may assume they do) with the conclusions of the mechanical theory, though that is not needed to explain the psychological effect. S. ALEXANDER. Die Sociale Frage im Lichte der Philosophic. Von DR. Luowia STEIN, Professor der Philosophic an der TJniversitat Bern. Stuttgart: Ferdinand Enke, 1897. Pp. 791. THIS thoughtful volume is based on a series of lectures on Social Philosophy delivered by Prof. Stein in the first place at Zurich, and afterwards in a more comprehensive form at Berne. These lectures, it appears, were not addressed to an audience of special- ists, but to the educated public of the university interested in social questions. The manner in which Dr. Stein's book originated is more or less perceptible on almost every page. It is vivacious, rhetorical, expansive ; free from technicalities ; and much more readable than the majority of German treatises on serious sub- jects. But it must also be observed that the volume has the inevitable defects of its qualities. The expository methods of the lecture-room have had an unfortunate effect on the bulk of the book. In these days of wide and varied interests it is expecting too much of human nature to toil through a volume of almost 800 pages, when the burden on the patient reader might have- been lightened by a process of judicious compression. If Dr. Stem's book reaches a second edition (and it undoubtedly deserves to do so), it is to be hoped that he will consider the advisability of altering the arrangement of the materials, and dividing them into two volumes. The first volume would deal with the history of Social Philosophy, which now occupies about one half of the present book ; and the second volume would be confined to an exposition of the author's own system. Prof. Stein's sketch of the history of Social Philosophy from the earliest times to the present day is very well done. It does not profess to present the subject to the reader from an original point of view. Perhaps it is all the better on that account. The desire at all hazards to be new, which not infrequently charac- terises German learning, has its dangers as well as virtues. Measure, balance, proportion are sometimes sacrificed for the sake of novelty, with the result that instead of a catholic presentment of the facts we get a sectarian insistence on points of minor im- portance. In tracing the history of Social Philosophy, Dr. Stein,