Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/545

j. P. DURAND, Apergus de Taxinomie Generate. 531 value, in the sense defined by Ehrenfels, is not to deny that value is objective, and has an absolute validity from any given point of view. And if once we recognise this, then again the great question comes to be What is our point of view ? This is the question, as it seems to me, that Ehrenfels has not sufficiently faced. If he had faced it, his treatment no doubt would have become metaphysical rather than psychological, and would have opened up fundamental problems that he has sought on the whole to avoid. But I venture to doubt whether, without facing such problems, there can either be an adequate theory of value or an adequate doctrine of Ethics. Still, we have every reason to be thankful for what Ehrenfels has given us ; and we shall have still more reason for gratitude if he goes on, as he seems to promise, to apply his theory of value to some practical problems of life, and especially to those of economics. For such a task his gifts and training would seem to fit him in a pre-eminent degree ; and I for one shall look forward to this part of his work with the most eager anticipation. J. S. MACKENZIE. Aperrus de Taxinomie Generate. Par J. P. DURAND (DE GBOS). Paris : Felix Alcan, Editeur, 1899. Pp. 265. To judge from the list of M. Durand's works, the earliest of which bears date 1866, he must be a veteran free-lance in the border- land between philosophy and biology. He describes himself in the book before us as un vieux jiaysan aveyronnais courbe tout le jour sur sa charrue ; no doubt a pleasant exaggeration, which disposes us however to listen with attention to his views on the method of natural history. The author has been strongly impressed by the neglect both of naturalists and of logicians to study the general types and laws of the methods of classification which Science attempts to apply. The " true," " rational " or " natural " system is the object, he urges, of endeavours which are riddled with incoherence because no clear understanding prevails as to its nature. M. Durand considers himself no more than a pioneer towards the establish- ment of a general science of classification. The main argument is as follows : The elementary form of all classification is the series, which depends on the increase or decrease of some " variable ". The nature of this variable determines the nature of the series, and in the abstract all series are reducible to certain types, which con- stitute the Taxinomie 1 Categories, and on each of which is founded a true Taxinomie Order. Of these Taxinomie Orders the author distinguishes four, his enumeration depending on an empirical review of the field. 1 1 observe that English writers prefer the spelling Taxonomy and Taxonomic. I follow M. Durand.