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NEW BOOKS. 551 positivism comes out clearly in the briefest statement of general ideas. Positivism itself the author declares to be untenable for want of psycho- logy and criticism of knowledge (p. 231). He adopts, nevertheless, the historical study of thought as the method of attaining truth. The aspira- tion of the thinker must be, not to have the right to say " That is my thought," but " That is what my time has thought in me ". One principle affirmed is the " superposition of kingdoms " inorganic, organic and ' thinking ". The philosophic synthesis must unify the sciences. The practical end also is unity. For the attainment of this unity the State is to suppress itself, making of society a Church. Or rather, as the author proceeds, to avoid old historical associations, let us substitute for the name of Church that of " Synthesis ". He can criticise the existing social order keenly, and can express himself pointedly, as in the inci- dental remark : " La vie actuelle est faite de pieces qui ne s'ajustent pas" (p. 19, note). His attitude towards the future he defines as " expectant dogmatism ". The historical synthesis is not yet created, but will be. The guarantee of this is the progressiveness of thought. Materialism and idealism are equally false. The most general position to be laid down is monism, but as a hypothesis. If we say that thought and extension are both phenomenal, and that there is a reality, knowable in the subject, which constitutes equally the subject and the object, our position has nothing absurd, though it is not yet proved. In this " ex- tension of the being of the ego to the whole," anthropomorphism is legitimate on condition of being purified. " What psychology is to the conception of science, History is to the direction of the Synthesis : and, like anthropomorphism, anthropocentrism is legitimate, on condition of being well understood." The author is faithful to his historical idea in giving, between his outline of the method of seeking truth and his de- tailed exposition of the method of establishing it, an extended review of the evolution of European philosophy in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (pp. 50-291). The conclusion (pp. 449-511) applies the result to ethics, and is entitled " The Destination of Man ". Le Role sociale de la Femme. Par Madame ANNA LAMPERIERE. Paris : Felix Alcan, 1898. Pp. 174. Madame Lamperiere' s book is not an elaborate study of the social duty of woman. It is rather in the nature of a criticism of the " feminist " movement in France. According to Madame Lamperiere the " feminist " movement is the result of a false interpretation of the facts of life. The principal characteristic of the woman's movement is its tendency to regard the conditions of life of both sexes as the same. As men and women are both human beings the " feminists " say that they ought in consequence to have the same rights, the same duties, the same liberties, and that they ought to stand on a footing of absolute equality. Madame Lamperiere considers that these ideas are retrograde : she considers that they are condemned by biological and sociological laws : they are the outcome of a superficial liberalism attempting to apply the principles of 1789 in a blind and unthinking manner. It is true that women should have the same rights as men. These rights may be summed up in the right of woman to secure the full development of all her faculties. A careful examination shows that a woman's faculties are different from a man's. They are equal in importance, superior in some respects, quite as necessary for the harmonious organisation of individual and social life. Nevertheless they are different. A woman's movement which is to be really fruitful should take this fundamental fact into account. It should not waste its