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136 PHILOSOPHICAL PERIODICALS. REVUE PHILOSOPHIQDB. No. 10. October, 1899. F. lie Dantec. ' Le Mccanisme de 1'Imitation.' [A bird learns to sing and a child to speak by imitating certain of the sounds they hear. They are enabled to do so by means of a special mechanism consisting of an "instrument auditif" and an "instrument phonateur," which are interconnected by registering and conducting tissues.] E. Borel. ' A propos de Plnfini nouveau.' R de la Qrasserie. ' Des mouvements alternants des idees reveles par les mots (i.).' [Ideas exhibit an upward, downward and lateral movement. In the first, material ideas become dematerialised ; concrete, abstract ; vulgar, noble. In the second, these processes are re- versed. In the third, the sense of the word remains on the same level and changes by deviation only.] Analyses et comptes rendus. Revue des Periodiques Strangers. No. 11. November. G. Milhaud. ' Mathe- matique et Philosophic.' [A mathematical education disposes a thinker to attach himself to the idea rather than to concrete facts or images ; he pursues the intelligible and disregards the sensible.] G. Richard. ' La Re- sponsabilitd et les Equivalents de la Peine.' [A theory of punishment.] R. de la Grasserie. ' Des Mouvements alternants des Idees, revise's par les mots ' (fin). Revue Critique. ' Metaphysic of Experience ' (Shadworth Hodgson). A. Fenjon. [Gives an analysis of the analysis of experience on which the ' Metaphysic of Experience ' is based, describing it as "une des plus profondes, sans contredit, que 1'on ait jamais ten- tees ".] Analyses et comptes rendus. Revue des Periodiques Strangers. No. 12. December. P. Faulhan. 'L'Analyse et les Analystes.' [A comparative study of different types of ' 1'esprit analytique '.] J. Fayot. 'L'Education du Caractere.' [The only possible basis for a classification of characters is the nature of psychical energy. Writer gives a four-fold classification : (1) Intense and prolonged ; (2) intense, but not prolonged ; (3) feeble and prolonged ; (4) feeble and not prolonged. Cases (2), (3) and (4) can be remedied, if at all, by hygienic measures only. Iheform of activity can be modified to almost any extent if no contrary influences are in operation.] Revue generale. G. Richard. Philosophic du Droit. Analyses et comptes rendus. Revue des Periodiques Etrangers. REVUE NEO-SCOLASTIQUE. No. 21. Hume, while reducing meta- physical principles to concomitances or permanent successions of facts, admitted the necessary character of mathematical demonstrations. Even though circles and triangles had never existed in nature, still, in the opinion of Hume, the demonstrations of Euclid would possess the character of certitude and evidence. A similar admission was made by Kant. But J. S. Mill, who was the first to construct a complete system of empirical philosophy, maintained that even mathematical demonstra- tions have no more than a purely experimental value. In opposition to Mill's contention, D. Mercier ('Le Positivisme et les verites necessaires ') argues that the axioms of geometry and the principles of arithmetic are propositions of an ideal order, and that their truth is quite independent of the existence of contingent things. V. Ermoni (' Le Phenomene de 1'association ') holds that the phenomenon of association confirms the traditional view of substance as a continuous, permanent and undivided subject. Association involves the reproduction and recognition of anterior mental states. But this reproduction and recognition are inexplicable unless a principle be admitted which persists identically throughout the various psychical states and changes. St. Thomas defines philosophy as " the science which considers first and universal causes ". M. De Wulf (' La Synthese Scolastique ') accepts this definition. A philosophy answering to such a definition as this evidently must possess a very extensive content. At the outset of his commentaries on the Nikoma-