272 CRITICAL NOTICES : should they not be referred to an origin which, while distinctly marking them off from the varying ' special sensibles ' with which they are interfused, explains what variability there yet is to be found in our apprehension of themselves ? The psychologists and Kant, from their different positions, have then, indeed, a serious enough task before them to explain what we all mean by object ; but the work of philosophy is serious more serious than Eeid, at least, ever quite imagined, once he was frightened back by Hume from that ' doctrine of Ideas ' which (he tells us himself) he once believed so firmly as to embrace the whole of Berkeley's system along with it. Apart from some questionable arguing upon the line here sug- gested, there is a great deal of sound and seasonable doctrine in the lecture on " The Eelativity of Knowledge ". It bears with telling effect against the relativism of Kant and Hamilton, and only does not seem to touch the Phenomenalists proper who are here too indiscriminately ranged with the Eelativists over against the more "fortunate " Natural Eealists of unadulterated Scottish breed. Indeed, Prof. Seth himself may be thought to reason with no small force in support of a pure phenomenalism from p. 167 onwards. 1 However that be, enough should have been said to draw attention to these Balfour Lectures. The second series will be neglected by no reader of the first. EDITOR. Les Prin<:!i' <1<> la Morale. Par I^MILE BEAUSSIEE, Membre de Tlnstitut. Paris : F. Alcan, 1885. Pp. 307. It is pleasant to find German ideas combined with French lucidity of exposition and grace of style. Such a combination forms the most conspicuous charm of the interesting treatise which M. Beaussire has here given us. The book begins with a chapter on ' ' La Crise actuelle de la Morale " which reminds us that in France the contact of moral philosophy with life is closer than it is in England. The divorce between the teaching of the pulpit and the ideas of thinking men is more pronounced: on the other hand scepticism is more des- tructive : and the " spiritualistic " moral philosopher writes, like the Stoic of ancient Eome, with more consciousness of a practical aim than in England or in Germany. It is noticeable that M. Beaussire complains that the actual moral tone of lay society in clericalist circles, as exhibited for instance in the tone of their newspapers, is no higher than that of their ;uiti-clerical op- ponents. The most weighty portion of the work follows the book on 1 Is Prof. Sctli quite just to Locke at p. 109, when, aft IT (pioting a sen- tence from tin- Essay, lie in the m-xt sentence changes Locke's "ideas of particular things " into " proper names " ?
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