Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/448

NEW BOOKS. 447 This is the Aristotelian Kadapcris, as dread of the possible " daemonic " events of life and identification with the hero are, respectively, the Aris- totelian " terror " and " pity " ; there being, in the author's view, this difference, that the Kadapo-is, according to Aristotle, is only the getting rid of an oppression, ana therefore negative, while the sense of freedom, as he understands it, is a positive heightening of the feeling the mind has of its own power. He goes on to argue, in the concluding part of his essay, that this sense of freedom from subjection to the external order is the end of all religion and philosophy, as well as of all art ; drawing finally a comparison between the psychological effect of tragedy and the effect that is contemplated as the end of "the Pauline faith". In both cases there is "liberation through internal experience by means of par- ticipation in the external experience of another . Die Italienische Philosophic des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Von Dr. KARL WERNER. Vierter Band : " Die Italienische Philosophic der Gegen- wart". Wien : G. P. Faesy, 1886. Pp. ix., 281. The present volume of Dr. Werner's extensive work (see MIND 41, p. 132, for the foregoing one) is devoted to contemporary Italian philosophy. It deals in order with " Naturalistic Positivism and Evolutionism " (pp. 1-59), with Kant-studies (pp. 60-84) and Vico-studies (pp. 87-118), with the " Eclectic Idealism " of Tagliaferri, Labanca and Allievo (pp. 119-175), and with the modern representatives of the schools of Kosmini and Gioberti (pp. 179-277). The account that is here given of the philosophical movement in modern Italy is not only minute and accurate, but impartial and, from the author's point of view, appreciative. He regards Yico as the representative of the national genius of Italy. With Vico, accordingly, any future attempt to renovate Italian philosophy must put itself in relation. The aim of philosophy is to express the common thought of humanity. This the pre-Christian merely national philosophy of Greece did imperfectly. In the Christian period the common thought of humanity found its normal expression in the Christian view of life and the world ; and this common thought the different Christian nations have had to make specific. Thus there are two kinds of compre- hensive philosophical activity the expression of that which is generic in Christian thought, and the expression of this thought as it takes a specific national form. A classical representative of the first kind of activity is Thomas Aquinas ; of the latter Vico is a pre-eminent example, his philo- sophy in its original features being " the incarnation of the Italian national spirit ". The Italian philosophy of the future, in attaching itself to Vico, will have for one of its tasks to conciliate the national idea with the idea of the Church. Modern Christian philosophy generally is related to non- Christian naturalistic philosophy as Scholasticism to the Arabian philo- sophy of the Middle Age. Its task is to appropriate it ; but there is a difference between the two periods that determines a certain difference in the relations of theology and philosophy. The thought of an immediate ordering of philosophy within theology must be given up. " Only a philo- sophy standing on its own basis is capable of bearing witness to Christian truth." Such a philosophy must be primarily a comprehension of man by himself. This is attained especially by the study of history of philosophy, which thus becomes the best foundation for a philosophical theology. It is in proceeding from the self-comprehension of humanity as attained by the historical method, not in proceeding directly from an ontological doctrine, that Christian philosophy in Italy must meet the positivisb and naturalistic direction of thought, itself a re-action against a one-sided Platonism, and appropriate its results, while keeping in relation, on the other