Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/588

This page needs to be proofread.

NEW BOOKS. 587 The Philosophy of Religion on the Basis of its History. By Dr. OTTO PFLEIDERER, Professor in the University of Berlin. Translated from the German of the Second and greatly enlarged Edition by ALEXANDER STEWART, M.A., and ALLAN MENZIES, B.D. Vol. L, " Spinoza to Schleiermacher ". London and Edinburgh : Williams & Norgate, 1886. Pp. xii., 340. Dr. Pfleiderer's important work, in its second enlarged edition, has so lately (in MIND, Vol. x. 285) been made the subject of Critical Notice, that it is enough to simply welcome this first instalment of an English rendering of it. The translators have brought trained intelligence to their task, and executed it (so far as we have been able to test) with exemplary care. The translation will be in three volumes, the handiness of which should make up for abruptness in the division (substituted for the natural bisection of the original). Scientific Romances. No. III. " A Plane World " ; No. IV. " A Picture of our Universe ". Bv C. H. HINTON, B. A. London : Swan Sonnen- schein, Lowrey, 1886. Pp. 129-159 ; 161-204. Mr. Hinton here continues the series of scientific speculations (with a more or less philosophical purpose) begun with the pieces noted in MIND 39, 40. As in his earliest paper " What is the Fourth Dimension 1 " his thoughts here turn upon the subject of " a space higher than our own," and, regarding the subject as one that " is becoming felt as serious and fraught with much that is of the deepest interest, not only as a scientific problem, but in other ways also," he seeks to work up to it first by a detailed consideration of a simplified plane world (which others, with various motives, have before imagined), and then by a free conception of the world of our actual experience. La Psychologic de I'Enfant ; L'Enfant de trois a sept Ans, par BERNARD PEREZ. Paris : F. Alcan, 1886. Pp, xi., 307. In this volume M. Perez follows up his well-known study, Les trois pre- mieres Anne'es de f Enfant, and completes his psychological account of the child. Like the earlier work it is divided into chapters dealing with dis- tinct psychical processes, as Memory, Imagination, Abstraction, Attention, the Feelings. The author clearly recognises the special bearing of this period of mental development on the art of Education, and throughout he seeks to give a practical turn to his exposition of psychological principles. At the same time he tells us that his principal aim has been psychological and not pedagogical. Critical Notice will follow. La Criminality comparee. Par G. TARDE, Paris : F. Alcan, 1886. Pp. vii., 214. The author has here brought together some of the very interesting and .striking discussions on the phenomena of crime which he has from time to time published in the Revue Philosophique, and, in view of the practical urgency of the subject in France as in other countries at the present time, has developed them into the form of a relatively complete treatise. He mentions, however, the fact of importance, for those who wish to study the subject in minutest detail, that his very enterprising publisher is about to issue a (French) translation of Lombroso's L'Uomo olelinquente (3rd ed., 1884), the most remarkable product of the Italian school, which has so long been distinguished for its forward inquiry in this particular field. M. Tarde takes up an independent position as regards Lombroso's thesis that the modern criminal is the atavistic representative of the primitive savage, and also otherwise ; writing always as -a man with a philosophical