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472 NEW BOOKS. 297, lias here composed in French a series of "Sketches" giving an outline of his philosophy. He is by birth a Russian, as the introducer of the present work tells us. The clearness and vigour of style by which M. Penjon thinks it likely to appeal to French readers, it has in common with the author's German works. His general philosophical doctrines have been briefly described in previous notices in MIND. The articles of the present volume, which, though not containing anything new in substance, is in form independent of the German works, are i, ii., " Considerations on the Aim and Object of Philosophy," iii., " On Moral Liberty," iv., " Relations of the Soul and the Body," v., "Individual Life and Social Life," vi., " The Norm of Thought ". Les Sentiments Moraux au XVIe. Siecle. Par ALBERT DESJARDINS, Pro- fesseur a la Faculte de Droit de Paris. Paris : Pedone-Lauriel, 1887. Pp. xii., 486. The author, well-known by his work on The French Moralists of the 16th Century (1870), here passes from the moral doctrines of the period as expounded by its writers to " the moral sentiments as they existed in those who lived and acted in the same country and at the same time ". The object he has set before himself is so to group the facts as to present a picture of the moral sentiments of hzperiod, and not merely of individuals ; actions of extraordinary heroism or criminality, for example, being taken not simply in themselves as part of the facts from which collectively the age is to be judged, but with reference to their effect on the minds of con- temporaries. M. Desjardins has succeeded perfectly in this aim. Under the heads of " Morals and Religion " (bk. i., pp. 1-106), " Moral Sentiments in general " (bk. ii., pp. 107-253), " Moral Sentiments proper to Public Life " (bk. iii., pp. 255-320), " Moral Sentiments proper to certain situa- tions" (bk. iv., pp. 321-478) he gives to a great extent in the very words of contemporary historians and men of affairs just such a detailed and impartial account of the average modes of feeling and judging as is pro- mised in the preface. The book, as may be inferred from this description, is not directed simply to the proof of theses of the author's own ; but what seems above all to have awakened his interest in the period is the oppor- tunity it gives for studying " the influence on morality'of a decline in reli- gious belief ". The old religious authority, and along with it the old poli- tical authority, being weakened, the result was, he finds, the substitution, among the lettered class, of a morality derived from ancient moralists for the authoritative theological morality. At the same time, along with the new or revived conceptions of " state" and " country," the modern sentiment of " patriotism " arose, that should displace the sentiment of loyalty to a feudal chief. The immediate result of the prolonged religious and politi- cal anarchy of the period of civil wars in the latter part of the century, was a desire for the re-establishment of any religious and political autho- rity that could control the forces that had been let loose ; for the old reli- gious faith and the feeling of reverence for the hierarchical order of medi- aeval society were not dead. The sentiment of patriotism or devotion to the state thus came to take the transitional form of devotion to the king, in whom the state was personified. Hence sprang the political absolutism of the 17th century, as from the desire for a restored religious authority sprang its " Catholic Renaissance ". Spirititalisme et Libfralisme. Par M. FERRAZ, Professeur Honoraire de la Faculte des Lettres de Lyon, Ancien Meinbre du Conseil Superieur de 1'Instruction publique. Paris : Perrin, 1887. Pp. iii., 469.