Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/451

J. T. MERZ'S LEIBXIZ. 439 force upon us, a complex operation, in which distinct and emphatic recognition is present of objects as opposed to the thinking sub- ject, and in which the attention is turned upon the relations of content which these objects exhibit. A general notion is the know- led^e of something, and cannot even be described in such a way as to avoid the ultimate dual reference. It is no matter of surprise, but a simple consequence of the way in which our conscious life develops, that the amount of concrete imagery im- plied in the act of conceiving should be infinitely varied, and that signs or symbols, which are possible only for a thinking intelli- gence, should be capable of taking the place of specific representa- tions. On the whole, however, the chapters on thought and its processes are those in which Mr. Sully's keen faculty seems to have been least exercised, and perhaps the problems included therein have less interest for him than for others. It would unduly extend this notice were all the subjects sug- -d by the latter portion of the book to be noted, however briefly. The psychology of the Feelings and of the Will is in a very inchoate state, and I can only say that I think Mr. Sully's con- tribution here of very high value. I do not make very clear to myself his account of the Will, and I should gladly have seen a more thorough discussion of the various phases through which our impulsive or striving nature passes in its development. I wish, too, that Mr. Sully had not said even the word that is here said on that famous bugbear, Free-will. I cannot conclude without the general remark that though difference of principles makes me dissatisfied with Mr. Sully's exposition as a whole, I am not insensible to the high merits of his work. Many portions, particularly where the analysis of some rather concrete phenomenon is under inspection, seem to me of the highest order. ROBERT ADAMSOX. .. By JOHN* THEODORE MERZ. ("Philosophical Classics for English Readers,") Edinburgh and London : Black- wood, 1884. Pp. viii., 216. This volume is to be welcomed not only because it has dis- tinctive merits which might give it a claim to a place of its own even amongst the voluminous foreign literature on Leibniz, but specially as the first attempt made in England to offer a com- prehensive estimate of the life-work of the founder of German philosophy. It is not difficult to trace the causes which have led to the neglect of Leibniz in this country. His philosophy was too far apart in character from the prevailing modes of English thought to render its assimilation by the latter anything but difficult, even had there been no Newton-controversy to excite a prejudice against its author. In Germany his philosophy was certainly not neglected, yet the history of its influence bears