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NEW BOOKS. 613 and the result was published in German. The scope of his whole inquiry may be gathered from the titles of the eight chapters in which the book is disposed: (1) Doctrine of Evolution, (2) Subjective Systems, (3) H. er's Hedonism, (4) Problems of Nutrition, (5) Problem of Perfection, (6) Problem of Propagation, (7) Animal or Natural Ethic, (8) Human Ethic. He completely accepts the theory of Evolution but departs in important respects from Darwin's presentation of it : Mr. Spencer is charged with not sufficiently excluding teleological considerations, utterly as these are to be abjured, according to the author, alike in the ethical and in the biological field. So resolute an attempt by a naturalist to deduce an ethical rule of conduct from the conditions of life has a peculiar interest, and critical examination is only deferred. In-: Ethik des Protagoras u. deren zweifache Moralbegrundung kritisch unter- sucht von ADOLF HARPF. Heidelberg : Weiss, 1884. Pp. 72. A careful study of the ethical doctrines of Protagoras, undertaken not only as furnishing the necessary complement to his better-known theory of knowledge but as having a special interest in the present condition of ethical inquiry and affording the author the means of impressing some le rations which he thinks of importance for its future progress. The more immediate task consists in reconciling the apparently antagonistic " naturalism " and " normalism " of the great sophist's ethical views as re- ported in the two Platonic dialogues Protagoras and Thecetetus respectively, and showing the connexion of the two-sided doctrine with his general philo- sophical position of Relativism. The lesson to be impressed is carefulness in the use of descriptive rubrics in philosophy, to mark oppositions which when probed to the bottom turn out not to be real oppositions at all A somewhat elaborate parallel is drawn in the second part of the study (pp. 40-71) with the Kantian Ethics, which is found by the author to present a similar doubleness of aspect and to suggest the like precaution : not, how- ever, that in either case the deeper consistency is perfectly maintained, or that the Protagorean doctrine is to be elevated to the importance of Kant's achievement. Though marred in places by involution of statement, the study is to be commended as a thorough piece of work. Frequent acknow- ledgments are made to Grote, and the relation, among English thin" particularly of Hobbes and Hutcheson to Protagoras is well brought out. Der Pessimismus in Vergangenheit . Gegenwart. Geschichtliches u. Kri- tisches von 0. PLUMACHER. Heidelberg : "Weiss, 1884 Pp. xii., 355. Frau Plumacher's work is intended as a merely provisional substitute for the wide-ranging " History of Pessimism " that cannot, she thinks, be effectively written till the passionate excitement of present conflict has died down. It falls, after a short Introduction, into two parts. In the first (pp. 18-178) she traces the historical development of Pessimism, in Antiquity (Oriental, Greek and Jewish), Christianity, Science and Poetry, till it finally assumes perfected philosophical form in Hartmann, preceded by Schopenhauer and followed by Bahnsen, Mainlander and others. Part -.id (pp. 179-348) presents a critical survey of the multitude of recent attempts to discredit the philosophy of Pessimism from the point of view of Naturalistic, of Ethical, of Religious and of Panlogistic Optimism ; all of them, according to the authoress, failing in one point or another to under- stand the historical genesis of the doctrine and its advance upon the earlier and less developed forms. In conclusion, while allowing the possibility that at some later stage of mental evolution the metaphysical conditions of P'-^imism (as regards beginning and end of the world-process and the re- lation of being and appearance) may undergo transformation, she ex-