In conclusion, I cannot help expressing the wish that the practice of writing theses of this sort may become common in our universities. If ever it does so, it will undoubtedly adapt itself to the American mind, with its clearness, rapidity, and demand for available results.
This volume contains two hundred and two fragments of Zeno and one hundred and fifteen of Cleanthes, besides seventy odd Apophthegmata of the two philosophers. Wellmann's article on the Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie (1873) marked, as Pearson says, "the first serious attempt to discriminate the teaching of Zeno from that of the Stoa in general." The omissions of this collection were supplied by Wachsmuth in two Göttingen programs, — Commentationes I et II de Zenone Citiensi et Cleanthe Assio (1874-1875). To supplement these three papers, Pearson has edited and given us a critical commentary on these three hundred fragments. He prefaces this by an introduction of fifty pages, which, to the general student of the history of Philosophy, will prove the most valuable part of the book. For the student working specially in Greek Philosophy and Literature, the commentary on the fragments will be found a serviceable supplement to Zeller and Hirzel.
This book furnishes an interesting example of how strong a case can be presented by the counsel defending a cause "for conscience's sake." It impresses one, not as the decision of an impartial judge, but as the plaidoyer of the advocate. The outcome of the trial must be such as to justify the commentaries of Thomas Aquinas and acquit scholasticism of the charge of having prostituted philosophy. To this end nothing could be more favorable than an interpretation of Aristotle in the sense of the doctor angelicus and conformable to the spirit of Christian theology. Dr. Rolfes courageously undertakes this task, and does the best that can be done under the circumstances. Still, the reader feels that force is being used, that the case is prejudged, that the writer projects his own notions into the pages of the master whom he seeks to
