if it had been given an independent place. The chief service of the book will be found in the material which it offers, both in the expositions and references, to students who desire an orientation in German thought on this much-debated problem.
BrownUniversity.
In Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist, Professor Moulton made one of the most noteworthy contributions to Shakespearian criticism of this generation. The principles there stated and illustrated he now applies in his most recent work to the interpretation of certain problems of the moral life as represented in Shakespeare's plays. The title he has chosen, "is not intended to suggest that the man Shakespeare had formed in his mind a certain system of morals, which he proceeded to put into his plays." It concerns itself in no way with the opinions of the dramatist on ethical problems, if he had any such opinions, but confines itself exclusively to the life that he saw and described. What theories can we draw from the data which he supplies? is the only question that is anywhere raised. That these data are of unrivalled value, that the examination of them affords us a well-nigh infallible means of testing our own conceptions of human nature, is the fundamental conviction on which the book is based. "If any student," writes Professor Moulton, "has a system of psychology and ethics which will not bear confronting with the life revealed by Shakespeare, it might be well for him to doubt whether his system may not be one-sided, rather than that the insight of Shakespeare should be antiquated." Unfortunately this unassailable contention is followed by the untenable assertion that fiction stands in the same relation to such disciplines as history and ethics as does experimental to merely observational science. Obviously the formation of the hypothesis which leads up to the experiment is here confounded with the reading off of the results of the experiment. However, little use is made of this conception in the course of the work, and none of the author's conclusions depend for their validity upon its acceptance.
Out of the broad field open to the explorer two problems have been selected, the discussion of which occupies the larger, and, for the student of philosophy, the more interesting portion of the book. They are: the conditions favoring and hindering the self-expression of character, and the relation between character and destiny. Under the former topic are discussed the influence upon character of our own past volitions, of heredity, of circumstances, and of the supernatural elements in the plays. The "momentum of character" is exhibited by an analysis of the career of Macbeth; and, in this analysis, originality, depth of insight, and power to combine scattered data unite to form a masterpiece. The study of inheritance, on the other hand, is sketchy and imperfect; the broader
