Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/371

 Graluvit .- luio/ish Politieal ridlosophy 361 aspect stands for the factor of habit — but in the formation of new moral ideals, and this is the work not of instinct but of critical thought and constructive imagination. To make the methodology of the subject com- jilete, mention should be made of the method which Kant attempted to introduce into all fields of philosophy — viz. the critical. Instead of de- ducing the logical consequences from certain supposititious primitive con- ditions, or laws of nature, or definitions of sovereignty, this begins at the other end, analyzes the existing political organism and discovers the principles which must be postulated if sovereignty and freedom, justice and progress, are to be accounted for. The body of the work comprises an account of the leading political doctrines of the six authors named above, accompanied by criticism upon their logic and their statements of facts, or predictions as to the future. The accounts of the theories of the various writers are well done. Such a comprehensive abstract is especially valuable in the case of Burke, whose doctrines are scattered through many essays, and mixed with much rhetorical material, or in the case of Mill and Maine, whose various writings need to be compared. As to the criticisms, those on Hobbes and Locke have less field for originality, as the defects of those writers have been frequently pointed out. Burke's misreading of the past and gloomy predictions as to the future are corrected. Bentham's work as a legislative reformer is praised, though his ethical theory is condemned as unpractical and illogical. With Mill's spirit, the author has much in sympathy, though he is more conservative than Mill on questions of property and woman's suffrage. He claims, and rightly, I think, that Mill's comparative failure was due to his lack in the intuitive vision, in the creative insight and speculative boldness which mark the work of a Hobbes or Rousseau. He might have added that Mill labored all his life under the burden of an intellectual heredity of atomistic psychology and mechanical philosophy from which he only partially worked free. Maine's historical method is recognized as highly important, but the author would supplement it as noted above, in the discussion of methods, and his judgments upon the working of democracy are much more favorable than those of Maine. A word seems necessary as to the philosophical side of Professor Graham's treatment, inasmuch as this has considerable prominence. It was of course not obligatory upon the author to select any writer of the school of Green, Ritchie, and Bosanquet for exposition, but it seems strange that he has not profited by their work. He is conscious of the inadequacy of utilitarianism, and feels that a truth underlies the principle of natural rights, but he lacks the psychological analysis for stating this underlying truth in a tenable form. He falls back on "instincts," "sense" of justice, "implanted feelings" (pp. 236 ff., 382 ff.), with- out appreciating the difficulty that the mere presence of certain feelings is hardly a sufficient answer to the further question, whether these feel- ings should be made dominant or should be controlled or even suppressed in the interests of other feelings and instincts. He argues for law of