Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/570

 554 CRITICAL NOTICES : epigrams, in spite of the temptation of constructing out of them a, very delightful anthology. But though he has thrown his bomb shells into the stifling aura which surrounds many a hoary prejudice of the philosophic world, yet I firmly believe that, like the book as a whole, they will be found in the end to have con- tained nothing but the purest ozone, to freshen and cleanse the atmosphere of life. F. C. S. SCHILLEE. La Modalit^ du Jugement. Par LEON BBUNSCHVICG, Ancien eleve de rf5cole normale superieure, Professeur de philo- sophie au lycee de Eouen, Docteur es lettres. Paris : Felix Mean, 1897. Pp. 246. THE reader will probably agree very heartily with the author of this book, that modality is an excellent point from which to approach the fundamental problems of metaphysics. If we could once fully comprehend the significance of existence and necessity, and their relation to one another, we should have established a, secure foundation for philosophy. And it is this full compre- hension that M. Brunschvicg here proposes to give us. He an- nounces his method as that of ' criticism ' ; and the main object of his book, like that of Kant's great Critique, is to determine the limits of human knowledge. He raises great expectations,, therefore ; and I am afraid it must be owned that he disappoints them most profoundly. This is not because, being professedly ' critical,' his results are, like Kant's, mainly negative ; but rather because his actual performance is very uncritical. His work claims- to be original, and to a reader unacquainted with modern French philosophy in general and, consequently, also with the ' neo- critical ' school, it certainly seems to be so. M. Brunschvicg has- succeeded in finding a new way of grouping some old truths and not a few errors, both old and new ; but his novelty, it seems to me, is not even suggestive : for he has failed to grasp the essential merits of the systems, which he proposes to supersede, and there- fore naturally cannot deal with the real difficulties, which are still inherent in those systems, despite their high degree of success. M. Brunschvicg's style, however, is certainly obscure, tending rather to successions of moderately epigrammatical phrases, of which the logical connexion is not apparent, than to lucid argu- ment ; so that it is quite possible he may have a meaning which has escaped me. For this reason I cannot regard myself as freed from the customary obligation to recommend a reference to the book itself ; though I may add that those parts in which M. Brunschvicg's meaning is plain do not seem to warrant a sanguine view as to those parts in which it is not. The book is divided into six chapters, of which the first ' de-