Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/128

 114 CEITICAL NOTICES : Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie. Von Dr. PAUL BARTH. Erster Theil : Einleitung und Kritische Uebersicht. Leipzig : 0. E. Eeisland, 1897. Pp. xvi., 396. DR. BARTH has done himself some injustice by publishing this first volume of his work before the second was ready. The elab- orate survey of sociological systems will certainly embarrass the reader who does not bear in mind that it is to serve as a ground- work of what is to come, and, even then, he will scarcely avoid the reflexion that, had the author had the end in sight, a sense of symmetry and proportion would have forced him to lighten the present contribution of at least half its bulk. The hope is expressed in the Preface that the book may not be too historical for the philosophers, nor too philosophical for the his- torians. Judging it from the point of view of the former, the historians seem to have come off decidedly the best. The his- torical matter, moreover, is given too much in the form of note- book analyses, and needed much throwing into shape before being presented to the public. The Introduction (filling the first thirteen pages) discusses the meanings to be assigned to the terms " history " and " philosophy of history," and then the relation of Sociology to the latter. Dr. Barth thinks a complete Sociology would coincide absolutely with a Philosophy of History, and would differ in nothing except the name. Wundt attempted in his Logik to establish a demarca- tion thus. Sociology was concerned with the conditions (Zu- stande) of human society, in particular epochs and countries ; history with the events (Vorgange) through which these conditions have arisen. It was true that society is an historical product, never remaining stationary in the stream of development, but for all that one was compelled, for purposes of historical investigation, to regard certain definite social conditions, lying between two rigidly determined time limits, as relatively constant. As against this view Dr. Barth urges that, admitting the relative stability of many historical conditions, they are nevertheless only explicable when account be taken of the way in which they have come to be, and that the distinction, therefore, between social statics and social dynamics is untenable. Granting this objection, however, it is valid only against a separation, like that of Wundt's, of sociology from the science of history. A philosophy of history, endeavouring to do for all history what the scientific historian does only for a particular period, viz., discover the meaning or underlying principle of the whole development, may or may not be possible ; in either case it is unaffected by Dr. Earth's argu- ment. And if he reply, as doubtless he would, that there are many such principles, the question would still remain whether then they simply stand side by side as a multiplicity, or do not rather constitute a hierarchy, leading up to one, which is all- inclusive and supreme.