Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/131

 PAUL EARTH, Die Philosophic der Geschichte als Sociologie. 117 of dissolution, Dr. Earth condemns the Hegelian theory for not attempting any psychological explanation of the origin, and still less of the decay, of the ideas, that have been operative in the evolution of society. The force of this objection depends, how- ever, upon the assumption that the historical process is primarily a psychological one an assumption contrary to the spirit of Hegel's philosophy, and in no way confirmed by Dr. Earth's own treatment of social development. In a third section, the author has to face the question, raised by Dilthey, whether a scientific treatment of history is after ah 1 pos- sible, and answers it by emphasising the distinction between the conceptions and the methods of physical science, denying the applicability of the former but insisting upon that of the latter to mental phenomena. The concluding pages give a brief sketch of the author's own view of the process of historical development, a view which he promises further to substantiate in a second volume. In regard to primitive societies, he follows closely on the lines of M'Lennan and Morgan, making use also of Tylor's researches into the origin and influence of animistic beliefs. When under the protection of the gens, the monogamous family arises, and the ancient com- munism is, on that account, broken up, society is saved from the dangers of family egoism by the lawgiver, who creates artificial means (abstract laws, deriving authority from being ascribed to the commonly recognised Nature-gods, which are thus endowed with moral attributes) of restoring the threatened unity. The state arises, and with it the sundering of the artificially formed society into classes (St&nde) with rights and duties of their own. The author traces the decay of the " standische Gesellschaft " in ancient Greece and Rome, the " Auflosung " of that in the middle ages through the system of absolutism, its reappearance in the sixteenth century, and the subsequent supremacy of the laisser e principle. The present age he regards as a period of decay. Concentrating its strength upon inductive and analytical pursuits, it has lost the capacity, and has ceased to feel the need, of creating, and that through its want of faith in the power of spiritual per- sonality, without which true Art is impossible. Not until a new sense of the infinite worth of moral and aesthetic ideals is awakened in all classes of the community will the triviality of modern life be overcome. We shall look forward with interest to the completion of a work, for which the foundations have been so laboriously laid. G. DAWES HICKS.