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 NEW BOOKS. 119 nature of things, but in an opposition between two subjective points of view, the naturalistic and the ethical. In the sixth Essay, " The Implica- tions of Self-Consciousness," Prof. Royce takes up the old Cartesian argument, and tries to show, successfully, as we think, that the limita- tions of our finite self-consciousness imply an all-embracing consciousness, which in some sense is all that we aspire after. Perhaps this argument has never before been developed with so much force and lucidity. The following Essay treats of " Anomalies of Self-Consciousness ". It is well known that perversions of the concept of Self are produced by dis- turbing organic changes. Prof. Eoyce most ingeniously suggests that the strange organic sensations have this effect because they are characteristic of certain emotions involving specific attitudes towards the social en- vironment. The eighth Essay, on " Consciousness and Nature," is of special import- ance. It treats of the nature of our consciousness of the external world. According to Prof. Eoyce, those experiences have the stamp of external reality, which are an intersubjective possession. "What you can ex- perience as well as I, is as such a physical fact. ... If ten stones lie on the highway, and you and I count them, common-sense supposes that though your counting of ten is not my counting of ten, though your per- ception of the stones is not mine, though your inner life is in no fashion, here noteworthy, identical with mine, still the real stones that I count are identically the same as the real stones that you count." Prof. Royce argues that this common-sense notion of nature is not illusory. We can- not maintain that in truth each human being is aware of a separate fact presented only to himself, though it may resemble the objects severally presented to others. Such an assumption would destroy the basis of social consciousness ; for it would imply that when many persons sup- pose themselves to be thinking about the same person each of them is thinking about a different person. This, according to Prof. Royce, is a reductio ad absurdum. This discussion of the nature of external reality is valuable ; but in our opinion it does not go far enough back. The germ of the distinction between Self and Not-Self lies in the perceptual consciousness, and precedes the stage of ideal construction and inter- communication. The external reality of the bird to the cat which hunts it does not consist in the bird being a common possession of the social consciousness of cats or other beings. The book concludes with four Essays, on " Originality and Conscious- ness," " Meister Eckhart," " An Episode of early California Life," and " Jean Marie Guyau ". These are very interesting, but not of the same far-reaching philosophical importance as those which precede them. In conclusion, we may say that Studies of Good and Evil is a book which imperatively demands to be read, and that reading it is a keen pleasure. It is to be commended not only to philosophers by profession, but to all who are interested in the ultimate problems of life. EDITOR (G. F. S.). The Evolution of the Idea of God : an Inquiry into the Origins of Religion. By GRANT ALLEN. New York : H. Holt & Co., 1897. Pp. ix., 447. Thi' Making of Religion. By ANDREW LANG. London, New York and Bombay : Longmans, Green & Co., 1898. Pp. v., 380. Mr. Allen's work deals with three questions of origin : with the origin of polytheism, of monotheism and of Christianity. Accepting and de- veloping Herbert Spencer's ghost-theory, the author maintains that