Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/303

 302 NOTES AND COERESPONDENCE. is not just now prepared to deny that the wicked mind in 'a certain sense does what it pleases. I am therefore, on the other hand, most heartily with Prof. Sidgwick in thinking that the choice of lives in the myth of Er gives no true indication of Plato's ideas of moral freedom, and in general I subscribe to his view that the myths should not be drawn into evidence on philosophical questions. It is also true, as he says, that even according to the myth the choice does not escape from necessity, being predetermined by previous con- duct. The contrast between the account of this choice in the myth, and the passage concerning freedom and slavery, l^puJilic 577, has always seemed to me a leading instance of the gulf between the semi-sensuous imagination and the philosophic intelligence. In Plato's true ethics the opposite to freedom is SouXem not avdy< ilodi-inn I<l<arnin tjixdi* i*t in Plato/dx Philebo, bringing it into connexion with the questions which arose, at the previous meeting, out of Mr. Ritchie's paper on the Phwdo. At the iirst meeting in the new year, Jan. 11, the examination of Kant's Critick of Practical Reason was resumed by Mr. H. W. Carr (V.P.), in a paper on the "Analytic," cc, 1, 2. On Jan. 25, a paper by Mr. S. Alexander on Hegel's Conception of Nature was read, and gave rise to a lively and prolonged dis- cussion, in which Prof. Bain and Mr. G. J. Romanes took part. Feb. 8, Mr. E. P. Scrymgour (V.P.) read a paper on Cause and l'< i-*i>n<dit}i, which also gave rise to an animated discussion. Feb. 22, the President brought before the notice of the meeting some of the more important passages in Book i. of T. H. Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, together with some ni r /,'///th) part of a second volume of //'W//'yy////.-v/y)/(/.sr//r A'.->' ?/s that, has gone on ap]- ing in parts since 1882 (Frankfurt a. M. : < '. Km-nit/er). A short L< of the author, from the hand of his si?4er, will follow after some months. Mainhinder, the most thoroughgoing of all pessimists, died young, before his first volume saw the light. Some account of his work- will be given later on. Prof. Wundt gave a general indication of the character of his doctrine in MIND as far back as 1S77 (Vol. ii. 510). The Italian philosophical journal, Filosofia delle Scuole Italiane, founded sixteen years ago by the deceased Count Mamiani, is now, under his suc- cessor in the editorship, Prof. L. Ferri, transformed into aivista Italia nn