Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/443

 442 -NEW BOOKS. been treated by the author in larger works. As contributions to the philosophy of science the most notable articles are those that are placed at the beginning of the volume, on Ideal Science and Positive Science (pp. 1-40) and on Synthesis in Organic Chemistry (pp. 41-96). In the first of these the author argues that what metaphysical systems have always done has been to arrive again by a pretended deduction from a priori principles at the positive knowledge of their time, filling up its lacuna? by imaginative construction; that the "ideal science" of the whole, although it can never attain the certainty of the positive sciences that deal with a special and limited subject-matter, has yet a legitimate place ; and that its true method must henceforth be to do consciously what the systems of the past did " with a sort of unconscious dissimulation ". The synthesis of organic bodies is a branch of chemical science that began practically with the researches of M. Berthelot himself. Accordingly the two articles on the character of chemistry as determined by its employment of methods that are at once synthetic and experimental are, from the philosophical point of view, the most interesting of all. The power of " creating its object," of realising experimentally its schemes of classification, including the members of them that are not already realised by nature, is found to be that which distinguishes chemistry from the natural history sciences. The experi- mental science of chemistry in this respect resembles mathematics. " These two orders of knowledge proceed equally by way of deduction in the search for the unknown. Only, the reasoning of the mathematician, founded on abstract data established by definition, leads to abstract conclusions equally rigorous; whilst the reasoning of the experimenter, founded on real and in consequence imperfectly known data, leads to conclusions of fact which are not certain, but only probable, and which can never dispense with an effective verification." (p. 65). GIOVANNI CESCA, Professore di Filosofia nel Eegio Liceo di Treviso. La Morale della Filosofia scientifica. Verona-Padova : Drucker e Tedesehi, 1886. Pp. 46. In combating " the accusation brought against scientific philosophy of destroying morality," the author urges, among other arguments, that the doctrine of evolution as applied to society is not fatalistic, since a part of this doctrine is that the conscious aims of individuals count for more towards progress as the conception of progress becomes clearer ; that the present decline in morality, of which he concedes to his opponents the ex- istence, is due to the exaggerated development of modern industrialism, not to a decline of religious faith ; and that "evolution" is not to be con- founded with "Darwinism," on which since the aims of the individual so far as they are taken account of by the doctrine of survival of the fittest are entirely egoistic there can be no question of founding a system of morality. Conditions of a true morality are : (1) that it should have rela- tion to men and their ends, (2) that its principle should be a material prin- ciple drawn from experience, not a purely formal and a priori principle, as with Kant, (3) that its foundation should be "anti-individual and anti- egoistic". The last condition has been recognised by those moralists, from Aristotle onwards, who have insisted on the natural sociability of man ; but " the merit of having recognised this principle in all its extension and of having made it the basis of ethics belongs to the two true founders of moral science based on scientific philosophy Ardigo and Stephen". Sulla Rappresentazione mmtuli -Uo Spa::in in Rapporto col Sentimento dello Sforzo. Xote e Ricerche di Psicologia speiimentale del Prof. ENRICO MOHSELLI, Direttore della Clinica tlelle Malattie mentali nell' Univer- sita di Torino. Milano-Torino : Fratelli Dumolard, 1886. Pp. 39.