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 150 NEW BOOKS. it, like the law of causation, an assumption without which all consistent action becomes impossible. Psychologically, the belief in " transcendence " is to be explained as Berkeley explains it : " The mind taking no notice of itself is deluded to think it can and does conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind, though at the same time they are apprehended by and exist in itself" (p. 53). From what has been concluded, Solipsism is a necessary deduction. To affirm the independent existence of " the foreign Ego " is as much an assumption as to affirm the existence of bodies outside the mind. We may be justified in making this assumption by the demands of the social feelings, as the religious feelings justify us in affirming " the transcendence of God ". But how can we determine the degree of validity of any particular assumption? Only by the degree of generality of the need to which it responds. The assumptions referred to would seem, then, to have less justification than the principle of causality ; for this last assumption answers to the need that is most widely felt of all, viz., the need of self- preservation. If then we would raise "the transcendence of belief " to universal validity, we must base it on normative as distinguished from actual grounds ; on the emotional needs that ought to exist instead of on those that do exist. Logically this cannot be attained. It remains for the ethical and the aesthetic philosopher to try if they will be more successful. Wie ist Verantwortuny und Zurechnung ohne Annahme der Willensfreiheit moglich? Eine Untersuchung von Dr. H. DRUSKOWITZ. Heidelberg: G. Weiss, 1887. Pp. 40. The author contends, in opposition to Dr. Paul Re"e (see MIND, xi. 137), that man is still " morally responsible," although, as Dr. Ree main- tains, the will is neither empirically nor transcendentally free. For the individual man is not merely a link in a natural process, but is also a " rounded-off whole," having a certain "independence" and a conscious- ness of himself as acting well or ill. Self-consciousness and the power of distinguishing between right and wrong carry with them responsibility to society. Zur Lehre vom Wesen des Gewissens. Von Dr. A. WECKESSER. Bonn : Emil Strauss, 1886. Pp. vi., 98. The results of this historical and critical study are (1) that the developed conscience has a material principle in the common life of men and a formal or a priori element in the feeling of unconditional validity and universality which accompanies the " idea of good " that is its content ; (2) that it has three stages of development, viz., the " statutory-authoritative " and the " individual " conscience which are " preliminary steps before it becomes ethical," and, finally, "the ethical-religious conscience". The "ideal type " of the first of these stages is the Mosaic law, " and in the wider sense also social-political morality in the Grseco-Roman period ". Of the second the type is the affirmation of tire individual conscience against society by the Sophists. Christian ethics is the synthesis of both. Friedrich der Grosse als Philosoph. Von EDUARD ZELLER. Berlin : Weidmann, 1886. Pp. vi., 298. The only attempt previous to the present to estimate Frederick the Great as a philosopher was Rigollot's Frederic II. Philosophe (Paris, 1875). Prof. Zeller speaks of his predecessor's work with warm appreciation, the chief defect he finds in it being the want of exact reference to the sources. This he supplies in the notes (pp. 183-296) full of interesting citations from Frederick's works and correspondence which he has appended to his own systematic exposition. The exposition itself is of the quality that might be