Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/644

 NEW BOOKS. 631 and learnt to be self-sufficing. The single reflections are often very sug- gestive, and have always a stamp of individuality. So far as the book conveys a general view of life, it is summed up in the motto from Mon- taigne which is placed on the title-page :" La plus grande chose du moiide, c'est de S9avoir estre a soy," and in a " thought " of Leopardi (from whom the author has taken the motto of one of his twelve chapters) : " He who communicates little with men. is rarely a misanthrope. True misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world. . . . And if one who is such retires from society, he loses in retirement his misan- thropy " (Pensieri, Ixxxix.). Die Willensfreiheit des Menschen. Von. Fr. J. MACH, k.k. Professor am Staats-Obergymnasium in Saaz. Paderborn u. Minister : F. Schoningh, 1887. Pp. ix., 274. The author seeks to establish the doctrine of free-will, not by deduction from principles, but " on the real basis of concrete inductive facts". Thus " science and life, theory and practice, psychology and practical moral in- terests " are to be reconciled, and the right of punishment exercised by society and the State to be justified. From the proof, to be given after- wards, that animals have no free-will, the falsehood of Materialism and of the philosophy of Schopenhauer is to be inferred. The distinction of kind between men and animals will thus be maintained ; and the proof of the free-will of man will gain its full evidence. The experience on which the doctrine of free-will is to be based is " internal experience " ; but first the author sets out to refute the doctrines he regards as false. His preli- minary positions are that " freedom is not absolute indeterminism, and that " freedom is not absolute determinism ". He examines at consider- able length (pp. 35-111) the various forms of determinism, viz. (1) " Exter- nal determinism " (the theological predestination of Luther, Calvin and Wy cliff, and the determinism of Spinoza) ; (2) " Mechanico-physical or materialistic determinism" (Biichner, &c.) ; (3) "Internal or mechanico- psychological determinism " (Leibniz, Herbart) ; (4) " Metaphysical or pantheistic determinism " (Schelling, Hegel, Hartmann). All these doc- trines are incompatible with " the feeling of repentance, the fact of con- science, moral responsibility ". The true doctrine of freedom is that of " relative indeterminism " or of a limited power of free choice (pp. 112- 150). In the remainder of the book, objections are replied to (pp. 150-70), and the positions are defended at length (1) that " true freedom is moM freedom " (pp. 171-203) ; (2) that " responsibility is a consequence of human freedom " (pp. 204-21) ; (3) that " free-will does not belong to animals, but only instinctive activity " (pp. 222-40). There is an historical appendix (pp. 241-74) tracing the problem of free-will from antiquity to modern times. The true doctrine of free-will, the author contends, first became possible in the Christian era (pp. 249-50) ; and in his historical section, as elsewhere, he is careful to point out that there is no incompatibility between the doctrine of a limited free-will and the Scholastic doctrine, represented above all by Thomas Aquinas, that the will is necessarily determined to strive after " good generally " or " happiness " (pp. 256-7 and 140-4). Reproduction, Gefiihl und Wille. Von Dr. KICHARD VON SCHUBERT- SOLDERN, Privatdocenten der Universitat Leipzig. Leipzig : Fues (R. Reisland), 1887. Pp. xv., 135. The aim of this book, as stated by the author, is to show how " feeling " that is, " pleasure and pain " is the determining factor of all thought and action. Like his other works, it has in view " the analysis of the im- mediately given " ; for this, he holds, must in any case precede metaphy-