Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/226

210 in so far as it brings to a focus the different points of view on the matter. Again, while one admires the way in which our author pursues his aim without entangling himself in theories of perception, whether subjective or realistic, showing the representatives of these theories along with the common-sensist and the sceptic how they are affected by his strictures about sameness, one would have wished him to indicate which way of regarding knowledge seems to him freest of difficulties, as tested by the categories he is dealing in. The examination of Dr. McCosh's Realism may be regarded as a step in this direction. I question if the booklet ought to have been called a psychological study — epistemology it certainly is: there is almost no psychology in it; for had there been, one would have had the psychological solution of sameness as relative identity of content in presentations brought forward. The subject, I repeat, makes the book a crabbed one, but there are many passages where the thought has both range and rhythm. Much of the historical matter of the second part of the book will be of great use to students; the careful understanding the author shows of the prolix and prosaic Locke, and his acute criticism of Spencer's logic seems to me among the salient features of the book. There is a great similarity in tone, and method, and scope between this study and Dr. Pikler's recent volume on objective existence; both books to my mind represent the best sense in which philosophers may go "back" previously to going steadily onwards.

. This book consists of a series of sections, which set forth the principles of the Monistic Philosophy, as the author conceives of it. He devotes more than one hundred pages to answers to criticisms. It is very difficult to pronounce a judgment on the book; it is, in some respects, I suppose, a remarkable one. The characteristic of Dr. Carus's mind is its power of lucid condensation; and he gives us here, in readable and brilliant language, the main results of philosophy as "the systematic arrangement of knowledge." The student of philosophy would not inaptly characterize the author's point of view as a combination of Hegel and Spencer mediated through Comte. But my impression is, that the ordinary intelligent reader, who cannot be supposed to read between the lines, would, while admiring the eminent clearness of the book, feel in it a disappointing absence of a definite point of view. Unless it is very carefully shown how it is that the world is one, and can