Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/582

566 The book is published under the general editorship of Nicholas Murray Butler in the series "The Great Educators." The author prefaces his account of Aristotle by a somewhat detailed history of Greek education up to his time and traces the post- Aristotelian period briefly to the Neo-Platonists. As an Appendix, is added a chapter on "The Seven Liberal Arts." The author's plan, as stated in his preface, to show in this way "the past which conditioned his [Aristotle's] theories and the future which was conditioned by them" will, I think, find approval with every reader. There will be no one, however, who will not regret that more was not said about Aristotle, to the presentation and discussion of whose theories only fifty pages are devoted. The chapter on Plotinus, whose position in the history of pedagogy is unimportant, might easily be spared and the space given to the further elucidation and criticism of Aristotle's ideas. Brief, however, as this account of Aristotle is, one does not know where to look for so direct and lucid a treatment of this side of the Stagirite's philosophy. The German books, to which in the main we have to look for the history of ancient educational institutions and theories, are so fortified with quotations and references to all kinds of authorities that it is like scaling a bristling rampart to get at them, and the references frequently constitute their greatest worth. By this I do not mean to depreciate the great value of this minute and painstaking sifting of authorities and piling up of evidence; all trustworthy history must go back to such data. But these books cannot fairly be called readable, except to Fachgenossen, and consequently they are not directly serviceable to a great number. What we needed in English was just such a book as Davidson has given us,—scholarly, interesting, and sufficiently detailed. It is not such a book as will be the special delight of a student engaged in research at a German university, and it was not meant to be. But for the student of the history of philosophy who wants a careful, orderly, and lucid treatment of this subject, without a mass of critical paraphernalia of which he will probably make no use, I can commend him to no better book. Almost the only quotations which the author employs are in the way of mottoes at the heads of chapters; these are always apropos and are made with such skill and fulness as to be light-giving.

In discussing the rise of philosophy among the Greeks, Davidson says (p. 22) that at first the new spirit turns to nature with the question, What? "but, gradually discovering that the answer to this brings no complete explanation of the world, it propounds its other questions. It thus arrives at a consciousness of four distinguishable elements in the constitution of things,—four causes, as they were termed,—(1) matter, (2) form, (3) efficiency, (4) end or aim. At the same time and by the same process it is forced to a recognition of the presence