Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/689

Rh passage of a bill to that effect through the Chamber of Deputies. Through the presentation of French plays on the German stage [Sardou's Georgette, Divorçons], this question for a time aroused unnecessary and excessive attention among us also. Among our neighbors, the antagonism of the Senate and the Catholic Church, and memories of the experiences under the first empire, still keep the question in agitation" (p. 75). The author is evidently ignorant that the bill mentioned became a law in 1884, and that the discussion since then has turned not on its passage, but on its effects. It is but fair to add that this is the only serious error I have noted.

Notwithstanding what seems from this distance the somewhat disproportionate space given to German and to theological books, the chief value of the work seems to me to lie in these bibliographical references. As the author notes, in his preface, such references are a great desideratum in ethics; and thanks are due to one who has attempted the task of supplying them. They give evidence of wide, discriminating, and thoughtful reading, and I know of no other book by which one can be so well guided in studying any problem of concrete ethics. Take, for example, a question of present interest to us, — the death penalty. Where else shall one find over a page of references on this subject, extending from Tertullian to Lasson, and including Latin, Italian, French, and English references, along with a large number of German ones? Professor Runze has certainly made it more possible for students on this side of the Atlantic to learn what are the foreign books on any topic within the scope of his treatise.

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That self-sacrifice, though the complement of justice and inseparable from it, is peculiarly the principle of growth, — even in the sphere of industrial relations where self interest is usually supposed to be the animating motive, — is the author's thesis.

By virtue of his self-consciousness the individual is in a continual process of self-making. Thoughts, feelings, and acts contribute to the evolution of the soul. This process of self-determination, of return unto the self, is the process of justice, the vital principle, the principle of individuality. Man thinks, feels, and acts, his activity works itself out in himself, — thus he realizes his freedom. As a member of society,