Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/565

549 popular introduction to a particular form of idealism, Professor Leighton's discussion is all that could be desired. It is something more than this, also, for while the results are not new, they are reached by fresh and independent thinking, which evidently has taken account of the problems at first hand. For the most part, the various aspects of individuality are recognized and emphasized most judiciously. Whether the solution is a satisfactory one is another matter, and it is doubtful if the student who is already disinclined to accept that solution will be convinced by what Professor Leighton has to say. After the emphasis on the uniqueness of personality it is confusing, to some readers at least, to find the transition so easily made to an all-inclusive individual; and it is no answer to the difficulty to say that the claims of the finite individual have been fully recognized. The question is: Has the theory really a right to recognize them? Is it really so simple a matter to pass at one leap from a self whose life consists in embodying, in a unique center of feeling, relationships to other selves, to a self who directly includes all other selves in his immediate life? Is a self-conscious individual, in which the variety of God's life is supposed to express itself, wholly on a level with the sensations and impulses which form the variety in the unity of our own conscious lives? If so, to which of the two shall we reduce the other? And if it is not so, are we not taking advantage of an ambiguity in the term 'individuality' when we pass without argument to the all-inclusive self? It may be suggested, also, that a somewhat more extended account is desirable of the nature of that immediate experience to which the rather unsatisfactory name of 'feeling' is given, and of its relation to the thinking experience. If this were carried out, it would perhaps lessen the tendency, apparent for example in the treatment of space (p. 157), to make the dialectical difficulties of a concept an excuse for simply denying it of the absolute, and brushing it aside as merely due to finite limitations. It would be unfair, however, to require so brief a discussion to meet all objections, and within the limits which it sets for itself, the book may be cordially recommended.

In a book intended for general reading, and not as a text-book, Mr. Fiske presents his interpretation of individual existence considered in three phases, the psychological, the physiological, and the sociological. The author's psychology faithfully reflects the broader tenets of the modern schools, being marked neither by serious departures nor note-worthy contributions. It is, in short, so far, submissively eclectic; and for those making a first acquaintance with such thought may prove both illuminating and instructive. The author does not, however, adhere to strict demarcations. His psychology enlarges into easy-going