Page:Philosophical Review Volume 12.djvu/467

No. 4.] and Evolution constitute a masterly exposition of genetic processes which will long remain a starting point for future explorers.

In his 'Prefatory Introduction,' the editor gives due credit for the idea of the present volume. He refers to the remark made by Professor Fowler, at the beginning of his well-known book on Shaftesbury and Hutcheson ('English Philosophers' Series), that the Shaftesbury Papers, now deposited in the Record Office at London, would well repay a more careful investigation than he was able to give them in the preparation of his own book, which was written for a popular series. As a result, we have a thick, well-printed volume, consisting of a sketch of the philosopher's life by his son, the Fourth Earl of Shaftesbury, of the unpublished letters, and of a philosophical work, hitherto unpublished, to which the editor has given the not wholly fortunate name Philosophical Regimen.

Of the material thus brought together, the life is perhaps the least unfamiliar, since its contents were mainly printed by Thomas Birch in the General Dictionary (1734-41) of Bayle, without due acknowledgment of their source, though apparently by permission. "But," as the editor characteristically remarks, "this is the first time for the Life to be published under the name of its real author, and with the exception of a necessary change in the order of paragraphs to conform with known events, almost precisely as it exists in the original manuscript. ... Its publication here affords in a compact and narrative form the various events in his career necessary to be known by the reader in order to obtain a clear and ready understanding of the contents of the letters which immediately follow in the work" (pp. v, vi). It is only fair to remark that the editor's task seems to have been performed mere efficiently, on the whole, than this and other bungling statements would lead one to expect, though certain cases of editorial carelessness are not difficult to detect. For example, the first and second paragraphs of the Life, as here printed, would be rather confusing to a reader who had not been prepared by the editor himself, in such statements as the above, to do his share of the editorial work. The first paragraph begins: "The following sketch of my