Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/363

No. 3.] doubted whether publication in such a form was needful or desirable at all, and there can be no doubt that it puts great obstacles in the way of serious criticism. For though the critic make every allowance for the excellent reasons which the author no doubt reserves in petto, he cannot but feel the insufficiency of the actual statements made. It is unfortunate, also, that the title of the book should be decidedly misleading. It is not, as one might have expected, a history of philosophic problems, but a history of philosophy in outline, and the title simply serves as an excuse for a divergence from the traditional estimates of the relative importance of the various systems. Up to Aristotle the narrative follows the customary lines, but the interval between Aristotle and Descartes is all but ignored, as are the English philosophers, with the exception of Bacon (who is regarded as the founder of modern science), and the successors of Kant, with the exception of Herbart. It is clear, therefore, that the book does not supply a satisfactory sketch of the history of philosophy. And still less is it adequate as an account of the history of the chief philosophic problems. It raises the question, – What is philosophy? – answers it provisionally by 'the opinions of the philosophers,' and fails to give not only any final reply, but also a definite list of the chief philosophic problems, which the learner is left to piece together as best he may in the course of the lectures. Even so, he will hardly find anything bearing on what is surely not the least of these problems, viz., that of the relations of man and God, while the whole subject of epistemology is left obscure by the author's persistent suppression of the skeptical objections, which the various and curious theories of knowledge were designed to meet. Of course, if nothing is said of the Pyrrhonists and Hume, if the sophists are met with the pooh-pooh of 'common-sense,' the theories of the Neo-Platonists and Neo-Kantians may well seem to have been prompted by mere superfluity of naughtiness. On the other hand the account, e.g., of Plato and Aristotle contains a good deal of detail which is irrelevant to any particular 'problem of philosophy.' But to descend to the criticism of particulars. Professor Knauer, who is an ardent partisan of Aristotle, is inclined to exaggerate his difference from Plato, and so overlooks the fact that at the end of much criticism the great disciple has a habit of re-stating his master's doctrine in somewhat different words. This is probably the explanation of the trouble which Aristotle's psychology has at all times given to his commentators. It begins, as usual, by a polemic against the Platontic doctrine of the pre-existence of the soul. The soul is the "form," i.e., the moulding principle, of a particular body,