Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/454

440 the facts which he finds opposed to his generalizations. His view of 'aberrations' may be gathered from his statement that while normally the centers of culture tend to move northwards there are 'partial or total aberrations' southward which always come to renew the evolutionary movement (p. 288).

On the whole this habit of facile generalization makes M. Aslanian's book, in spite of occasional acute observations, very bewildering and unscientific. History he uses seemingly to furnish illustrations rather than inductions; anthropology he neglects altogether: consequently the reasoning is formal and abstract. The following passage is a fair instance of M. Aslanian's manner. He is discussing 'inventivity,' and remarks, "La multiplication indéfinie, des moyens de l'existence se trouve même en contradiction avec la réalité en ce sens que l'inventivité, comme un phénomène collectif, ne se propage et ne devient persistante que grâce à la solidarité. Par suite, elle présume de l'homogénéité, tandis que l'humanité dans son ensemble est constamment hétérogène. Si l'humanité n'était pas hétérogène il n'y aurait ni lutte, ni inventivité, ni progrès. Ainsi, l'humanité n'est pas une realité au point de vue de l'inventivité et de la solidarité" (p. 240).

There is a further source of confusion in this work. Philosophy is regarded by the author as nothing but a study of universal history. But he is constantly employing philosophical and especially metaphysical terms and giving them what seems to him their true (certainly a new) signification. To give one instance, he defines idealism as "un système sociologique, dans lequel ou attribue aux idées ou du moins à certaines idées une puissance active et où on les fait intervenir comme la cause efficiente de phénomènes collectifs" (p. xix). I do not know what this means, but I am sure no idealist would recognize his theory as so defined. Nor do I see much need for M. Aslanian's attack on idealism so understood. Certainly this is not the way to find "the solution of the problem of human evolution."