Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/579

565 to him, the state has the right to teach neither God nor the negation of God in the public schools. Strangely enough, one of the books recently mentioned by the clericals as having been expurgated of all religious references, even the most unobtrusive, is the famous Tour de la France par deux enfants, which was written in M. Fouillée's own home.

The closing chapter dealing with social problems opens with the statement that "social progress has always lagged behind material, scientific, and political progress;" nevertheless the author is able to show that the last century witnessed a steady growth of wealth and a general increase of comfort. While it is true that there has been also a movement of concentration of wealth, this concentration has been largely for the benefit of groups of men, instead of single individuals. On the other hand, the decline of the rate of interest has had for its counterpart a steady rise of wages (80 per cent, in fifty years) which refutes the socialists' contentions that the 'rich have become richer and the poor poorer.' The progress of coöperation and association also points to a gradual betterment of the social and moral organism. Nevertheless it is not as an apologist for the present system that M. Fouillée rejoices at these signs. For he realizes the force of the socialistic criticism. But he does not believe that collectivism is the ultimate and inevitable outcome of social evolution. The present wage system must give way to a system in which every workman will be the owner of his instruments of production, and every farmer the owner of the land he tills. This can be done, he thinks, without abolishing either property or freedom.

The conclusions of this book of candid and impartial criticism by a man who is in sympathy with the present regime of France is not one of discouragement such as one is likely to hear from an old man, laudator temporis acti. On the contrary, it is an optimistic and hopeful conclusion. M. Fouillée does not think that history should repeat itself and the same cycles follow each other for ever. He looks forward to a new era when revolutions will be replaced by evolutions and justice ultimately assure the rights of all.

This is a disappointing book. It undertakes to vindicate a place for Leonardo in the history of philosophy as the real creator of the modern experimental method. Out of the author's somewhat extravagant claims there remains a residue of which the philosopher will be glad to take account. The evidence shows without doubt in Leonardo a strikingly clear-sighted, though not very profoundly or systematically argued, positivistic attitude. But the presentation of the evidence is rambling, diffuse, and too much interlarded with marks of admiration. Over a quarter of the volume is devoted to a rather ill-tempered attack on Luther, and an attempt to show that, so far from being a factor in modern intellectual freedom, the Reformation was only an interruption of the liberalism of the Renaissance which was getting