Page:Philosophical Review Volume 29.djvu/307

No. 3.] the Christian state; while the true economic union of men is to enable them to gain the mastery over, and even to spiritualize, material nature; for this is the true 'economy'—"the saving ... of psychical forces" (p. 466).

The tendency towards mysticism is increasingly apparent in the course of the book. It is due perhaps to Solovyofs profoundly religious temperament; due, also, to his determination to translate his conception of the moral ideal into a vision of an ethical Utopia; it bears also clear evidence of the influence of Dostoyevsky. Indeed Solovyof the moralist may be described as a Dostoyevsky grafted on a Kant. In its systematic development of the idea of the absolute worth of man as a moral agent, and in its endeavor to portray the social conditions and factors which serve to elicit and develop this moral worth, this book upholds the best idealistic tradition in ethics. Of contemporary ethical literature in English, the work which resembles it perhaps most nearly in tone is Felix Adler's Ethical Philosophy of Life. The translation is on the whole clear and readable. Before a second edition is published, however, someone familiar with philosophical writing in English should correct the numerous blunders and the occasionally odd bits of translated terminology which mar the style of the present version.

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This is one of a number of dissertations written for the doctorate on the history of Platonism, suggested and supervised by Professor Paul Shorey. To those who concern themselves with such matters it suffices merely to establish this fact to assure them of the general excellence of the result; for all know that it guarantees several points of no small value the need of the particular study, the comprehensive survey of Platonism in its relation to its competitors, and more than a perfunctory examination of the dissertation in every stage of its development. However men may differ regarding his interpretation of Plato in detail, there is no denying that Professor Shorey knows Plato and the history of Platonism more intimately than any other scholar for several generations. Those who have perhaps too impatiently awaited the history of Platonism which we hope to receive from his hand will find in the continuation of this series of studies the explanation and justification of the postponement; for only by detailed investigation can the extent and power of the influence of a great thinker, like Plato, be truly gauged.

The present study falls into six chapters: I. Introduction, sketching the history of Philonic interpretation; II. Philo's conception of the ultimate reality; III. The intermediary powers; IV. Man's soul and its powers; V. Ethics; VI. The influence of Plato on the phraseology of Philo. Brief indices, English and Greek, are added.

Philo possesses so many claims to our interest that he is not likely to be