Page:Philosophical Review Volume 30.djvu/542

528 Book V, "Philosophy and Science." Under the last heading there are the following chapters: "Aristotle, Ptatonism, and Nicholas of Cusa"; "Leonardo Da Vinci: Anatomy, Physiology and Disease"; "The Revolution in Astronomy and Physics"; "The New Philosophers" (Telesio, Campanella, Bruno, Bacon); "Forms of Self-Expression: The Sixteenth Century Achievement."

The book sustains the author's reputation for sound scholarship and historical insight and gift of expression. It is difficult to think of any other work which gives so comprehensive and accurate a picture of the interests and achievements of the sixteenth century. And one of the chief merits of the treatment is that the continuity of that century, both with those which preceded it and those which followed is preserved. In emphasizing the connection between thought and its expression the author enables us to understand the vital unity of the historical development. "One thinks of the transmitted influence of the past, whether remote or proximate, as knowledge and suggestion, as intellectual or emotional or social material to be appropriated and made further use of. It is well to think of it also as flowing on in modes of expression, which constitute the finished form of the matter, whether the form lie in language or in the figures of plastic art. Thoughts and emotions cannot pass from one time to another save in modes of their expression. And the more finished and perfect, the more taking, the more beautiful, the form of expression, the more enduring will be its influence and effect" (p. ix). It was the perfection of form which the sixteenth century attained by using and working upon, the heritage transmitted to it that constituted its chief glory. "Moreover, looking to its effect upon succeeding times, one also realizes that this effect still lay in the excellence and power of expression. ... It was not the new content of thought, or the emotional increment, that was to impress the sixteenth century upon the future; but the influence lying in its expressional power and charm and beauty" (Vol. I, p. 386).

J. E. C.

After an introductory résumé of the views of Greek, Roman and Mediaeval writers on progress, Professor Bury considers the interpretations of universal history of Bodin and Le Roy. A chapter is then devoted to Francis Bacon and another to Cartesianism, the latter dealing chiefly with Jansenism as represented by Pascal, but ending with a very cursory discussion of Leibniz. Then are outlined successively the views of Tassoni, Saint-Sorlin, Perrault, Fontenelle, Saint-Pierre, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Turgot, the Encyclopaedists, the Economists, Rousseau, Chastellux, Mercier and Condorcet. At this point in the exposition the author