Page:Philosophical Review Volume 7.djvu/229

215 The book should be read by all students of psychology, ethics, or philosophy. It shows us where we stand regarding conduct, in the light of the science of to-day. It is in harmony with Mr. Bosanquet's other books and with his general essays on social questions. It shows us a real development of thought founded upon fact and science and philosophy. One might question whether there are not things (upon the activity of the self) in Mr. Stout's two volumes, and perhaps in Wundt's theory of apperception and will, to which Mr. Bosanquet does not do justice. But any criticism like this does not affect the value of his book. It is indispensable at the present time.

Every effort to tone down the pedagogic difficulties in handling the Critique of Pure Reason is most welcome. Teaching chemical science without a laboratory is almost as serious as trying to make Kant intelligible before the student has come into possession of the reagents and appliances of reflective experience. Aware of the limitations of an outline, and of its dangers as a pitfall in the pursuit of any topic, Professor Wenley has prepared these pages as a guide to pupils taking up Kant for the first time. In this excellently written little work he has attempted to compress fifty years, or so, of reflective history "in the simplest form possible," and to show how the Critique came to be written at all. The first topic, "The Genesis of the Critique of Pure Reason," presents the philosophic issue of Hume's presuppositions and analyses, and sketches Kant's early growth in the Wolffian environment of Königsberg. Kant's attainment of intellectual independence is presented by showing the logical defects in the thought of his predecessors, and the issue in his own mind of "the problem of the Critique of Pure Reason" the second topic. This problem is considered in terms of 'synthesis,' apparent in forms of daily experience, and finally shown to be the question as to the possibility of knowledge itself. Educing the successive problems in these two sections to explain the' 'critical' standpoint will serve as good exercises in logical analysis for the pupil; but we doubt the propriety of making Kant's growth assume the ideal, logical order as it is here presented. The pupil will be confused when he comes later to the biographical facts. The "Outline of the Contents of the Critique" is far less satisfactory than the preceding portions of the Outline. It fails to bring out the all-important fact that Kant was approaching the problems of reality in a pioneer way, but under the guise of logic. A few explanatory remarks under some of the headings, e.g., IV, p. 30, would not have been amiss. The treatment of the fourth topic, "The Contents of the Critique of Pure Reason," forms the bulk of the book. In it the Introduction, Æsthetic, Analytic, and Dialectic are