4 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



very useful translations of foreign philosophical works. The 

 first of these is Leibnitz's New Essays concerning Human Under- 

 standing, which has been admirably translated and annotated 

 by Mr. A. G. Langley. It is indeed remarkable that this 

 work, in which Leibnitz attacked the philosophy of our great 

 English thinker Locke, should never before have been trans- 

 lated into the English language. The translation is taken 

 from vol. v. of the standard German edition of Gerhardt's 

 Die philosophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibnitz. The main 

 proposition of Leibnitz is the existence of innate ideas, in opposi- 

 tion to the theory of Locke that all knowledge is derived either 

 directly or indirectly from experience. Although the phase 

 then reached of this ancient controversy is now chiefly of his- 

 torical interest, the whole problem being transferred to a 

 higher plane by modern biology, yet it is pleasant to note that 

 the present attitude of science is much more nearly allied to the 

 views of the English philosopher than to those of the German. 

 Finally we note an excellent translation by Miss Margaret 

 Jourdain of Diderot's Early Philosophical Works, 1 including the 

 Pensees philosophiques , Lettre sur les Aveugles, and Lettre sur 

 les Sourds et Muets. To the man of science, the most interesting 

 of these is the Letter on the Blind, for which Diderot was im- 

 prisoned at Vincennes. The latter half of the eighteenth 

 century in France probably marks the nearest approximation 

 between science and philosophy of any period in history. No 

 period therefore is more interesting to the man of science who 

 desires to study the historical and literary origins of modern 

 thought. Diderot was one of the central figures of this brilliant 

 group, which — be it noted once again — was in close alliance 

 with the English thinkers of that time. As Brunetiere wrote of 

 Diderot in 1898, " There is no trace of anything but England 

 in the work of the man who has often been described as the most 

 German of Frenchmen." 



MATHEMATICS. By Philip E. B. Jourdain, M.A., Cambridge. 



To meet a generally expressed wish, and in view of the present 

 situation, the date for sending in memoirs (on the theory of 

 functions) in competition for the prize founded by King Gus- 

 tavus V. of Sweden has been again postponed, this time to 



October 31, 191 7. 



1 Open Court, 1916. 



