RECENT ADVANCES IN SCIENCE 175 



ledge. Prof. Whitehead, as is well known, favours a different 

 form of the Principle of Relativity from that propounded by 

 Einstein, who, according to Prof. Whitehead, " has cramped 

 the development of his brilliant mathematical method in the 

 narrow bounds of a very doubtful philosophy." Notwith- 

 standing Prof. Whitehead's extremely lucid exposition, it is 

 hardly possible for anyone but a mathematician to form an 

 opinion of the relative merits of the rival theories. 



Prof. W. R. Sorley has published A History of English 

 Philosophy (Cambridge University Press), which should take 

 its place at once as a standard textbook. He deals with the 

 History of Philosophy in Great Britain from the time when it 

 began to be written in the English language {i.e. with Francis 

 Bacon) down to the end of the Victorian Era. He has aban- 

 doned the usual method of writing histories of philosophy, to 

 illustrate and emphasise the author's own opinions, and has 

 adopted the comparatively impersonal method of taking up 

 the point of view of each philosopher in turn. The result is 

 an eminently readable and informing work, though it is true 

 that his own view is usually visible in the background. It is 

 curious that, in his Retrospect on the General Characteristics 

 of English Philosophy, he makes no reference to the marked 

 tendency towards Materialism, which has characterised English 

 philosophy as against all others. This fact, originally pointed 

 out by Lange, has so far as we know never been denied : and 

 it is too abundantly illustrated in Prof. Sorley's History for 

 us to suppose that he would wish to repudiate it. 



Another historical work on Philosophy is Prof. J. A. Leigh- 

 ton's The Field of Philosophy (Columbus, Ohio : R. G. Adams 

 & Co.), which has now reached a second edition. It intro- 

 duces the reader to the underlying ideas of the main systems 

 of philosophy of all periods, but is more of the schoolbook type 

 than Prof. Sorley's History, and less generally interesting. 



In the sphere of Psychology, several books of importance 

 have been issued. The complete revolution of ideas caused 

 by the writings of Freud, Janet, and others has given rise 

 almost to a new science, most admirably described in The New 

 Psychology, by A. G. Tansley (George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.). 

 Mr. Tansley avoids the chief paradoxes of the Freudian theory, 

 and presents a bird's-eye view of the present position, which 

 is certainly the best that we have yet seen. In Social Psy- 

 chology, Dr. McDougall has published a sequel to his earlier 

 work, entitled The Group Mind (Cambridge University Press), 

 carrying a step farther the investigations for which he is already 

 well known. 



An interesting philosophical side-line is opened up by 

 Prof. J. B. Bury in his Idea of Progress (Macmillan & Co., Ltd.). 



