S CIENTIFIC LIT ERA T URE. 



711 



dren's lives depends almost entirely upon the 

 influences, the nutrition, the environment 

 which the authority of the parents and 

 guardians provides." He begins by pointing 

 out and presenting the differences in the con- 

 stitution of the child and the adult, so as to 

 show " that an infant's development is not a 

 rigidly immovable process, that it progresses 

 slowly and irregularly, and that during its 

 course the child is in so unstable a condition 

 that no strain should be put upon his facul- 

 ties." The comparative importance of he- 

 redity and environment is next considered, 

 with the result that we have already indi- 

 cated. The methods of the primary school 

 are sharply criticised, and the rule is pre- 

 scribed that " every subject should, in its 

 claim for a place in the curriculum, be 

 judged by its adaptability to the child's 

 growth," and hints are offered toward a bet- 

 ter method. Reasons are adduced and en- 

 forced with illustrations from children's 

 words, why i-eligious instruction, as usually 

 applied, is not adapted to the child's mind 

 and can hardly convey correct ideas. In a 

 similar spirit the author discusses The Value 

 of the Child as a Witness in Suits at Law ; 

 The Development of the Child Criminal ; The 

 Genius and the Defective ; and Institutional 

 Life in the Development of the Child. In 

 the final chapter, The Profession of Ma- 

 ternity, the importance is emphasized of 

 making training for the duties of mother- 

 hood a predominant feature in the education 

 of women. 



The twelve essays constituting Prof. Jo- 

 siah Royce's volume of Studies of Good and 

 Evil* though seemingly varied in topic and 

 as to the occasions on which they were 

 first presented, represent together what the 

 author calls a type of post-Kantian idealism. 

 Their appeal is to those readers to whom 

 studies of more familiar issues in the light of 

 philosophical considerations are more en- 

 lightening than fundamental metaphysical 

 arguments. Believing that the student 

 should be relatively independent as to the 

 manner in which he reaches his conclusions 

 and as regards the kind of insight he seeks 

 to impart to his readers. Professor Royce 



* Studies of Good and EviJ. A Series of Es- 

 says upon Problems of Philosophy aud of Life. 

 By Josiah Royce. N-w York : D. Appleton and 

 Company. Pp. 384. Price, $1.50. 



hopes that his papers may serve to indicate 

 in what sense the philosophical theses he has 

 to maintain possess a genuinely individual 

 character. They are all, directly or indirect- 

 ly, contributions to the comprehension of 

 the ethical aspects of the universe, and are 

 of various relations to technical philosophical 

 issues. Four of them are essays in literary 

 and philosophical criticism ; one is directly 

 concerned with the effect of the knowledge 

 of good and evil upon the character of the 

 individual man ; one is a contribution to the 

 metaphysical problem of evil in its most 

 general sense ; five, while dealing with met- 

 aphysical and psychological problems con- 

 nected with the nature and relationships of 

 our human type of consciousness, are some- 

 what more indirect contributions to the 

 ethical interpretation of our place in the 

 universe. One is a historical study of a 

 concrete conflict between good and evil 

 tendencies in early California life. The first 

 paper. The Problem of Job, presents the au- 

 thor's theory of evil, The second is a psy- 

 chological study of a personal experience of 

 John Bunyan. The third paper, on Tenny- 

 son and Pessimism, bears on a theory of the 

 relation between good and evil ; and another 

 general aspect of that relation is discussed 

 in the fourth paper. These studies prepare 

 the way for the metaphysical issue of the 

 ethical interpretation of reality; and the 

 problem of the general relation between 

 natural law and the demands of ethics is 

 stated in the fifth essay; while the sixth 

 states the general case for an idealistic inter- 

 pretation of the universe in its relations to 

 self-consciousness. The question of what 

 finite consciousness with all its burdens of 

 good and evil may be and mean is treated in 

 the seventh and eighth essays ; and the dis- 

 cussion of consciousness is continued in the 

 ninth. The last three papers concern more 

 special issues, and relate to Meister Eckhart, 

 the German mystic of the thirteenth cen- 

 tury ; the squatter riot of 1850 in Sacramen- 

 to ; and the late French philosophical critic, 

 Jean Marie Guyau. 



Mr. MacEwaii's Essentials of Argumenta- 

 tion * is the outgrowth of a dozen years' ex- 

 perience with classes in an agricultural col- 



* The Essentials of Argumentation. By Elias 

 J. MacEwan. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 

 412. Price, 11.12. 



