I50 



NATURE 



[June 17, 1897 



more especially Spinoza and Leibniz — are exceptionally 

 well treated, and of the teachers who drew their in- 

 spiration from Kant, Fichte and Herbart, and particu- 

 larly Schelling and Schopenhauer, are handled sym- 

 pathetically and with discrimination. 



Prof. Weber's book has the defects of its qualities. 

 The amount of space allotted to some of the greater 

 philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, is restricted, 

 and they are dealt with rather as exponents of phases in 

 development than as thinkers whose positive solutions 

 of the problem are of enduring interest. Thus the 

 Phcedrus is summed up as " opposing the selfish rhetoric 

 of the sophists with the true eloquence of the philosopher, 

 whose chief object is the knowledge of the invisible 

 world." There is a technical mistake in saying that 

 Aristotle's " first philosophy " has for its object " the 

 queen of the categories — substance." The biological 

 point of view, which is so pronounced in Aristotle, is not 

 brought out, and, in general, it is Aristotle as he in- 

 fluenced later philosophy that Prof. Weber presents to 

 his reader. In the statement that " the matter of Plato, 

 Aristotle, and Plotinus is not the matter of the materialists, 

 but what Schelling and Schopenhauer would call will 

 or the will-to-be, " the suggestiveness is, in part at least, 

 that of a suggestio falsi. 



In his treatment of Kant, too. Prof. Weber has the 

 after-development so vividly before him that the exegesis 

 of the first Critique is somewhat injuriously afifected. 

 " Prior or a priori to " is, as Prof. Weber uses it, an in- 

 correct phrase. The distinction between image and 

 schema is lost by loose terminology. And, as is perhaps 

 natural, the Refutation of Idealism is slurred as non- 

 essential. Indeed the issue, as between Kant and 

 Berkeley, is not understood ; and it is significant that in 

 the account of the latter the Sir is is not mentioned. 

 Berkeley, that is to say, is labelled idealist and a pre- 

 cursor of Hume, and his own intellectual development 

 has no account taken of it. Another notable omission in 

 the modern period is in the case of Lotze, who is just 

 named and dismissed. 



On the other hand, the scholastic period, which has 

 devoted to it a larger proportion of space than is usual, is 

 covered with some success. Prof. Weber's theological and 

 ethical interests giving life to the inquiry. Anselm is 

 admirably handled. 



The translation is from the fifth French edition of the 

 Strassburg Professor's book. The American translator 

 has added in notes and appendix an adequate biblio- 

 graphy, without criticism, and with a not unnatural 

 preference for transatlantic editions and translations. 



Many of Prof. Wundt's metaphysical views were 

 familiar to the world even prior to the appearance of 

 his " System " so long ago as in 1889; and to offer an 

 appreciation in detail of a well-known work by so great 

 a teacher would be at once an impertinence and an 

 anachronism. In welcoming, however, the second re- 

 vised and slightly enlarged edition of the " System," it is 

 perhaps permissible to recall some of its characteristics. 



Prof. Wundt's idea of a philosophical system is a con- 

 nected view of existence which shall satisfy both the 

 demands of the understanding and the needs of feeling. 

 It must be strictly W£'/^-physical, after and based upon 

 the experiential sciences. Its method may be described, 

 NO. 1442, VOL. 56] 



perhaps, as a criticism of working categories, passing 

 from conceptions of the understanding to the trans- 

 cendent ideas and finding, as the end of the Regressus 

 in each limited field, an inadequate point of view which 

 needs supplementing, until we reach our Ontology. The 

 basis of this is Will. But Prof Wundt can as little 

 accept what he calls Universal Voluntarism as he can 

 the intellectus infinitus. Will, without something to will 

 or without a relation of interaction in which to realise 

 itself, is void, abstract, and not will as we know it. The 

 solution of the problem he finds in a system of relatively 

 independent wills in whose interaction ideas {Vorstel- 

 lungen) arise. The principle of unity lies in the moral 

 ideal of humanity. Collective will is a reality, but not 

 in the sense of the school which derives from Schopen- 

 hauer. 



Prof. Wundt is more happy, however, in his criticism 

 of particular categories. His treatment of purposiveness 

 in organic evolution is quite masterly, though he attaches 

 somewhat too much importance to what he calls Hetero- 

 gonie of ends. In this edition he refers specially to the 

 controversy between Prof. Weismann and his critics in 

 its most recent form, and declares definitely in favour of 

 use-inheritance, though he draws a distinction between 

 the suddenly acquired qualities of an individual and the 

 gradually acquired characters which have become ingrain 

 by like response to like stimulus repeated from gener- 

 ation to generation. He notes with some candour that 

 it might in theory be maintained that the latter are 

 transmitted because they alone are able to affect the 

 germ-plasm. We do not venture to deal with Prof. 

 Wundt's Holoplasvia and its relation to the views of 

 Nageli. 



The book stills lacks an index, a deficiency specially 

 annoying since the same and allied subjects are taken 

 up under more than one heading. H. W. B. 



THE CORAL REEFS OF SAMOA. 

 Ueber den ■ Bau der Korallenriffe und die Plankton- 

 vertheilung an den Samoanischen Kiisten nebst ver- 

 gleichenden Bemerkungen. By Dr. Augustin Kramer. 

 With an appendix " Ueber den Palolovvurm," by Dr. 

 A. Collin. 8vo. Pp. ix -I- 174. (Kiel and Leipzig ; 

 Lipsius and Fischer, 1897.) 



DANA'S main contribution to the Darwinian theory 

 of coral reefs was a persuasive argument based on 

 the geographical distribution and varying size of atolls 

 and reef grounds. Darwin had shown that if his theory 

 were true, its most important corollary was that certain 

 lines across the Pacific Ocean were lines of subsidence, 

 and that others are either rising or stationary. Dana 

 pointed out that as we approach the supposed lines of 

 subsidence the areas of the coral reefs diminish, islands 

 of non-calcareous rocks disappear, and the coral islands 

 all become atolls, which gradually contract in size ; after 

 this comes a tract of sea without islands, and of great 

 depth. Then, the axis of subsidence having been passed, 

 small atolls reappear, the reverse series of changes 

 occurs, until we reach an area of broad fringing reefs 

 round some rocky island. Dana's most striking illus- 

 tration of this method of reef distribution was the archi- 

 pelago of Samoa, in which he described a gradual 



