LITERARY NOTICES. 



847 



issue more books with very much less 

 labor and expense than under the old 

 conservative system which previously 

 prevailed. Nor has this free access to 

 the shelves resulted in loss of books or 

 damage to the same." This statement 

 is very satisfactory. Many of the re- 

 strictions which surround public insti- 

 tutions and which hamper the work of 

 government are general rules adopted 

 to meet very limited evils. Instead of 

 meeting the limited evil and overcom- 

 ing it by watchfulness and such special 

 measures as may be called for, a general 

 rule is adopted which operates as a bur- 

 den on a large number of persons for 

 whom no such rule is necessary. Such 

 is the stupid instinct of governments 

 always and everywhere, we might al- 

 most say ; and it is also one of the chief 

 ways in which government is rendered 

 expensive, as the authorities of the Cleve- 

 land Public Library seem to have found 

 out. "We congratulate them on having 

 made a useful discovery, and we trust 

 that their experience will lead other 

 similar institutions into the right path. 



One little observation before we leave 

 this topic. In the list of newspapers 

 and periodicals on file in the reading 

 room of the library we notice but one 

 in the French language, and that is 

 what? The Revue des Deux Mondes, 

 or the Nouvelle Eevue, or the Revue 

 Bleue, or even the Oourrier des Etats- 

 Unis ? No, but the Mode de Paris. All 

 that French periodical and newspaper 

 literature contributes to this tax-sup- 

 ported institution is a fashion paper. 

 May we suggest that, if a German one is 

 wanted, Modenwclt is not bad in its way. 

 Let literature flourish ! 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



GENETIC PHILOSOPHY. By DAVID JAYNE 

 HILL. New York : Macmillan & Co. 

 Price, $1.75. 



THE author of this work undertakes to 

 treat the principal problems of philosophy 

 by a method which, though he does not as- 



sert it to be entirely new, he does not believe 

 has been systematically carried out by any 

 previous writer. He applies to his method 

 the term " genetic," and he explains that it 

 " consists in referring every fact to its place 

 in the series to which it belongs." Such a 

 method, of course, is essentially the method 

 of science, and what we recognize in the 

 work before us is not so much any original- 

 ity of method as a skillful and interesting 

 application of a well known method to a 

 number of interesting and important philo- 

 sophical questions. There is nothing, for 

 example, very original in the following dec- 

 laration of principles, but it is well ex- 

 pressed : " Being, as apprehended by our in- 

 telligence, is found to possess continuity, and 

 all facts are the aspects of a process. When, 

 therefore, facts are translated into thought, 

 they must not be sundered and isolated, 

 floated off from their attachments and treat- 

 ed as independent entities. The continuity 

 which connects them as real must also con- 

 nect them as ideal. In other words, they 

 must be genetically regarded, or considered 

 as aspects of a continuous process to which 

 they must be referred." 



Among existing philosophical schools 

 that to which President Hill most inclines is 

 evidently the evolutionist as represented by 

 Herbert Spencer. He criticises the latter, 

 however, for placing the Unknowable in the 

 forefront of his system, and then afterward 

 hustling it out of court as " deserving of no 

 consideration from the minds of adults." 

 We can hardly admit this to be a correct 

 account of Mr. Spencer's procedure, but the 

 point is not one that admits of discussion in 

 this place. He says, again, that to Mr. Spen- 

 cer "the universe is like a great music box 

 which can play but one tune." How many 

 tunes, one might ask, does a strictly " ge- 

 netic " philosophy provide for ? Any limita- 

 tion in this respect must come from the 

 recognition of necessary sequence, and such 

 recognition is as much a feature of our au- 

 thor's mode of thought as of Herbert Spen- 

 cer's. 



On the subject of the Genesis of Matter, 

 which constitutes the first chapter (following 

 the Introduction) of Mr. Hill's book, we are 

 not told anything new, or rather we are not 

 told anything at all; what we are told re- 

 lates entirely to the supposed constitution of 



