220 



NA TURE 



[January 9, 190: 



author's knowledge was based on a thorouslily pracucal 

 acquaintance with the animals with which he dealt. 

 While we fully admit the difficulties of the task of com- 

 pilation of the second, the present work, we regret we 

 canncit recommend it with the confidence extended to 

 its predecessor. 



THE PROBLEM OF TRUTH. 

 Das Wahyheitsptoblem unter Kulturphilosophischcm 

 Gesichtspuiikt — Eine philosophische Skizse. Von Dr. 

 Hermann Leser. Pp. iv + 90. (Leipzig : Durr'sche 

 Buchhandlung, 1901.) Price 2 marks. 



THE author of this work is not a "jesting Pilate." 

 His; book contains rather a thorough discussion of 

 the problem of truth in some of its widest issues. The 

 standpoint is essentially Kantian, but with a difterence. 

 The question raised in the " Critique of Pure Reason " 

 was, How are pure mathematical science and pure 

 natural science possible ? — in other words, on what 

 principles can it be maintained that the ordinary e.\pe- 

 rience of man qua intellectual gives him truth ? Dr. 

 Leser contends that the problem should be stated more 

 widely in the form, How is truth in general possible, the 

 truth of all the higher spiritual life of man, of religion, 

 morality, art, as well as science ? And it is claimed for 

 the work before us that, as compared with Kant's, it is 

 more concrete in treatment, that it goes nearer the 

 heart of things, and that while including and remaining 

 true to Kant's results it gives a more satisfactory basis 

 for future development. 



The first part deals with a deepened idea of experience, 

 for which the author employs the term " Kulturhistorische 

 Erfahrung." By this he appears to mean the higher 

 spiritual experience of the race as exhibited by history 

 in such things as institutions, codes, systems, standards 

 of judgment. In the development of this view, naturalism 

 is subjected to some telling criticism. Finding nothing 

 anywhere but "bare results, finer complications of 

 natural process," naturalism would exclude all facts which 

 do not coincide with, or cannot be reduced to, the facts 

 of ordinary natural science. In dealing with the insti- 

 tutions in which the spiritual life has found expression, 

 naturalism pays regard only to the crystallised form, 

 not to the spiritual potencies which have been at work. 

 It attaches exclusive value to what is genetically original, 

 and denies, for example, the characteristic distinction 

 between good and bad by deriving it from the distinction 

 between the useful and the harmful. Such a psycho- 

 genetic method can never get beyond brutal actuality to 

 norms or standards of judgment ; it is only a transcen- 

 dental method (the autlior maintains) which can disclose 

 the organisation of " rulers and subjects,' for exam])le, 

 the subordination of what is first in time to what is 

 ideally fundamental. 



The latter part of the book is concerned with the 

 problem of truth from the new standpoint thus gained 

 It is pointed out that Kant replaced the old objectivity 

 (supposed to exist entirely out of relation to a subject) by 

 transcendental-subjectivity, than which no more secure 

 objectivity can be found. This means that truth is to 

 be found by "turning to one's own depths " ; but if it is 

 NO. l6<So, VOL. 65] 



to be depths and not shallows, to be transcenden/al-snb- 

 jectivity in the right sense and not bare subjectivity in the 

 wrong sense, we must have recourse to " Kulturhistorische 

 Erfahrung." It is only as experience is writ thus large 

 that the potencies at work can be discovered. One of 

 the chief of these potencies is personality. Personality 

 Dr. Leser opposes on the one hand to bare individualism, 

 and on the other to the equally bare disregard of the 

 personal factor. The great mah is neither the heaven- 

 sent hero dear to the soul of a Carlyle nor the hollow 

 pipe through which the "Zeitgeist" pours such music as 

 it listeth. Or, as our author puts the latter point : " The 

 man is more than the product of his time ; planting 

 himself on the original truth which he has found within 

 him, it is he who first makes a new height attainable. ' 



The work is not unnecessarily stiff. .\t times, per- 

 haps, a little vagueness is felt, and the technical terms, 

 as usual, can rarely be translated by single words. 

 But his readers will doubtless welcome another book 

 from this careful and suggestive writer. R. G. N. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Ca/ah^ue of the Lepidoptera Phalaenae in ihe British 

 Museum. Vol. iii. " Catalogue of the Arctiad;e 

 (ArctianaO and Agaristidaj in the Collection of the 

 British Museum." By Sir George F. Hampson, Bart. 

 Pp. xix -1- 690. Plates xxxvi-liv. (London: Printed 

 by Order of the Trustees, 1901.) 



For a long time after the study of exotic butterflies 

 began to grow popular in England, that of moths con- 

 tinued to be much neglected, though moths, taken as a 

 whole, are equally beautiful and far more numerous than 

 the butterflies. But after the pathway had been smoothed 

 by the useful, though much abused, catalogue of Walker, 

 the works of Moore, Butler and Druce, and especially by 

 Kirby's" Catalogue of Lepidoptera Heterocera : Sphinges 

 and Bombyces," published in 1892, the Trustees of the 

 British Museum decided to issue a general descriptive 

 catalogue of the moths of the world, which bids fair to 

 become one of the largest and most profusely illustrated 

 of all their publications on natural history. 



The work was entrusted to Sir George F. Hampson 

 and three thick volumes have already been issued. 

 According to the table of families in vol. i. the author 

 admits fifty-two, which, deducting seven for the butter- 

 flies, leaves forty-five for the moths, of which only the 

 first three are monographed in the portion of the work 

 already published, so that little more than the fringe of 

 the subject has yet been touched. Of course some of 

 these families only include a few species ; but, on the 

 other hand, there are several very much more extensive 

 than the Arctiad;e, which alone fill up the greater part of 

 vols. ii. and iii. The plates are published separately, 

 and can be bought separately, a useful arrangement 

 which will enable students who require an additional 

 copy of the book for working purposes to purchase it 

 without the additional and unnecessary cost of a duplicate 

 set of coloured plates. In addition to these coloured 

 plates, drawn by Mr. Horace Knight and chromolitho- 

 graphed by West, Newman and Co., the book is further 

 illustrated by text-illustrations of types of genera, show- 

 ing both the pattern and the most important generic 

 details, and of these compound figures there are no less 

 than 294 in vol. iii., in which 946 .-XrctianiB and 225 

 Agaristid;care described, of which a considerable number 

 are new species. At the end of the volume is a short list 

 of species which the author has not been able to identify 

 from the published descriptions. Should further inform- 

 ation respecting these be forthcoming, we presume that 



