2 94 



NATURE 



[September 8, 1910 



necessity tor a broader, more general view of the 

 factors of operation, in wliich world-wide areas and 

 cosmical influences are substituted for limited districts 

 and local circumstances. This more philosophic view 

 the author has not discussed with the fulness its 

 importance deserves. Perhaps, it hardly comes 

 within the scheme, but the omission indicates 

 the position the book occupies among treatises 

 on meteorology. It deals with the mechanical 

 processes emploj'ed in observation and the dis- 

 cussion of the results obtained, rather than with the 

 problems of general circulation affecting the atmo- 

 sphere as a whole. It is an admirable treatise on the 

 methods of observation, it demonstrates very satisfac- 

 torily what can be accomplished by instrumental 

 means, and what are the objects and advantages to 

 be gained by the systematic collection of details. The 

 principles underlying this aspect of practical meteor- 

 ology are well illustrated by the description of the 

 official weather service at home, in the United States, 

 and in Canada. This information is thoroughly 

 modern, trustworthy, and interesting. One section is 

 devoted to the consideration of climate as deduced 

 from the records supplied by instrumental means and 

 one to the influence of season and of weather on 

 disease. Perhaps the last is a larger subject than can 

 be discussed adequately in the space allotted to it, 

 but it is a subject on which the writer is an authority, 

 and constitutes an important branch of meteorological 

 science. 



■ABSTRACT AND OTHER PHILOSOPHY. 



(1) Gustav Freytags Kidtur- und Geschiclitspsycho- 

 logie : Ein Beitrag zur Ceschichtc dcr Gcscliichts- 

 philosophie. By Dr. Georg Schridde. Pp. ix + 95. 

 (Leipzig : Verlag der Diirr'schen Buchhandlung, 

 1910.) Price 3 marks. 



(2) Lessings Briefivechsel mit Mendelssohn und 

 Nicolai iiber das Trauerspid. By Prof. Dr. Robert 

 Petsch. Pp. lv+144. (Leipzig-: Verlag der 

 Diirr'schen Buchhandlung, 1910.) Price 3 marks. 



(3.) Hegels Asthetik im VcrhdUnis zii Schiller. By 

 A. Lewkowitz. Pp. 76. (Leipzig : \'erlag der 

 Diirr'schen Buchhandlung, 1910.) Price 1.80 marks. 



(4) Uber Christian Wolff's Ontologie. By Hans 

 Pichler. Pp. 91. (Leipzig: Verlag der Diirr'schen 

 Buchhandlung, 19 10.) Price 2 marks. 



(5) Zwei Vortrdge zur Naturphilosophic. By Hans 

 Driesch. Pp. iv4-38. (Leipzig: \\'ilhelni Engel- 

 mann.) Price 80 pfennigs. 



(i) /^ USTAV FREYTAG is best known in England 



^—^ as a novelist, and chiefly as the writer of 



that charming story of German commercial life, " Soil 



und Haben," which has been translated and published 



in English as "Debit and Credit." But Freytag was 



• more than novelist. He was also poet, dramatist, 



and thinker. Born in 1819, and living until 1895, 1^'* 



life — as Dr. Schridde remarks — shows us the very 



heart-beat of the century, a century of tremendous 



iniportance in the history of his country. Politically 



he was strongly for Bismarckian unification, with 



Prussian supremacy ; philosophically he may roughly 



be classed as Hegelian, though less abstract, and thus 



NO. 2132, VOL. 84] 



he is also religious, for his " metaphysic transfigures 

 the desiderated calmness, the white light of Reason, 

 into religious faith." Dr. Schridde gives a good 

 account of the influence upon Freytag of Kant, Fichte, 

 Humboldt, Schelling, and Hegel, and is thoroughly in 

 sympathy with his subject, though not refraining from 

 criticism of weak places. 



(2) This is a collection of letters exchanged by 

 Lessing, Moses Mendelssohn, and Nicolai, on the 

 subject of the correct principles of tragedy. The 

 proper mixture of sympathy and fear — the two chief 

 emotions to be aroused — is discussed, and the dis- 

 tribution of sorrows among the characters. The hero 

 must be the most severely handled by Fate ; as to 

 whether the end shall see virtue rewarded or not, this 

 may be left to the dramatist's discretion. There is 

 much discussion of CorneiUe, Cibber, and the Greek 

 playwrights, but very little mention of Shakespeare, 

 who was discovered for Germany by Schlegel and 

 Goethe. 



(3) This is supposed to be a comparison of the 

 aesthetic of Hegel and Schiller, but as a matter of 

 fact it is mainly concerned with the former. The 

 scheme of the booklet may be guessed by the section 

 titles: — "Idea of the Absolute Spirit," "Idea of the 

 Beautiful," "the Beautiful and the Development of 

 the World Spirit," "Art and Metaphysic," &c. Hegel 

 is good for the metaphvsically inclined reader who 

 wants "something craggy to break his mind upon," 

 but to many readers the time spent in wrestling with 

 him seems wasted. 



(4) Another typically German pamphlet. Our 

 Teutonic cousins still retain their interest in abstract 

 thought and — in spite of Kant — in the "ontological 

 proof" which, since Comte and Spencer, has become 

 almost extinct in France and England. Herr Pichler 

 gives an amusing parody of the ontological axiom 

 (that as every something must be grounded in either 

 something or nothing, and as nothing can come out 

 of nothing, everv something must be grounded in 

 something real) by suggesting that every man has 

 stolen either something or nothing. To take away 

 from nothing is no theft, therefore every man has 

 stolen something. The reader may be left to worry 

 out the fallacy for himself, with a hint to remember 

 "ambiguous middle term." 



(5) These two lectures, as we are informed in the 

 foreword, are connected by the chronology of their 

 delivery rather than by their contents. But Dr. 

 Driesch — who, by the way, was Gifford lecturer at 

 Aberdeen two years ago — always has something to 

 sa)', and no reader will complain of discontinuity in 

 this oamphlet, even if it exists. 



Dr. Driesch is a biologist ; and, in opposition to the 

 school which has for some time been dominant, he is 

 a vitalist. He holds that life has its own laws ; that 

 biology is not mcrelv applied chemistry-physics, but 

 is a thing for itself; that the materialistic or mechan- 

 ical view of living substance is false. His philosophic 

 position approximates to that of Sir Oliver Lodge in 

 England, and his arguments in support of his opinions 

 are most weighty and — the present reviewer ventures 

 to say — convincing. 



