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NOW READY. 
Post 8vo, pp. 224, cloth, price 6s. 
THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY. 
By ASTON LEIGH. 
The object of this work ts to give the reader, concisely and in ordinary language 
—philosophical terms being as far as possible excluded—the History of the Rise and 
Progress, during the seven centuries before the birth of Christ, of that which sounds so 
unapproachable when the word which represents it ts heard—* Philosophy.” 
The philosophical student may be compared to a gold-digger. He has to unearth 
and sift vast masses of sand before he finds the grain of gold—the thought. He has te 
wade through pages upon pages of words all used in the endeavour of the writer to 
express some vast idea, which like a will-o’-the-wisp hovers about him and defies lan- 
guage. Itis easy to lose the thought in the words, the thought being frequently a very 
necdle in the hay of verbiage. 
This work ts the result of several years’ reading and research. The writer has 
not compiled ; he has endeavoured to hear all sides of the question, and to relate the 
salient points of each as simply as is possible when dealing with so vast a subject. 
Post 8vo, pp. 128, cloth, price 5s. 
BARLY HEBREW LIFE. 
A STUDY IN SOCIOLOGY. 
By JOHN FENTON. 
This work ts an application of Sociology to those portions of the Pentateuch which 
deal with social life. The labours of Sir H. Maine, Mr. Herbert Spencer, and others, 
have so far determined the characteristics of the different stages of the development of 
human society as to render the general principles of sociology available for unfolding 
the social history which is enfolded in traditions of laws and customs. In the case of 
the Pentateuch nothing of this kind has yet been attempted. No endeavour has, 
hitherto, been made to reconstruct the history of Early Hebrew Society by the light 
afforded by research into the early history of man, and, therefore, since literary criti- 
cism has destroyed the traditional estimate of the age of the Pentateuch, it has not 
seldom been assumed by Hebraists that there is no real history attainable prior to the 
prophetic records, commencing about B.C. 800. Jt ts, on the contrary, the object of this 
work to show, by comparison with the results of sociological research, that the Penta- 
teuch contains traditional laws and customs which have gradually accumulated during 
the progress of the Hebrews from nomadism upwards. By grouping these customs, 
therefore, in their sociological order, an outline of Hebrew social life ts obtained from 
the earliest period down to the commencement of the prophetic records. Consequently, 
instead of relying solely upon the prophets for the earlier Hebrew history, their testi- 
mony can be controlled by a valuable independent body of evidence. The work will 
also be useful to students of sociology, since the customs, being arranged in historic 
sequence, can either be added to general collections of data, or, regarded as the history 
of an extinct civilisation, can be studied in their bearing upon the Science of Man. 
London: TRUBNER & CO., Ludgate Hill. 
