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hilosophical Review

Geschichte des Unendlichkeitsproblems in Abendlndischen Denken bis Kant. by Jonas CohnReview by: J. S.The Philosophical Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Jan., 1897), p. 110Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2175606 .Accessed: 12/03/2014 15:35

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I10 THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW. [VOL. VI.

laws or the scientific analysis of mental processes. The book would' enliven' more than it would ' elucidate.' Though the style is good, we

frequently find loose and vague statements which have no rightful place ina text-book. For instance the topic of local qualities is treated as follows:Touch gives sensations of local difference. We can feel the points of a

pair of compasses, now farther apart and now closer together. Perceptionuses such data in determining distance . . . and says, 'I translate into dis-tance this changed sensation, due to the widening of the points ' (p. 69).Again, under the topic the conditions of sensation, the author says, Thestimulus must reach the brain in such a way as to cause a change in theconscious agent (p. 6o). Expressions like these perpetuate rather thanelucidate the obscurities in a topic. There are also frequent inconsistencies.The book is not to be recommended as a text-book. The author remarks,

No one knows better than the psychologist that it is of little use to presentthe best subjects in an unattractive way, because facts, devoid of interestingfeatures, will not secure attention. But the psychologist also knows thedifference in value between a superficial and extraneous interest and ascholarly interest, an interest in the science itself. ALICE J. HAMLIN.

Geschichte des Unendlichkeitsjproblems m abendldndischen Denken bisKant. Von JONAS COHN, Dr. Phil. Leipzig, Wilhelm Engelmann,i896.- pp. ix, 261.

Dr. Cohn tells us in his preface that this book is only the introductionto a theoretical treatment of the problem, which he hopes to publish later.In that work he will also complete the historical account which is herecarried down to Kant, and will include the more recent mathematical de-velopments. The present investigation may, however, be regarded as an

independent study in the history of philosophy, no less than as the his-torical groundwork of the author's theory of the infinite. It is a product ofthe widespread contemporary interest in the history of philosophy, andbelongs to a type of special investigation which is of undoubted value to thephilosophical student. After an introductory sketch of the course of Greek,patristic, and mediaeval thought on the subject (occupying the first twoparts), the author devotes the whole of the third part (pp. 83-257) to

the philosophy of the modern period down to Kant. Most of the namesof the greater thinkers appear in the book, and their more implicit as well astheir more explicit teaching about the infinite is carefully presented. Anindex of names is added. J. S.

The following books have also been received:

God, the Creator and Lord of All. By SAMUEL HARRIS, D.D. NewYork, Charles Scribner's Sons, i896. 2 vols., pp. x, 579, 576.

Religious Faith. By HENRY HUGHES, M.A. London, Kegan Paul &Co., i896.-pp. xvi, 337.

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