return, and that the state should effectively organize this work. While the practical measures recommended may have to be modified for other lands, the carefully collected materials for a judgment must be useful and influential in all civilized countries, for the plague of vagabondage is universal. C. R. HENDERSON New Principles of Pragmatism. By H. HEATH BAWDEN. x+364. $1.50. Critics have complained of the fragmentary and unsystematic character of the pragmatic literature thus far. The complaint is inevitable in the beginning of any movement, especially one so widespread as pragmatism. The beginning of such a movment is introductory to the more systematic work which follows. From the prefatory character of pragmatic writings thus far some have inferred that pragmatism is transitory, a "philosophic fad," and have professed that they already see signs of its disintegration. One of these "signs" is found in a decrease of the amount and temperature of controversy. This fact, however, may as well mean that pragmatists, having stated their theses, are at work on more detailed exposition and application. "Systematic" in the Hegelian or Spencerian sense, pragmatism of course can never become. But there is a recognition of the need for detailed interpretation from the pragmatist's standpoint. At all events, Mr. Bawden's book, while it does not, and does not profess to, adequately meet this demand is a step nearer a systematic treatment of pragmatism than anything which has yet appeared. This shows in the chapter headings which are as follows: i, "Philosophy"; ii, “Experience"; iii, "Consciousness"; iv, "Feeling"; v, "Thinking"; vi, "Truth"; vii, “Reality”; viii, “Evolution and the Absolute"; ix, "Mind and Matter." The substance of many of these chapters has already appeared in various periodicals, but the author has so worked over and arranged this material as to give it something of the unity of a treatise. The author's interest and training in biological science broadens and freshens the discussion throughout. Indeed many may find that it is here in the connection between the development of biological science and philosophy that the author makes his best contribution. The reviewer finds the first three chapters and the chapter on "Reality" the most suggestive. The introductory chapter on philosophy defines philosophy as "The general theory of experience"; "It is the science of the principles of science." The query which the special scientist here raises, viz., whether anyone who has not worked in the special sciences has a license to expound the principles of sciences and whether, therefore, this definition does not read the philosopher out of court, is summarily disposed of with the statement: "The searchlight of special science must be supplemented by the worldview of philosophy." Doubtless the author has a good answer to the special scientist's inevitable "Why must it?"; and some readers will miss this answer. The chapter on experience is no mere psychological analysis of a "stream of consciousness." It stretches from atoms to a theory of society and immortality. The exposition of the democratic character of the social implication of pragmatism contains some excellent passages. The brief discussion of immortality will interest and stimulate, if it does not convince many. The The author's critique of the parallelist's theory of consciousness is clear and conclusive. His own account of consciousness as arising out of the "conflict," "tension," "friction," etc., of unconscious activities suggests that more might have been made of the distinction between immediate, unreflective and reflective, cognitive consciousness, and that perhaps the term "consciousness" is sometimes used where reflective consciousness is meant. author sees that the statement that conflict, tension, is "a condition of consciousness" (of all consciousness?) has forthwith to meet the questions, What can be meant by "conflict," "tension," "friction," as the "condition of consciousness"? Do not "conflict" and "tension" imply consciousness? Have they any meaning except as descriptive of consciousness, etc.? The author's answer is that "the conscious and the unconscious must be conceived as COordinate and supplementary functions within the process of experience" (p. 118). But would not the substitution of "reflective consciousness" for "consciousness" meet the point more directly, and recognize also the conscious character of instinctive action? In the same paragraph with the above citation there is another, and as the author says, a "better," statement which reads: "The so-called unconscious is a name for describing organized conscious ness, capitalized or funded experience, the positive equipment of instincts and habits by which consciousness (reflective consciousness?) performs its function of mediating further experience." (Parentheses mine.) The author clearly shows the futility of the metaphysical opposition of pluralism and monism, materialism and spiritualism, since these are logical determinations, working conceptions within experience. In a few spots the style grows a little Spencerian, e.g., the definition of an organism (p. 103) and the sentence at the top of p. 109. But usually it is clear and forcible. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO A. W. MOORE Parenthood and Race Culture. By C. W. SALEEBY, M.D., CH.B., F.Z.R. Edin. New York: Moffat, Yard & Co., 1909. Pp. xv+389. In the words of the author, "the present volume seeks to supply what is undoubtedly a real need at the present day-a general introduction to eugenics which is at least considered and responsible." The book may be a responsible statement of what the eugenists are thinking, but it certainly is not "considered." Dr. Saleeby is apparently a man with one idea, so much so that his style is exceedingly bumptious, always intolerant, and sometimes downright vulgar. For egotistical cocksureness, we have rarely seen anything to surpass this supposedly scientific book. His scorn for "that lethal chamber," the English Parliament, and for the "politicians" (there are no statesmen, and will not be any until the eugenists are placed in charge) is exceeded only by his contempt for the economists. He constantly reiterates Ruskin's dictum that there is no wealth but life, and seems to suppose that every economist will take issue. Dr. Saleeby's knowledge of economics and economists apparently comes to an abrupt conclusion with Nassau, Sr., and the Manchester School. It seems popular in some quarters to take a fling at the economists. It is an egregious error however to suppose that economists do not realize the value of human lifeof the right kind-fully as much as any other group of thinkers. Who will more often be found, for instance, in the United States, among the advocates of a national health bureau, a national child. bureau, or more modern accident liability, than the economists? But of all this the author is in dense ignorance. In general, of course, the author holds closely to the doctrine of the non-inheritance of acquired characters, although he recognizes that some sociological writers have carried that doctrine to lengths which Weismann never intended it should go. Dr. Saleeby is led on the one hand into a needless harangue against Lamarckism, for assuredly no one supposes "that if you educate the parents, the child will begin where the parents leave off," and at the same time he in practical effect ignores the influence of what for want of a better name we call social heredity. Only as an afterthought (p. 157), and when he is insisting upon the duties of motherhood as the primary sphere of woman, does he come near recognizing the power of social environment. It is natural for the eugenists to belittle the power of "nurture" because Galton himself has always done so. Moreover, Dr. Saleeby is no more able than the other eugenics enthusiasts to appreciate the initial difficulty, in both theory and practice, of distinguishing in any individual or any stock the characters due to organic heredity and those due to family and social tradition, custom, education, etc. This one fact should make us wary of accepting the conclusions of writers, like the present author, whose enthusiastic discipleship outruns their scientific reason. No more does Dr. Saleeby realize, or at least present to his readers, the inadequacy of our knowledge of human heredity. There is no suggestion as to what eugenics will be able to do should mutation prove a basic method of evolution. He does not point out the difficulties in the way of sexual selection should mutations prove the only stable variations, nor does he see the difficulty of recognizing a true mutant. He seems never to have heard of physiologic selection, and he gives an entirely inadequate discussion of Mendelism as it affects the problem of eugenics. He does however recognize the significance of isolation and propinquity in narrowing the field of choice in mating. Dr. Saleeby regards woman as primarily and essentially a childbearer. Anything which interferes in any way with the maternal functions of woman broadly speaking is detrimental to the race. He, however, is far less narrow on this question than some writers. His view of the maternal function of woman is a broad one, including education, but he leaves us somewhat uncertain how far he regards her as a human being, a part of the race, and how far only a propagator of it. His views on the family and upon social sympathy are in themselves consistent and rational, but they only go to show how skilfully eugenics has to shy around its own logic. It is deeply to be regretted that a book of this kind, put out to popularize the subject and to educate the public to the thought of eugenics, should not have been written in a more balanced manner; it is possible for a book to be popular and yet scientific, but this one is certainly not the latter. The book contains a suggestive bibliography and a good index. A. B. WOLFE The Dualism of Fact and Idea in Its Social Implications. By ERNEST LINN TALBERT. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1910. 50 cents. This monograph by Dr. Talbert criticizes the social philosophy of Hegel and Marx in the light of functional logic and psychology. Dr. Talbert has no difficulty in showing that both of these social philosophies are quite out of accord with what we know now of human nature and human society. In both, as he shows, a false emphasis, upon the idea, in the case of Hegel, upon economic facts, in the case of Marx, has lead to the distorting of their theories of social evolution. Because both Marx and Hegel fail to take a functional view, their systems are in both cases fatalistic. Both are also absolutistic, revolutionary, and one-sided. Dr. Talbert especially has no difficulty in showing that Marx's idea of the rigid determination of social evolution by inevitable economic forces in a foreseen direction has no scientific foundation, and that the whole theory is due to the over-abstraction of the economic from the complex of mutual conditioning forces in the social life. Many of the things which Dr. Talbert says in criticism of Marx's social philosophy have, of course, already been said by Marx's other critics, and it is doubtful if the principles of functional logic which Dr. Talbert rests his case upon add any force to his criticism. Nevertheless, the monograph is a valuable one, and should be read not only by all open-minded socialists who are looking for possible fallacies in Marx's theories, but also by all sociologists who are interested in the development of a scientific method which conforms to the principles of modern logic, and is adequate to deal with the problems of social organizations and evolution. C. A. E. |