Against these aggressive endeavors of the theological mind, neither lofty indifference, nor calm historical contemplation, nor mere literary warring will avail. The power of freethought must be displayed, and the positive work that it can do must be shown. Otherwise the time may come when the fame of rigid scientific thought and successful research in special fields will not exonerate German philosophy from the reproach of having left the nation in the lurch at a period of momentous spiritual crisis. To make useful the rich acquisitions of these labors toward the construction of a general theory of the world, remains, therefore, the serious task of the German philosophy of the future.
I shall be permitted, perhaps, in a future article to present an account of the literature of these special departments.
FRIEDRICH JODL.
II.
RECENT FRENCH PUBLICATIONS.
The works that have appeared during the last three months belong to authors of different nationalities—Italian, Roumanian, Belgian, and I ought to add Russian; but I shall not speak on this occasion of the important work of Sergneyeff, Physiologie de la Veille et du Sommeil.
It is, as you see, a gathering of good company, on French soil.[64]
[64] All these works are published by Alcan.
* * * * *
The only French work to be mentioned is that of M. CH. ADAM, Philosophie de François Bacon, a memoir presented in the prize competition of which M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire was the reporter and preferred by the Academy of Moral and Political sciences.