I have now to point out L'Esthétique d'Aristote et de ses Successeurs, by M. CH. BÉNARD, an Etude sur Francois Bacon by M. J. BARTHÉLEMY ST. HILAIRE, and L'Anthropologie Criminelle et ses Récents Progrès, by M. CESARE LOMBROSO. M. Bénard is one of the good old masters, who, what they do know, know well, and his book is one of those that it is profitable to possess. The study of M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire is followed by the Report on the Memoirs presented to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, which had proposed as a subject "The Philosophy of Bacon." As to M. Lombroso, the celebrated Italian criminologist, he has wished to reply to the objections that have been made to his views, especially by the French medical alienists at the Congress of 1889, and this is why he has written on this occasion in our language: he supports by new facts the notion, hitherto contested, of a "criminal type."
* * * * *
The last work of which I have to speak, is the Souvenirs de M. Charles Mismer,[31] of which the third volume which recently appeared, has for its title Souvenirs de la Martinique et du Mexique pendant l'Intervention Francaise. There is in these volumes no express philosophy, as this term is understood, but they are the work of an observing, reflecting mind, and in these pages one sees a man living and growing. In the course of his adventurous existence, M. Mismer, already instructed by experience, by chance acquired knowledge of the Cours of August Comte; he became attached to it, and found there an opening into sociology, a tie by which to link together his personal ideas. He afterwards published several articles[32] in the Review conducted by M. Littré, and he records to-day in his Souvenirs the valuable observations which he has had occasion to make on very different races of men and strongly opposed social states. He is one of those whom the philosophic spirit has led to a philosophic life, and the persons who read his work will thank me for having made them acquainted with a unique and worthy character.
[31] In course of publication by Hachette. The other works mentioned are published by Alcan.
[32] A part of these articles formed a volume entitled Principes Sociologiques.
LUCIEN ARRÉAT.
BOOK REVIEWS.
THE WAY OUT OF AGNOSTICISM, or, THE PHILOSOPHY OF FREE RELIGION. By Francis Ellingwood Abbott, Ph. D., Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
"This book aims to show that, in order to refute agnosticism and establish enlightened theism, nothing is now necessary but to philosophise that very scientific method which agnosticism barbarously misunderstands and misuses … It aims to develop the philosophy which must (consciously or unconsciously) underlie any and every free religious movement or institution: namely the philosophy which results from the faithful application of the scientific method to the universe as a whole."
The author further observes that "nothing is more common or more confusing than a loose vague and indeterminate use of this phrase" [scientific method] and that his object is "to give definiteness and scientific precision to a much abused expression by showing that the Scientific Method … is neither more nor less than the SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF UNIVERSALS APPLIED IN PRACTICE TO THE ACQUISITION OF KNOWLEDGE."