13 AUGUST 1927, Page 22

ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY. By James Ward. (Cambridge University Press. 16s.)—This

volume contains ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY. By James Ward. (Cambridge University Press. 16s.)—This volume contains _...... _ _

a collection of essays by the late Professor Ward, which have been selected from his fugitive writings, articles, and lectures by Professor Sorley and Professor Stout. The essays cover a period of over thirty-five years, and although they are primarily addressed to a popular audience, they exhibit many of the qualities which: are characteristic of Professor Ward's more important works. Chief among these qualities are brilliance and originality of conception, clarity of statement, cautious- ness in conclusion; and maturity in judgnient, all of which proceed from and are based upon a broad critical faculty. Professor Ward is in these essays, as always, a powerful exponent of what we may call the spiritualist as-opposed to the materialist view of the universe. He was the first to adopt the criticism of scientific method which consists in turning the weapons of the scientists against themselves. It is interesting. to find him as early as 1879, in the first of the essays in this book, pointing out the extent to which science is based upon faith, faith in the order of nature and faith in the validity of human reasoning process ; every experiment is a jump, a leap in the dark, and presupposes a trust and willingness to argue from the thing known to the unknown which is not in essence different from the religious man's trust in the existence of a spiritual reality which he cannot demonstrate. The book is prefaced by a long biographical memoir by Professor Ward's younger daughter.