The Inductive Philosophy. By A. Ellory Finch. (Longmans.)—Mr. Finch's volume
contain a lecture delivered before the "Sunday Lecture Society," together with illustrative notes. Its chief feature is "a parallel between Bacon and Comte as inductive philosophers," a parallel drawn out with considerable ingenuity. On the lecture generally we have little criticism to make, except that Mr. Finch, though he emphati- cally disclaims the charge of materialism, is in some danger of depre- ciating mental and moral philosophy. It is very curious to find him quoting Cicero—Cicero, the enthusiastic admirer of Plato—as "thinking that a single page of a Roman jurist contains more solid and exact matter than whole libraries of the works of Greek philosophers." Cicero's words—occurring, by the way, in a rhetorical encomium on juris- prudence, are these :—"Bibliotheeas omnium philosophorum untie mihi videtnr xii. tabularum libeling, si qttis legurn fontes a capita viderit, at anotoritatie pondere at utilitatis ttbertate, snperare." Now passing by the strange translation of anus rii. tabularum libel/us by "a single page of a Roman jurist," surely the words which we have italicised modify Cicero's meaning very materially, which seems to be a recom- mendation of an a posteriori rather an a priori study of jurisprudence. Perhaps it would have been well if Mr. Finch could have found time in the arduous task of consulting the seven pages of authorities whom he displays before us to look as far back as the preceding chapter in the De Oratore, especially the passage,—" Sive quem ista prrepotens at gloriosa philosophia deleotat (dicam audaoins) hosce habebit fontes [he has been speaking previously of the Twelve Tables] omnium disputa- tion= suer= qui jure oivili et legibus oontinentur."
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