19 APRIL 1890, Page 44

and Co., Boston, U.S.A.)—Although not profound or specially The War - Scare

in Europe. (Sampson Low and Co.)—The author erudite, this is an interesting, readable, impartial, and, on the has a strong bias towards France. Few, indeed, will be disposed whole, successful attempt by an American scholar to perform the to deny that the appropriation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany in feat—which even the late Mr. George Henry Lewes did not 1870-71 was a disaster. But it is impossible to forget that France succeed in accomplishing—of giving a history of Greek philosophy has been a source of trouble to Europe for centuries, and that her in less than three hundred pages. Mr. Burt's book is based, he policy at present is not that of a Power seeking friends. What tells us, on "a series of essays written for one of the ethico- Englishman did not breathe more easily when the collapse of religious periodicals of the country," and this no doubt accounts 1870-71 took away the dread of France as an invading Power ? for his style being eminently popular, and occasionally in- English hatred of France, once a powerful motive, has sunk into volved. Not infrequently he puts points very happily, as when a harmless prejudice. The feeling on the other side of the he notes that " Socrates the abstemious was the ideal of one class Channel is, we fear, a most potent influence. Till that is of philosophers ; Socrates the easy master of self, of another." changed, such books as we have before us will find but a half- Mr. Burt's condensations of philosophic systems, which are neces- appreciative public here.

Barfly considerable, are very carefully executed; take, for example,

his differentiation between Plato's best and " second-best " State, John G. Paton, Missionary to the New Hebrides : an Autobiography.

and his indication of the extent to which Plotinus is superior Brother. Part II. (Hodder and Stoughton.) both to Plato and to Aristotle. On the whole, this can be recom- by his admirable narrative of his labours, as given in the first mended as a good first text-book to be placed in the hands of students of Greek philosophy,