The Nullity of Metaphysics as a Science among the Sciences.
(Longmans.)—The object of this clever little volume is to establish the position that metaphysics have no claim to be regarded as a science. A science which never deals with anything more tangible than abstractions 'cannot lead to any very profitable results. The moderate use of ab- stractions, indeed, is of great service in the prosecution of scientific research, and it is as a minister to all the sciences that metaphysics ought to be regarded, not as themselves one of the sciences. As regards the means by which we acquire knowledge, our author holds that we are born with one instinct—that of sucking, and that everything .else is acquired by reasoning from premises, in fact, by the syllogistic process. Our author's entire system is based upon a peculiar view of the mode in which language ministers to thought, viz., that the ex- pression of each thought, however long it may be, is to be regarded, not as an aggregate of separate parts of speech, each of which has a meaning of its own, but as a single polysyllabic word, the separate parts .of which have, as far as that word is concerned, no independent signi- fication. The book is a very able one, and is well worth reading.
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