The Sphere of Science. By Frank Sargent Hoffman, Ph.D. (G.
P. Putnam's Sons.)—The auth3r of this volume, already favourably known by his book on "The Sphere of the State," holds the doctrine that "the chief need of our time in all depart- ments of thought is not so much more facts as a more rational treatment of the facts already at hand," and illustrates his view by pointing out that nearly all the sciences are undergoing a radical reconstruction. Hence the primary object of his present volume is to point out with clearness what it is that constitutes a science, and to set forth with some detail what are the grounds upon which every science rests, and what are the principles and rules that must be followed in order to construct one. And thus in an erudite, and indeed somewhat classroom, style he discusses in twelve chapters such subjects as "The True Conception and Aims of Science," "What Science 'rakes for Granted," "The Use of the Imagination in Science," "Analogy as an Aid to Science," "The Old and New Psychology," and "Philosophy as the Science of the Sciences." Finally, Mr. Hoffman sums up all his teaching with a characteristically American rapture :—" Let no lover of the truth fail to recognise the fact that while there may be such a thing as a republic of letters, there is no such thing as a republic of the sciences. They form, on the contrary, one mag- nificent kingdom of knowledge, in which philosophy is the queen, the normative sciences are the ministers of state, and the empirical sciences the great body politic. No man can enter the kingdom of science except by the door of the empirical sciences, and only by passing through the normative sciences can he come at last into the royal presence of harmonised truth." There is a want of decisiveness about Mr. Hoffman's writing ; and he hesitates even to state the ordinary propositions of philosophic orthodoxy with clearness. Yet his volume is interesting if only for the quotations from various writers on philosophy, and for even more important evidences of wide reading than quotations, which it contains.
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