to which the stern justice of Dante dooms the pair in the Inferno.* Pao. "What can we fear, we two? O God, Thou seest us Thy creatures bound By which the very sun enthrals the earth. And all the waves of the world faint to the moon. Even by such attraction we two rush Together through the everlasting years. Franc. Pao. How those last broken sighings, of passionate delight melt upon the ear, and sink into the heart! He has a dainty touch in description too, this artist of the soul, and seems to have caught something of Dante's pregnant brevity, with a sweetness all his own. Pao. "How fades the last Star to the East: a mystic breathing comes: Franc. It is the first, the faint stir of the dawn. Pao. So still it is that we might almost hear Franc. And all the rivers running to the sea." The closing scene, has been criticised as too quiet and re *The stormy blast of hell With restless fury drives the spirits on, Whirl'd round and dashed amaim with sore annoy. Inferno, Canto V. strained after the intense passion immediately before, but here again, Mr. Phillips has preferred clasical to more modern models, and the result justifies his decision. He scorns the factitious aid of the curtain at the supreme moment, and sinks to a quieter key at the close. After killing the lovers, Giovanni breaks into a wild frenzy but grows gradually calm and closes in a tone of sad reverie. In his madness he calls in all the servants and sends some to bring in the bodies, then as he rushes wildly about, he cries: "The curse, the curse of Cain ! Luc. Gio. A restlessness has come into my blood. And I begin to wander from this hour (Rushing to him.) Giovanni, say Quickly some light thing, lest we both go mad! Be still! A second wedding here begins, (Enter blind Angela, slowly.) I hear the slow pace of advancing feet. (Enter servants bearing in Paolo and Francesca dead upon a litter.) Luc. Ah ah ah! Gio. Break not out in lamentation ! (A pause......The servants set down the litter.) Luc. Gio. (Going to litter) I have borne one child, and she has died in youth! (Going to litter) Not easily have we three come to thisWe three who now are dead. Unwillingly They loved, unwillingly I slew them. Now I kiss them on the forehead quietly. (He bends over the bodies and kisses them on the forehead. He is shaken.) Luc. Gio. What ails you now? She takes away my strength. I did not know the dead could have such hair. (The bodies are reverently covered over.) E. R. PEACOCK. BOOK REVIEWS. The Philosophical Theory of the State. By BERNARD BOSANQUET. London : Macmillan & Co. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1899. This is the most recent, and on the whole the best, exposition of the idealistic conception of the State. It is described by the author as an application to the modern nation-state of the fundamental idea applied by Plato and Aristotle to the Greek citystate. Its main problem is the solution of the "paradox" of self-government, a problem which it seeks to solve without having recourse to such inadequate conceptions as "contract", "natural rights," etc. What will at once strike the reader is the sympathetic way in which the author interprets the Contrat Social of Rousseau, in whom he sees the working of a new and higher conception of society. Most writers, with the exception of Professor Ritchie in his admirable Natural Rights and the late Professor Wallace in his Lectures and Essays on Natural Theology and Ethics, have treated Rousseau as a pure individualist "in the worst sense of the term." Mr. Bosanquet shows conclusively how inadquate and misleading this view is. Perhaps one might even say that he has somewhat idealised Rousseau, a full treatment of whom demands an exhibition of the inadequacy of the ideas which he applies in explanation of the State, not less than insistence upon the essential truth of his conception of the "general will" as distinguished from the "will of all ". Mr. Bosanquet, however, sins in the right direction: it is easy enough to show that the "state of nature" and the whole theory of a "social contract" are fictions; but, after all, what is of main importance is the new conception of society of which Rousseau was the half unconscious exponent. The State, as Mr. Bosanquet contends, in not an aggregate of individuals, as Mill and others conceived of it: it is the true reality, because only in their union with one another are individ uals what their essential nature demands. Hence, when the individual sets up the claims of immediate desire against the demands of his true or social self, it is justifiable that he should be "forced to be free." The "force" upon which the State is based is the "force" of reason. This gives us the general law, that the State may, and indeed should, compel the individual to obey his "real will," as distinguished from what he immediately desires. The distinction is well brought out by a striking illustration of Mr. Bosanquet's. "Let us suppose that Themistocles had been beaten in the Athenian assembly when he proposed that, instead of dividing the revenue from the silver mines among all the citizens, they should devote this revenue annually to building a fleet-the fleet which fought at Salamis. It is easy to see that in such a case a relatively ideal end, demanding a certain self-denial, might appear less attractive to all the individuals-each keeping before himself his own separate share of profit-than the accustomed distribution of money. And if such a view had gained the day, history would never have told, and no free Europe would have existed to understand, by what decision the true general will and common interest of Athens might have transcended the aggregate private inerests of all her citizens." (p. 115.) Applying this principle, Mr. Bosanquet discusses, among other things, the limits of State interference and the system of rights and punishment. The former question is so much a matter of practical politics that no general rule can be laid down. Mr. Bosanquet is quite successful in showing that the danger of State interference does not lie in the intrusion of something originated by "others," as Mill supposes, but "in the intrusion, upon a growing unity of consciousness, of a medium hostile to its growth." But, while this is true, it does not seem to me that the author helps us very much in the solution of particular problems, say, the proposed imposition of a Prohibitory Liquor Law-though it may perhaps be fairly argued that such a law is excluded on the principle that the use of force by the State is unjustifiable when it is hostile to the growth of the higher self* consciousness. This seems to me a much more defensible position than that which Mr. Bosanquet assigns, viz., that "the State is in its right when it forcibly hinders hindrance to the best life or common good." I doubt whether the Kantian distinction between promotion and hindrance of "the best life" can be consistently maintained. Is Prohibition, for example, positive or negative? An advocate of it may surely argue with a fair show of reason that, in removing the temptation to the vice of intoxication, the State would as much positively "promote "the "best life" as it does by removing the "hindrance" of ignorance by education. The rehabilitation of this distinction between "promotion" and "hindrance" of the common good therefore seems to me unfortunate. Mr. Bosanquet would have done better to insist upon the principle that the State should not employ force, the only instrument at its command, when it would thereby endanger the "growing unity of consciousness." Much more satisfactory is the discussion of the system of rights and of rewards and punishments though it may be doubted whether a more precise classification of criminals is not required. In general it may be said that the author is always instructive, and always able to give a reason for his beliefs. Every intelligent citizen ought to be familiar with a work of such force and comprehensiveness. He will not find in it a ready-made answer to all political problems, but he will find what is much better, the discussion of the principles by which those problems ought to be solved. Were one disposed to be over-critical, he might object to Mr. Bosanquet's view that political philosophy did not exist between the time of the Greek city-state and the rise of the modern nation-state. Is such a work as Dante's De Monarchia or Machiavelli's Prince to be ruled out? Or does Mr. Bosanquet assume that the "nation state" is the ultimate unit? This assumption would hardly be admitted by the modern Imperial Federationist, or even by those who believe in the English Empire in any form. JOHN WATSON. The Old Faith and the New Philosophy. By G. J. Low, D.D., Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa, and Rector of Trinity Church, Billings' Bridge. Toronto; William Briggs, 1900. It is a pleasure to find attempts being made in Canada to render the old faith consonant with new thought and knowledge. Dr. Low is to be congratulated on bearing a part in such efforts, and on the markedly progressive spirit he evidences. These efforts are not a day too soon. Principal Grant furnishes an admirable Introduction, in which he has wise words to say of needless breaks with the past, as well as of blind unthinking adherence to past phrase and precedent. Everyone will cordially endorse his sentiment that there should be "the utmost freedom for scholarship and thought," godliness with "brotherly kindness and mutual trust." Dr. Low's work suffers from being addresses to the clergy, rather than the work of a theological thinker, cleaving out a path for his own thought through untraversed regions. But it has the compensation that it will be more widely read in its present form. It appears to me that Dr. Low would have made his work |