"Tue Story, or Pmitosoriy."—The ard Opinions of the Greater Philosophers. "By Wil Durant, rue Garden City Publishing Con Me, New York.
American taste for philosophy in popular doses is evidently strongly developed, for Dr. Will Durant's excellent effort to cultivate that taste without tears has now reached the is factory position of being pubed in what is known as the gold dollar edition. It first was issued to the public in 1926, and as Dr. Durant is a conscientious investignfor of facts, it combines what he is pleased to' call "the humanizing note"
with instruction which at st can be regarded as useful, if it does not carry the reader very far into the realms of metaphysical disputation, Serious analysis of a book of thi kind would be unfair, "for Dr. Durant does not attempt to display strong critical judgment. His rather, is to "appreciate the trend of the doctrines of his heroes, and he succeeds in that limited endeavour.
The. book ranges from Plate and Aristotle to Bacon and Spinoza, until, after chapters on Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer and Herbert Spencer, he comes to Nietzsche, who, as everyone knows, was the darling of daring young men and women thirty years or so ago.
The last two chapters are devoted to contemporary philosophers in Europe and America—and it would be interesting here to lock ahead, say, Gifty years, and discover when
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.