Journal of Philosophy, Inc.

Review
Author(s): G. B.
Review by: G. B.
Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 38, No. 22 (Oct. 23, 1941), p. 614
Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2017080
Accessed: 13-12-2015 00:47 UTC

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 614 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY

BOOK NOTES
The Eighteenth Century Background. Studies on the Idea of Na-
ture in the Thought of the Period. BASIL WILLEY. New York:
Columbia University Press. London: Chatto and Windus.
1941. viii + 302 pp. $3.25.
As its title indicates, this book traces the variations in the idea
of "nature" throughout the eighteenth century, beginning with
the deists and ending with Wordsworth. Though every detail in
this long and involved history is not given, the major changes are
recorded in a skillful analytical study. One sees how "Nature"
for the deists was a rational set of scientific laws and how step by
step an anti-intellectualistic factor crept into the concept, until in
Wordsworth, the child, the simple peasant, the man of feeling was
nearer to an understanding of "Nature's" lessons than the ra-
tional man. Mr. Willey has not only succeeded in presenting a
series of accurate expositions, but has pointed out their logical and
historical relations. He has shown how the magic of a term may
stimulate directly contradictory doctrines, how two men presum-
ably pleading a similar cause, may in reality be arguing for
diametrically opposed causes. He does not fall into the common
error of supposing that there is something which is "really" na-
ture and that writers who do not use the word in his sense are
therefore to be censured. He has consequently produced an un-
usually valuable book, which ought to prove the starting point of
further studies. These studies could perhaps be most profitably
made in the fields of pedagogical and esthetic doctrines.
G. B.

Elementary Logic. WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE. Boston: Ginn

and Company. 1941. vi + 170 pp. $2.25.
Professor Quine's purpose in this book is to introduce the ele-
mentary student to the modern theory of necessary inference and
to give him "a better understanding of the basic logical construc-
tions and reasonings involved in ordinary discourse." The first
two chapters deal with topics belonging to the theory of statemental
composition and transformation; the remaining two chapters dis-
cuss the elements of quantification theory. Two general features
distinguish the book. Only three logical symbols are used, those
for negation, conjunction, and existence, so that the student is re-
quired to convert statements in ordinary discourse into those
equivalents which can be expressed with these three notions alone,
before he can apply the techniques of transformation upon them.

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