Professor Royce's New Book

cal formality and from barren freethinking." As representative of American "ethical ideals," James idealized and liberalized the current philosophy of "efficiency"; correcting it by emphasizing "the need of active faith in the unseen and the superhuman."

Professor Royce's account of James is both sympathetic and objective. If it is open to criticism it is because James was so pre-eminently an individual that it is impossible to regard him as typical or representative of anything, without losing the essence of him. He can perhaps be portrayed; but he cannot be classified or labelled, without to some extent belittling him. And this Professor Royce himself understood, when he set himself the task of "viewing James from without, in a way that is of course as imperfect as it is inevitable."

The essay on "The Problem of Truth" is an important contribution to the subject, and is especially interesting as indicating the tendency of Professor Royce's thought toward the voluntaristic type of idealism. The remaining essays reveal the author's peculiar power to make this idealism eloquent, and to connect it with the personal problems of conduct and religion.