s sympathetically, and who are more
inclined to praise than to blame. He who looks back upon the past is
struck with the fact that books which have been lauded to the skies in
one age have often been subjected to searching criticism and to a good
deal of condemnation in the next. Something very like this is to be
expected of books written in our own time. It is, however, a pity that
we should have to wait so long for impartial criticism.

This leads me to say a word of the reviews which fill our philosophical
journals, and which we must read, for it is impossible to read all the
books that come out, and yet we wish to know something about them.

To the novice it is something of a surprise to find that books by men
whom he knows to be eminent for their ingenuity and their learning are
condemned in very offhand fashion by quite young men, who as yet have
attained to little learning and to no eminence at all. One sometimes
is tempted to wonder that men admittedly remarkable should have
fathered such poor productions as we are given to understand them to
be, and should have offered them to a public that has a right to be
indignant.

Now, there can be no doubt that, in philosophy, a cat has the right to
look at a king, and has also a right to point out his misdoings, if
such there be. But it seems just to indicate that, in this matter,
certain cautions should be observed.

If a great man has been guilty of an error in reasoning, there is no
reason why it should not be pointed out by any one who is capable of
detecting it. The authority of the critic is a matter of no moment
where the evidence is given. In such a case, we take a suggestion and
we do the criticising for ourselves. But where the evidence is not
given, where the justice of the criticism is not proved, the case is
different. Here we must take into consideration the authority of the
critic, and, if we follow him at all, we must follow him blindly. Is
it safe to do this?

It is never safe in philosophy, or, at any rate, it is safe so seldom
that the exceptions are not worth taking into account. Men write from
the standpoint of some school of opinion; and, until we know their
prepossessions, their statements that this is good, that is bad, the
third thing is profound, are of no significance whatever. We should
simply set them aside, and try to find out from our reviewer what is
contained in the book under criticism.

One of the evils arising out o