Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/370

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360 Revinvs of Books tors. As Mr. Christy shows, the work of these men was intimately con- nected, and the significance of what each did cannot be understood without a careful appreciation of what the others were doing. Alto- gether, Mr. Christy has produced a thoroughly useful volume which is quite indispensable to any one who wishes to study the course of English American maritime history during the later years of the six- teenth century. Georoe Parker VVinship. English Political Philosophy from Hobbcs to Maine. By William Graham, M. A. (New York: Henry Holt and Co. 1900. Pp. XXX, 415.) The problems of political philosophy belong in one aspect to phi- losophy, in another to jurisprudence, in another to history, and in yet another to the work of the publicist and reformer. The six authors, Hobbes, Locke, Burke, Bentham, Mill and Maine, whom Professor Gra- ham has selected for treatment, well exemplify this variety of interests. Such a series must lend itself to quite different modes of treatment, ac- cording to the standpoint of the critic. Professor Graham, who occupies the chair of jurisprudence and political economy at Queens College, Belfast, is naturally most at home in the historical and jurisprudential rather than in the philosophical aspect of his subject, but he enters with zest into discussions of natural rights and natural law, utilitarianism and intuitionism, from an ethical as well as from a legal or political point of view. The introduction to the work raises the question of method. Hobbes, Locke, and Bentham, it is stated, exemplify the deductive method, Maine the historical. Burke occupies a somewhat wavering position, employ- ing the deductive method, but upon principles obtained either from ex- perience or from history, whereas Hobbes and Locke start from an assumed state of nature and social contract. Bentham employs also the analytical method, which proceeds by analyzing and defining the leading concep- tions, such as sovereignty. Mill, though advocating what he calls the inverse deductive method, which would verify historical inductions by psychological deductions, really relies chiefly on the deductive method. The author for his own part believes that the deductive method, tempor- arily eclipsed by Bentham's Theory of Legislation and next by the histor- ical method, may be applied legitimately in reasoning " from our instinc- tive principles of justice." He holds that we may "attain to a. a priori science of natural law or rights, and use and apply its principles deduc- tively to new cases, as is certainly still done in courts of justice by our ablest judges." The question at once arises whether the conception of justice is not undergoing ceaseless transformation with the progress of civilization, and if so whether its ablest expositors really go back to " in- stinctive intuitions." In so far as there is moral progress this is found not in the instinctive aspect of our moral judgments — this instinctive