The title of this bookNota edytorska: Elektroniczna wersja książki Pöhlmanna znajduje się w serwisie GoogleBooks pod adresem: http://books.google.com/books?id=MrpAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Robert+von+Pöhlmann%22&ei=kQv2SuGAL5mkM4-nsaQF&hl=de#v=onepage&q=&f=false Anmerkung des Editors: Elektonische Version Pöhlmanns Buches kann in GoogleBücher angesehen werden. Link: http://books.google.com/books?id=MrpAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Robert+von+Pöhlmann%22&ei=kQv2SuGAL5mkM4-nsaQF&hl=de#v=onepage&q=&f=false Editors Note: The electronic version of Pöhlmanns’s publication can be viewed online on GoogleBooks under the adress: http://books.google.com/books?id=MrpAAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Robert+von+Pöhlmann%22&ei=kQv2SuGAL5mkM4-nsaQF&hl=de#v=onepage&q=&f=false does not correspond strictly to the contents, which offer more than that would indicate. We have to do here not simply with an historical, but also with a politico-social work, in which the historical foundation serves merely as the occasion for developing the author’s philosophical and politico-social views. The author does this by continually bringing the socialistic and communistic theories of antiquity and modern times into juxtaposition, and comparing them.

The first chapter, in which he criticises the theories and traditions of the original communism of the older Greek States, is very interesting. All the information from the old writers, as well as the opinions of modern investigators, relative thereto, are made to pass in review before him; and he arrives at the conclusion that the supposed primitive communism in no case proves itself to be historically worthy of credence. In fact, the hypotheses of primitive communism are „phenomena of the human mind, which are accustomed to manifest themselves spontaneously as the logical consequence of certain human experiences, stimulating to the formation of new ideas. In all times of agitation, in which the existing social and political order no longer meets legitimate needs and desires, and therefore begins to go to pieces, we are met by this reaching out from the disintegration going on in the life of the present, into the world of the ideal.“ In this respect, however, the fourth century before Christ in Greece was very similar to the present age. Then, as now, communistic and socialistic theories sprang up as the result of the excessive development of the capitalistic organization of society; and then as now there was a tendency, in order to claim for these an historic authority, to set up hypotheses, according to which under primitive conditions communism and socialism were declared to be the rule. Sober and objective investigation, however, does not confirm these hypotheses.

In the second chapter the author takes up the individualistic disintegration of society and the reaction against this disintegration in political and social philosophic theory. In Greece during the fourth and third centuries the unfortunate opposition between capitalism and pauperism appeared in the shape of unrestrained exploitation and grasping speculation, and the bitterness and mutual restraint of the different social classes which came of envy and hate. While these evils were being defended in the individualistic philosophy, there arose an idealistic social philosophy whose purpose was to introduce a better social order.

In the third and fourth chapters, the last of this volume, the author next lays before us „plans of organization for the construction of a new system of State and society.“ He particularly discusses the chief works of Plato, his „Republic“ and „Laws.“ Although there already exists a whole literature on the subject of these two works of Plato, the author succeeds in putting them before us in a new light. In the first place, he views them in their connection with the existing economic conditions of Plato’s time, to which they stand as a contrasted picture; and in the second place, he puts the demands of Plato’s time parallel with the socialistic and communistic demands of our time. This juxtaposition is particularly instructive, for it shows us how socialistic and communistic theories and agitations are nothing more than a kind of social and psycho-social reflex-action which is produced in all times and places by the excessive abuses of capitalism.

His contrast of the two works of Plato is also interesting. One of them, the „Republic,“ points to the impetuous progressiveness of Plato’s spirit, when the still immatured philosopher failed to take into account the social necessities which control the life of men; while in his „Laws“ he is careful to regard these necessities. It is the eternal contrast of youthful impetuosity with the maturer judgment of more advanced years which manifests itself in these two works.

In conclusion, the author discusses briefly the „social universal state of Zeno, the founder of stoicism,“ in which „the utopian element in socialism, its irrepressible tendency to lose itself in boundless perspectives, has found the purest expression imaginable.“

It is with great interest that the scholarly world will look forward to the continuation of this historical and politico-social work.

LUDWIG GUMPLOWICZ.

[Translated by Ellen C. Semple.]