Philosophie der Geschichte, Vol. IX of Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Ausgabe seiner Werke (review)

482 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY adopting this standpoint constitute the moral values of the group. These values--the general rules of morality or the rules of established social practice--are themselves subject to evaluation and even rejection when scrutinized from the standpoint which Campbell calls the ideal impartial spectator, i.e., the perspective to which moral argument leads and from which sympathy among all members of the group can be attained. When he turns to Smith's account of the modes of conduct which are to be regarded as virtuous Campbell finds that it is not possible to deduce the values which inform that account from the supposed analytic model. Campbell excuses this key failure on Smith's part on the grounds that the laws of sympathy do not admit of precise quantitative formulation. He goes on to allege that Smith's support of these values which do not follow from his scientific premises was based upon his adherence to utility as a metaethical principle. In the final chapters Campbell shows this allegation commits him to the view that Smith subscribed to a thoroughgoing Stoic position in both ethics and natural theology. On the whole Campbell's interpretation of the Moral Sentiments is unconvincing. His major thesis--that Smith had attempted in this book to provide a 'scientific' as opposed to a 'philosophical' theory of morality--fails on two counts. His argument that Smith subscribed to Karl Poper's view of scientific method and that he intended to employ that method in this work is thin and not a little forced. The most telling failure, however, is his observation that it is impossible to deduce the values, which Smith believed define virtuous behavior, from the supposed analytic model. This leads the reader to either of two conclusions. Either Smith utterly failed to achieve his primary objective in the Moral Sentiments and so had no reason to be justly proud of the work, or Campbell's interpretive hypothesis has been falsified. His minor thesis --that the basis of Smith's normative and political philosophy was a form of utilitarianism--is both contrived and counter-productive. It not only contradicts Smith's sharp and extensive criticisms of both utility and Stoic ethics, but also reintroduces in a slightly different guise that nemesis of all serious Smithian scholars-Das Adam Smith Problem--thereby undermining the doctrinal dependence of the Wealth of Nations on the Moral Sentiments and along with that the main point of interest in the latter work. Notwithstanding these rather substantial reservations, this book remains a worthwhile contribution to Smithian scholarship. In the course of discussing conscience and virtue Campbell sheds a great deal of light upon the psychological theories presupposed by both the Moral Sentiments and the Wealth o/Nations. He there succeeds in showing that, Cropsey notwithstanding, those theories are fundamentally developmental in character. This discovery alone is sufficient to mark this book as deserving the careful attention of all serious students of Adam Smith. J. RALPH LINDGREN Lehigh University Philosophie der Geschichte, Vol. IX of Friedrich Schlegel, Kritische Ausgabe seiner Werke. Edited and with an Introduction by Jean-Jacques Anstett. (Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand Schfningh, 1971. Pp. lix+434. DM 48) This volume of the excellent Gesamtausgabe of Schlegel's works contains the 18 lectures on the Philosophy of History which Schlegel delivered in Vienna in 1828. In the "Vorrede" to the series Schlegel expressed his conviction that "the first task of BOOK REVIEWS 483 philosophy is the re-establishment of the lost divine image in man," and that, "in application to the whole human race," it is "the aim of the philosophy of history to demonstrate the course of this re-establishment in the various periods of worldhistory " (p. 3). After defining (in the first lecture) the broad perspective and the basic orientation of his approach, Schlegel devotes one lecture each to such topics as the division of the human race into various nations; the development of Chinese culture; the emergence of Indian philosophy; the theocratic leadership of the Hebrews; heathen mysteries and Persian world dominance; the emergence of Greek culture and its arts, its science and its philosophy; Roman law and the beginning of the Christian conception of...