Abstract

This is a translation of the fourth of the original seven fascicles of Bréhier's standard Histoire de la philosophie. The three prior fascicles have already appeared from the University of Chicago Press. The virtues of Bréhier's history are its extraordinary readability and unpretentious scholarship. The philosophers covered in depth by Bréhier are Bacon, Descartes, Pascal, Hobbes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz, and Locke, with lighter treatment being given to the Cambridge Platonists, Bayle, and Fontenelle. The bibliographies are neatly accessible at the end of each chapter, more than adequate, and have been brought up to date through 1965.—E. A. R.