solutism of Hobbes), free speech, reasonable reli-
gion, and social amelioration. The dominance
of the social interest is not so easily shown in the
case of Leibniz; but let it be remembered none
the less that epistemology was but an aside in the
varied drama of Leibniz' life, and that his head
was dizzy with schemes for the betterment of this
"best of all possible worlds." Bishop Berkeley
begins with esse est percipi and ends with tar-
water as the solution of all problems. David
Hume, in the midst of a life busied with politics
and the discussion of social, political, and eco-
nomic problems, spares a year or two for episte-
mology, only to use it as a handle whereby to deal
a blow to dogma; he "was more damaging to reli-
gion than Voltaire, but was ingenious enough not
to get the credit for it. ¹ The social incidence of
philosophy in eighteenth-century France was so
decided that one might describe that philosophy
as part of the explosive with which the middle class
undermined the status quo. This social emphasis
continues in Comte, who cannot forget that he was
once the secretary of St. Simon, and will not let
us forget that the function of the philosopher is
to coördinate experience with a view to the re-
moulding of human life. John Stuart Mill is
radical first and logician afterward; and the more
lasting as well as the more interesting element
in Spencer is the sociological, educational, and
political theory. In Kant the basic social interest

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