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BOOKS WISDOM OF THE WEST. By Bertrand Russell. Macdonald, 63s. Russell covers the whole development of Western Philosophy in this grandly produced volume. He starts his narrative with Thales and the Greek Ionian communities, and goes on to the great discoveries of Greek speculative philosophy. The historical background is invariably discussed and one sees how universal ideas arose out of particularised groups and separated national entities. With the growth of Christianity and the fall of the Roman Empire Russell's historical method is seen at its best for the book is really based on his History of Western Philosophy. As he says in the introduction, this volume would never have appeared had not the earlier history been written. His account of the birth of the Middle Ages and of scholasticism is a particularly characteristic section: one makes a resolution to re-read Gibbon. On the great figures of later centuries, perhaps space precludes a really detailed examination, although Leibnitz, on whom Russell is an authority is treated at some length. There's a useful chapter on the Romantic movement and on the influential sages of our own day: Dewey, Frege, James, Whitehead, Freud and Wittgenstein, whose work is discussed with some sympathy. Russell sums up on Wittgenstein: 'Perhaps a fair statement of the basic tenet of his later philosophic theory is that the meaning of a word is its use.' This may give an impression of simplicity concerning the work of Wittgenstein and of the nature of linguistic analysis. One only hopes this sort of statement drives the curious to the texts; and to thought. The illustrations are magnificent, with colour pictures of early Greek cities, diagrams to augment the text, facsimiles of the title pages of famous books, photographs of coins and mosaics, and original compositions by John Piper. Altogether a memorable introduction to the study of the great thinkers of the West. -4 and Christmas geese at Aberffraw, Anglesey