126 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY In the first part of the book the author is concerned with making clear the basic logical concepts of Principles of Mathematics. In doing this he shows how the need for such concepts arose in mathematical philosophy. He relates Russell's statement of these needs and his proposed solutions to the problems to contemporary work in this area. The careful comparison of Russell with Peano and Frege is especially valuable. M. Vuillemin moves with the ease of familiarity and comprehension through the ideas and history of this technical field, at one time returning to parallels and contrasts with Leibnizian or Kantian philosophies of mathematics, at another moving forward to recent emendations and evaluations in Russell's own later work or in the work of G6del, Carnap, and Church, among others. But it is the second section of this book, on the philosophical implications of Principles of Mathematics, which will be of most interest to philosophers. The basic logical concepts elucidated in the earlier section are here shown to have profound philosophical significance. Six fundamental logical and philosophical principles are analyzed and related to one another. These are: the principle of external relations, the principle of abstraction, the principle of realism, the principle of logicism, the principle of parsimony (Occam's razor), and the principle of logical-grammatical parallelism. The implicit metaphysical and epistemological aspects of these methodological or postulational principles are brought out and discussed. The later shifts in the dominance of one of these over the others, such as that of the decline of the parallelism principle , are described. The possible unresolved conflicts between these principles, and the evaluation of their respective importance, form a significant part of the concluding section of the book. It is apparent that M. Vuillemin's own opposition to psychologistic and subjective points of view, and his own commitment to a philosophical realism which holds that science and mathematical logic must be the basis of the study of the real, underlie his scholarly analysis. Whether this "realist" interpretation of Russell be acceptable as representing the full direction and philosophical implication of his work, and whether the author succeeds in wooing his compatriots to the "royal road" of the study of being, it is clear that no reader with an interest in the history of mathematical logic or with an interest in Russell can fail to profit from this scholarly analysis. It is hoped that an English translation may make this important book, for which there is no counterpart in Russell literature in English, available to a wider audience. ELIZABETH R. EAME.~ Southern Illinois University, Carbondale Creation and Cosmology. By E. O. James. A Historical and Comparative Inquiry. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969. Pp. 148) In this short book James tries to pursue three rather different objectives. First, he offers reasons for the differences among the myths of the Near East, the Far East, and the Aegean. Thus, the ordered cyclic world of Egypt and the more cataclysmic versions of Mesopotamia reflect differing political, geographical and meteorological conditions. The political reality supporting the Olympian deities affords another, though BOOK REVIEWS 127 often explored, instance of the same kind of explanation. Though examples like these encourage James to believe that a similar aetiology is at work in Persia, the Ganges valley and China, it is not made clear how the rather different cosmologies of these lands relate to differing circumstances. All James provides us is sporadic illumination. Second, the myths of Greece and the Near East are traced through their supposed philosophical and scientific offspring. Again, there is some illumination. It is profitable to see Ionian science, for example, as an outgrowth of the Orphic rather than the Olympian tradition. A much more coherent and unified picture of Greek thought emerges, in which the sharp distinction between rational Ionians and mystic Italians (Pythagoreans and Eleatics) gives way to a variety of attempts to grapple with nature in the light of Orphic monistic doctrine. This would be worth following up, but the strategy of the book, regrettably, forces James on to a re-counting of the history of ideas which is little more than a chronological sketch. By the time he reaches Darwin...