Book Reviews 155

McLaughlin’s survey is but an introduction to his consideration of the Antinomy of Judgment in the second half of the Crifique of Judgment.

The author claims that his interpretation is the first to be ‘historicalIy and philologicaIly sound and philosophically convincing’ (pp. 3, 130-31). All others, he argues, have failed to see the importance of taking seriously the headings for Sections 69-78; they also have not noticed that Kant’s effort to extend causal explanation to organisms-to try to understand the whole as the effect of its parts-forced him to sharpen his previously undifferentiated notion of natural causality. Only in the third Critique does he consider mechanism (which requires spatial relationships) to be a particular species of the genus of natural causality (which originally required only a temporal sequence).

In the end Kant held fast to the Critical tenet that theoretical explanations must be stated in causal laws (whether mechanical or not). But he also pointed out that it would be presumptuous for us to think that everything is open to our understanding. Teleological judgments remain absolutely necessary as assumptions or regulative ideas to guide research in those cases in which the parts apparently depend on the whole, in which explanations exceed at least for now the subjective limitations of our understanding.

This is a thoughtful study, and anyone venturing into this arena of Kantian scholarship now will want to take it into account. I do, however, have one misgiving about McLaughlin’s analysis. He argues that the Antinomy of Judgment should be regarded on@ as philosophy of biology, with no significant relation to Kant’s moral theory (p. 38). For whatever reasons, he ignores the larger context for that antinomy-most of the Second Introduction, the entire Methodology of Teleological Judgment, and many remarks scattered in between-in which Kant explicitly sees the notion of teleology as connecting theoretical and practical philosophy, and teleological judgment as spanning the legislations of the understanding and of reason. Only, it seems, in passing does McLaughlin mention that the phenomenatnoumenal distinction-that is essential if science is to leave space for morality-is crucial to the resolution of the antinomy of the third Critique (pp. 53, 178). Since Kant had already argued in detail that moral-practical reason is an intrinsically teleological faculty, the fact that he devotes most of his attention in the ‘Critique of Teleologicat Judgment’ to defending the necessary role of teleology in theoretical judgments is not an argument for reducing this part of the Critique ofJudgment to that role.

Like a number of other recent analyses of various parts of Kant’s philosophy, this book may leave us with what I for one take to be an unfortunate impression-that Kant’s practical theory is merely an addendum to his theoretical theory.

University of South Caroiina Roger J. Sullivan

Sophie de Hanovre: M&mires et Lettres de Voyage, ed. Dirk Van der Cruysse (Paris: Fayard, 1990), 304 pp., 120.00 FF paper.

Sophie of Hanover’s ‘Mimoires et Lettres de Voyage’, skilfully edited and presented by Dirk Van der Cruysse, offer a delightfully entertaining and highly informative panorama of daily life in the Dutch, German, French and Italian courts and aristocratic milieux of

1.56 Book Reviews

the 17th century. The daughter of the Elector Palatine Friedrich V, Sophie was also the grand-daughter of James I and mother of England’s first Hanoverian King, George I, and indeed she almost became the wife of Charles II. But beyond this English dimension with its fascinating view of English politics, Sophie’s Memoirs and Letters provide an invaluable insight into the European courts of her time, their inter-relationships, their rivalries, their sumptuous lifestyle and their prejudices. Details and anecdotes appear in rich abundance, depicting for the reader a most colourful portrait of the world as Sophie knew it. Court gossip, fashion, political intrigue, pregnancies, births, marriages, love affairs, wars, the perils and joys of travelling, etiquette, dancing, thumbnail sketches of royal and princely personages: these are just a few of Sophie’s daily observations. And all this is offered for our delectation in a journey of sheer delight from one cameo scene to the next, all written with a verve and wit which rightly caused Madame Palatine to comment that if her aunt’s writings were ever published, ‘ils se vendraient comme des petits pains, car rien n’est plus aimable ni icrit avec plus d’esprit’.

Writing in the beautiful and highly descriptive French which she absorbed as she grew up in the multi-lingual atmosphere of The Hague court, Sophie embarks upon the narration of her memoirs in 1680-81, at the age of fifty, as a palliative for the melancholy induced by the absence of her husband, Ernst August von Braunschweig, who has departed for his habitual winter sojourn in Venice without inviting his wife to accompany him. But Sophie is not of the stuff to be made downcast by the extramarital flirtations of her husband. She is determined to shake off her sadness and ‘conserver son humeur dans une bonne assiette, car je suis persuadite que cela conserve la Sante et la vie, qui m’est bien chtre’.

Despite this obvious therapeutic intention, Sophie’s memoirs are not coloured by her present mood; on the contrary, she writes with a wit and humour which creates for the reader a fascinating portrait of her life, her character and opinions. Thus she depicts for us her childhood and youth in The Hague, her schoolgirl pranks and the nine curtseys necessary as she prepared to dine each day. Then follows the description of the eight years she spent at her brother’s court in Heidelberg, where the petty jealousies and intrigues of court life offer ample ammunition for her pen, and where her marriage to Ernst August was finally sealed after a previous engagement to his brother. Sophie’s reaction to this change of plan is typical of her robust attitude to life: ‘J’etais bien aise de le trouver aimable, parce que j’etais resolue de l’aimer’. She goes on to describe her early married years in Hanover, when she is plainly devoted to her husband, followed by her journey with him to Italy in 1664-5, when he is, as Sophie herself admits, getting bored with ‘always possessing the same thing’. Masked balls in Venice, carriages overturning on precipitous routes, fashion and philandering, snatches of conversation as gondolas cross on the canals: a wealth of detail which provides a rich backdrop to Italian history of the period. And so she continues her story with detail offamilyaffairs and quarrels and a vivid description of her visit to the French roya! court in 1679. There she is privileged to attend a royal wedding, see Versailles, go to the Comtdie Francaise and the Opera and depicts it all for us, spiced with her personal observations on all manner of topics from the quality of the bread to the blackened and bad teeth of the Queen of France.

Perhaps most fascinating of all is the fact that Sophie’s extant letters to her brother, the Elector Palatine Karl Ludwig, also contain delightful narrations of her journeys to Italy and France which complement and enhance the descriptions contained in the Memoirs. Written with great affection and humour, studded with English, German, Dutch and Italian phrases, these letters provide yet another dimension, another perspective both on events and a fascinating personality. For historian and literary critic alike, they present a rich source of interest, for they have all the freshness and vigour of recently narrated events and allow fruitful study of the creative aspects of letter-writing. Sophie’s letters deserve to take their place alongside those of Madame de Sevigne, whom sadly she did not

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meet whilst at the French court, for they are fascinating documents which are not only represen~tive of a character and an era, but also particnlar~y revealing in the contemporary view of the world and events they present.

Oxford Elisabeth Maxwell

The Versailles Peace Settlement: Peacemaking with Germany, A. Lentin (London: English Historical Association, 1991), 32 pp., n.p.g.

A. Lentin’s 2% Versaiiles Peace Settlement: Peacemaking with Gemmy (London, 1991) is pamphlet #23 in the “New Appreciations in History’ published by the {English) Historical Association. Like the publications of the American Historical Association’s Service Center for Teachers of History, it offers a short (32 page) essay, backnotes, Historiographical Note, and Select list of Further Reading. Lentin’s prose is clear, his examples apt and illuminating, his research wide, and the work offers a stimulating tool for school students and undergraduates.

Such a pamphlet has a double mandate. On the one hand, it must describe events, convey the conventional views, and provide the student with the basic vocabulary and issues. On the other, it must qualify this apparent finality and reveal that history is not so easily summarised. In a word, it must make history simple enough to understand but complex enough to fascinate. Lentin has done both brilliantly.

He conveys the basic aspects of the Versailles Treaty-the aspirations of its framers, its terms, and consequences. He also recounts the standard critique of the deliberations’ confusions, haphazard compromises and contradictions, and the small and narrow- mindedness of the great men. Above all, he shows that the Treaty was a contest between old and new diplomacy-national self-interest competing with national self-determination.

Lentin then proceeds to mute this black-and-white view by examining the circumstances in which the Treaty emerged. The haste and complexity were not invented by the statesmen but imposed on them; after ail, it had not been clear six or even three months before that peace would break out with them as victorious peace-makers. They had won the war in large measure by suppressing their very real disagreements which victory revealed all too clearly. Yet they realised success depended on cooperation and compromises which were unavoidably messy and contradictory. Their competing aspirations in effect cancelled each other out and limited their power. Likewise there were very real limits on their power to enforce their will, above all, in eastern Europe but even vis-&vis Germany. They were further constrained by perceived pressures of their own public opinion, some of which they had themselves conjured up to conduct war. The statesmen were never entirely able to escape the contradiction between war and peace- making: the war had been fought against what was perceived as a threatening enemy on whom it was natural, indeed just, to impose severe punishment but doing so was not obviousfy the best way to preserve peace. Despite all these constraints, Lentin shows that the Treaty was in many ways defensible as an amalgam of self-determination, pragmatism and the balance of power, most importantly in preventing the unacceptable result of a Germany stronger despite defeat.

Ultimately the Treaty is judged-rightly or wrongly-by its influence on World War II. Lentin acknowledges the bitterness many of its terms caused in Germany. He grants that