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right, if there is nothing that wants to be ruled over. There are no natural rights or duties. They are progressive in nature. No man can leap to the goal of human per- fection singly. He must take the world with him; and the world moves slowly, mak- ing the stages of its advance by establishing definite laws and customs. If these are taken merely as representing the solid part of what has hitherto been done, we may use it . :or further work. In criticising rights and obligations.it should be
presupposed that the world is not altogether a fool. Little that is found in law or morals which has stood the strain of centuries of human activity is without some firm foundation in the nature of man. But boldness should be shown in such criticism; for we possess in ourselves the criterion of reason. Nothing can be accepted as a right or a duty if it cannot be made clear to us that it is an essential element in the development of a full and perfect humanity. J. S. Mackenzie, International Journal of Ethics, July 1896.
Morality the Last of Dogmas. Reflecting on the disappearance of religious dogmas which long held undisputed authority, there seems no presumption in inquir- hether morality itself is not an untenable dogma, the remnant of old superstitions. There is at present a tendency to place right in the foreground and duty in the back- ground. Actions ultimately depend upon the feelings, not upon judgment ; and feel- ings which, through the experiences and mental associations of the race or the indi- vidual, have become like an organic element of the mind, cannot be suddenly elim- inated, when it is discovered that their promptings are contrary to reason. A constant recurrence of the same feeling through a series of generations, or a long period of individual life, produces organic alterations in the nervous centers, which it requires the reaction of an opposite feeling or of a corrected judgment for a long time to retransform. While the process of reorganization is going on, judgment will be overruled by feeling, even though the legitimacy of the authority of the latter is denied by the subject who obeys it. But evidently a feeling will finally be organized cor- responding to the judgment, and the opposite feeling will disappear. Morality, with its machinery of obligation and conscience, being based on feelings originated in an inadequate and unscientific conception of the world, is doomed to vanish under pressure of enlightened reason. Conscience is mainly an abstract feeling of fear of punishment, and is an exclusively egoistic feeling, inasmuch as it is a painful state experienced by the individual exclusively on his own account. It is impossible that conscience and allied feelings will continue after their illusory foundation has been exposed. Antonio Llano, Philosophical Review, July 1896.
Ethics from a Practical Standpoint. The method of hedonism is the only one that will prove effective when used by the moral teacher. In making calculations with regard to our future lives, we cannot have a distinct idea as to how far our feel- ings will be altered ; yet we are aware that a certain change may be expected, and may frequently forsee it. Calculations in respect of general happiness take into account only general lines of conduct, and are hence possible. Although hedonic calculations are difficult and uncertain, we have no rival ethical road that leads to more certain conclusions. "Self-realization" is no solution whatever, Muirhead's definition of self-realization as "loyalty to the duties of the good parent and honest citizen," supplies no workable method, because of the endless disputes as to what con- stitutes the good parent and honest citizen. According to Spencer's plan we should have to encounter all the difficulties involved in formulating the details of the absolute ethics, along with the uncertainty of decisions on the nearest approximations suited to the time when the formulation is taking place. If we should dispense with a direct estimation of happiness and misery, we should fetter the human intellect ; for it is only by our being able to apply the utilitarian test, that we can preserve ethical free- dom of thought. Hedonic instruction should include an enumeration of probable good and bad consequences of our actions, particularly as they affect others, and a description of the formation of habits and their reaction upon our associates, snowing how the type of society affects the individual and individual action the social type. Mrs. Bain, Mind, July 1896.
