Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/603

590 CEITICAL NOTICES : on " The Eelation of Morals to other Sciences," and ends with a chapter on " The Method of Morals " ; the second is mainly con- structive. Though the two volumes are intended to be parts of the same work, the preliminary volume possesses a certain com- pleteness in itself, and it is likely to be found by many students in moral philosophy a useful introduction to the subject. A good sketch of the history of moral philosophy in England had long been a desideratum ; and, in spite of the publication of Prof. Sidg- wick's admirable Outlines, the present vol. i. is likely to be pre- ferred by many beginners in moral philosophy and others who might be repelled by Prof. Sidgwick's closely packed summary and closely reasoned criticism. The great merit of the Oxford Professors' book is that it as far as possible lets the writers tell their own tale. Their opinions are given in extracts from their works. The task of selection is as a rule skilfully performed. Salient passages are quoted, which give the substance of the writers' teaching in the fewest possible sentences. I cannot but think, however, that occasionally the really characteristic feature of a moral system is somewhat missed. It is strange that students of Hutcheson should have found it possible to write even eight octavo pages upon him without noticing the prominence given in his works to the aesthetic aspect of Morality. That the account of Butler should be somewhat unsatisfactory is less sur- prising ; since writers of the most different schools have agreed to persist in the uncritical attempt to construct a harmonious system out of works composed at different dates and representing markedly different philosophical standpoints. Complaint is made that " the various places in which Butler delineates the constitution of human nature are by no means consistent with each other " (i. 52). I am not prepared to say that the charge of inconsistency should have been withdrawn even if attention had been confined to the Sermons. As it is, quotation is made indif- ferently from the Sermons (1726) and from the Dissertation on Virtue (1736), which was evidently intended (though there is no explicit recantation) to modify the ethical position of the Sermons in ac- cordance with the altered moral standpoint presupposed in the Analogy , to which it was appended. To attempt to construct a harmonious ethical system out of the two treatises is almost as desperate an undertaking as to attempt to construct a description of the Platonic State partly out of the Republic and partly out of the Laws. Again, it is said : In the speculations of Butler we find no mention of any external standard or criterion" (i. 56). I do not deny that Butler fails adequately to explain the relation between his internal standard Conscience and the exter- nal standard Utility ; but such an unqualified statement as the above is hardly justified in reference to a writer who tells us that " leaving out the particular nature of creatures and the particular circumstances in which they are placed, benevolence seems in the strictest sense to include in it all that is good and worthy, all that