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NEW BOOKS. 555 ally critical but really apologetic. After a preliminary sketch based too much on second-hand and inaccurate information of the history of ethics before Herbert Spencer, Dr. Salvadori gives us an admirable rsum$ of the Synthetic Philosophy considered as a preparation for Mr. Spencer's ethical system, followed by a careful analysis of the system itself. Then comes what I have called the apologetic portion of the work. Himself offering no criticism on doctrines which he seems to regard as absolutely true and demonstrated from beginning to end, Dr. Salvadori makes it his business to defend them against the objections of others, and chiefly against his own countrymen. English criticisms are not left unnoticed ; but the author only takes these into account in so far as Mr. Spencer himself has replied to them, a procedure which is- nearly equivalent to their complete omission. The Italian and to some extent the French critics have had the advantage of his first-hand study and are much more satisfactorily dealt with. In particular various objec- tions are shown to proceed from a misunderstanding of Mr. Spencer's position which the author's greatly superior knowledge of the subject enables him very happily to dispel. But Dr. Salvadori's extreme desire to conciliate opponents has the effect of making him underrate the depth of the division which separates his 'master's system from that of the continental spiritualists. A theory which treats morality as deriving its whole value from the pleasure it produces cannot possibly be harmonised with theories which either make virtue an end in itself or identify the end with some form of absolute existence. Nor again can the old feud between necessity and free-will be appeased by pointing out that deter- minism does not in practice involve the abnegation of human responsi- bilities and duties. And here it may be observed that in the vain effort to conciliate irreconcilable opponents Dr. Salvadori has strained his master's principles to the breaking point. To treat consciousness as ' a factor in moral evolution ' is by no means equivalent to calling it ' an active and creative energy ' (p. 269). Without consciousness pleasure, the assumed end of moral action, would of course not exist ; and it may be true although it has not been proved that without the intervention of consciousness animal organisms could not be completely adapted to their environment. But creative energy implies more than this : it im- plies a production of force out of nothing, which is in contradiction to the fundamental dogma of Mr. Spencer's system. Again, the description of that system as ' an agnostic monism ' (p. 295) seems an illogical con- cession to a certain school of metaphysicians for which the master would hardly care to be made responsible. Still more objectionable is Dr. Salvadori's wholesale denunciation of the old or ' associationist ' Utili- tarianism (p. 439 ff.). Here the author for the greater glorification of his hero falls foul of his natural allies. Misconceptions long ago dis- pelled by J. S. Mill and others are dished up in a style worthy of the most rabid spiritualist ; and no spiritualist could be reproached with want of discrimination for failing to see in what respect they are less applicable to ' evolutionist ' than to ' empirical ' morality. Indeed lectures on the impossibility of a hedonistic calculus come with a particularly ill grace from a Spencerian who discards references to the greatest happiness of mankind as we know it for references to the happiness of an ideal society about which we know to put it mildly considerably less. One need only apply the two competing methods to some concrete problem such as divorce or capital punishment to appreciate the difference. "I have said that Dr. Salvadori does not himself offer any criticisms on the philosophy he expounds. But his lucid style of exposition has the incidental merit of bringing out into sharper relief what to some of us.