Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/263

262 CRITICAL NOTICES : for regarding Nature as the phenomenon of a noumenon, or in Hinton's phrase an " actual," is left undemonstrated ; and yet some proof of this is requisite before that "actual" can be iden- tified with God. However closely we might be in accord with Hinton's insights, still it would be necessary to have his analytical or constructive grounds for them alleged, before we could admit their right to criticism as a philosophy. But, as matters now stand, in order to criticise Hinton's philosophy, it would be neces- sary first to construct it. Since this is plainly impossible for a critic, Hinton occupies a position of considerable security. It is also one of considerable dignity. It is one which he shares with Coleridge. SHADWOKTH H. HODGSOX. On the Ethics of Natnralii>m. (" Shaw Fellowship Lectures, 1884.") By W. E. SORLEY, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge ; and Examiner in Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh and London : W. Blackwood & Sons, 1885. Pp. 292. In the present state ot ethical speculation this book which gives, in revised and enlarged form, the lectures delivered by Mr. Sorley, as Shaw Fellow, in the University of Edinburgh is of peculiar importance. Even if it is from the " naturalistic ethics" which the author finds inadequate that we expect the best definitive results, yet criticism may be admitted to be more valu- able just now than new developments. For the ethical theories founded on the doctrine of evolution are in part inconsistent with one another ; and, as Mr. Sorley makes prominent, some of them are claiming to supersede rather than to continue the hedonistic ethics of the earlier stages of "naturalism" or experientialism. Those experientialists, therefore, who are desirous of finding in what direction their general doctrine of morality ought to be developed cannot do better than study such a thorough and care- ful criticism of that doctrine as is offered in Mr. Sorley 's book. The essence of a great part of Mr. Sorley's criticism is contained in the following passage : " The ethical writings of the evolutionists often confuse the problems of history and theory in a way which presents the same ditlieulty to the critic as the works of the corresponding school in jurisprudence. ... E one is now familiar wit li the evils of hypothetical history, and with the iniquity of the proverbial philosophic offence of constructing facts out of one's inner consciousness. The historical jurists deserve no little credit for the thoroughness with which this has been enforced by them ; perhaps too the same lesson may be learned from the facts of the development of morality. But it may be questioned whether we are not at the present time more apt to confuse fact and theory in the opposite way : whether the .M-iencc of law is not sometimes lost sight of in the history of legal institu- tions, and ethics in danger of being identified with the development of moral sentiments and customs." (Pp. 114-5.)