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436 NEW BOOKS. " critical," and the " reconstructive," are found to succeed one another in the history of speculation ; these, accordingly, form the subject of the three books of the "historical" part (ii., pp. 55-318). Since "the law of obligation" is "at once the central conception of ethics" and " in itself an essentially metaphysical principle," as every principle must be that can lay any valid claim to serve as a foundation of ethics, moral systems may be divided into " (1) Those which give no explanation of moral obligation, (2) Those which give some explanation, satisfactory or unsatisfactory" (p. 71). In the first class come Materialism and Mysticism. The second class includes Egoism, Sentimental Altruism, Utilitarianism, Rationalism, and Evolutionistic Ethics. The members of this class are dealt with under the heads, already mentioned, of " Interpretation," " Criticism," and " Re- construction". The "interpretative" systems that form the subject of bk. i. (pp. 55-131) are "Egoism" (Hobbes), "Sentimental Altruism" (Adam Smith, Hutcheson, &c.), the system of " Conscience " (Butler), and " Early Rationalism" (Clarke, Price,' &c.). Book ii. ("Criticism," pp. 135-1(34) treats of Utilitarianism, "early" (Hartley, Paley, Bentham, &c.), and "later" (James Mill, Austin, J. S. Mill). "The age of criticism," it is said, " is one of lassitude in creative effort : an age of provisional hypotl and intellectual suspense." Thus it was that following the first systems, characterised as various "modes of interpreting the moral data," come "the critical systems of a crude and disappointing utilitarianism ". Although in theoretical philosophy " criticism is concentrated in the critiques of Kant," yet " the rationalism of Kantian ethics begins the function of re- construction " (p. 3). Kant therefore is the subject of ch. i. of bk. iii. (" Re- construction," pp. 167-318). The remaining chapters deal with "The Succes- sors of Kant," "Scientific Theories" (Spencer, Stephen,&c.) and "Pessimism". Rationalistic ethics, as well as metaphysics, is found to culminate in the doctrine of Hegel. " The Ethics of Evolution " is " the lineal descendant of Utilitarianism," but it " ruthlessly lays hands on its natural parent". "Just as the psychology of Spencer and Lewes has taken the place of the individualistic psychology of Locke and Hume and Mill, with its larger notions of race-experience and its wider faith in time, so, too, has the ethics of evolution in reality destroyed the narrow Utilitarianism of Bentham and Austin and James Mill, with its fuller views of the development of conduct and the genesis of the moral consciousness " (p. 242). The author's conclusion as to the doctrines of "Scientific Ethics" is, however, very much like that which he arrives at afterwards as to the ethical doctrines of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, these being condemned as " only partially re- constructive and of purely transitional value " (p. 318). " The magnificent postulate which Hegelianism involves," and that alone, can give us a satis- factory Constructive Ethics (p. 227). The Principles of Morals (Introductory Chapters). By JOHN MATT; WILSON, B.D., Late President of Corpus Christ i College, and AVhyte's Professor of Moral Philosophy in the I'niversity of Oxford, and THOMAS FOWI.KH, M.A., President of Corpus ChriMi College, and Vykeham Professor of Logic in the University of Oxford, Honorary Doctor of Laws in the Univer-itv of Edinburgh. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1886. Pp. vii., 133. The three chapters of this book are the introduction to a work (to be called The Principles ojMoraty planned, many years a^o, by the joint authors, and in part written, but broken off by Prof. Fowler on his colleague's death. Pending tin- completion of the work, which he has not yet been able to undertake, Prof. Kowler thinks the publication of the present chapters " may be of some service to students as affording an introduction