Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/479

This page needs to be proofread.

466 NEW BOOKS. just now in his proof, from this standpoint, that individualism has not only been actually, but is logically, quite compatible with altruism. At the same time his content with the older ethical doctrine prevents him from defending his general philosophical position as effectively as he might otherwise have done. Whatever it may still be possible to say in favour of individualism, it is no longer necessary for an experientialist to found his ethics on an individualistic psychology. If the theory of society im- plied in Green's Prolegomena is not really bound up with his metaphysics, and if that theory is substantially true, an experientialist obviously puts himself at a disadvantage in contending without discrimination against Green's doctrine as a whole. Mr. Thompson partly sees this, and describes quite candidly the impression Green's doctrine makes on him. " With a little construing and amending," he says, " we should have no difficulty in reading out of it a sound, respectable utilitarianism." Then he proceeds to make objection to the points in which it seems to him to differ for the worse from the ethics of hedonism, w., in the " asstho-egoism " of its principle (since ^/-satisfaction, is said to be always the end), and in the " circulus in probando " by which it identifies the moral good for the indi- vidual with social good. His objections are often acute ; but he fails to see that there can be no real " construing and amending " of these doctrines in the sense of a different philosophy so long as the attempt is made from a basis of pure individualism. The Principles of Morals. Part II. (Being the Body of the Work.) By THOMAS FOWLER, D.D., President of Corpus Christi College, Wyke- ham Professor of Logic in the University of Oxford, and Honorary Doctor of Laws in the University of Edinburgh. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1887. Pp. xii., 370. Prof. Fowler now publishes the promised continuation of the ethical treatise begun by him in conjunction with the late Prof. Wilson, of which the introductory part was noticed in MIND, xi. 436. " My own share in this portion of the book," he says, " has now become so preponderant, and, in the course of revision and completion, so many new questions have arisen which I never had the opportunity of discussing with Prof. Wilson, that, though I should myself have been content simply to reverse the order of the names, it has seemed to others better that this Part should appear in my name alone." A detailed account of Prof. Wilson's share in it is given, and the distribution of the authorship of Part i. is briefly described. Prof. Fowler has " freely made use, throughout this work, of the essay entitled Progressive Morality" published in 1884 and reviewed at length in MIND, x. 266, but has " not by any means incorporated it" the two works being different in aim. Critical Notice of both parts of the present work will follow. Metretike ; or, The Method of Measuring Probability and Utility. By F. Y. EDGEWORTH, M.A., F.S.S. London : The Temple Company, 1887. Pp. 66. The author sends a short statement of the drift of this dissertation, which will be found printed in the next division of the present No. (p. 484). Realistic Philosophy defended in a Philosophic Series. By JAMES M'Cosn, D.D., &c., President of Princeton College. I. Expository ; II. His- torical and Critical. London and New York : Macmillan & Co., 1887. Pp. v., 252 ; v., 325. The parts of Dr. M'Cosh's " Philosophic Series," " didactic" and "histori- cal," have already been noticed in MIND as they appeared separately.