Professor Murray opposes the transcendental. It is all so well done that one would not suppose there was so much to do until one tried it. The quintessence of a copious literature (intuitional, utilitarian, and transcendental), it is not merely the quintessence, but also the author's independent elaboration and estimation of the material. On the other hand, the chapter on Volition seems less satisfactory. The author is a libertarian. He may be correct in saying that what alone renders the action of will on the material world intelligible is "the independence of self on the universe of not-selves" (p. 133). But I submit that more might have been made of the ethical and of the psychological arguments, and that beginners would have found them more satisfactory. Indeed, it is rather surprising, since Professor Murray insists that the ego is a centre of intelligent activity, that no reference is made to Wundt's discovery of the shortening of reaction-time by attention. Furthermore, it might have been considered, whether the liberty vindicated by Professor Murray's argument (which is essentially that of Green, as indeed he indicates) is a liberty that enables the agent to do otherwise than he does; for it is no less than this that our moral experiences crave, and anything short of it is, from the ethical point of view, sheer determinism. Lastly, the necessitarian argument is stated without its strongest modern re-enforcement, namely, the law of the conservation of energy and the consequent indispensableness (as it would seem) of interpreting all our movements (and therefore voluntary movements) in accordance with mechanical principles.
The discussion of Utilitarianism in Book II is introduced with some clarifying paragraphs on the psychology of pleasure. The arguments against the theory are clearly and concisely put, being obviously the product of large reading and independent reflection. Felicitous use is made of the concessions of Mill in his Utilitarianism, though no mention is made of the passage which really carries Mill over into the camp of his opponents; namely, the admission of a native sense of dignity which obliges us to reject lower pleasures for higher. It is unfortunate that other theories of duty are treated so much less fully than the Utilitarian. The little that is said of the Kantian doctrine is so good that one wishes there had been more; and, as this is the author's own standpoint, more might reasonably have been expected. I cannot but think it a mistake that the mechanico-evolutionary theory of duty, which has been the reigning theory in the sphere dominated by English thought, has not received more explicit consideration. Students would have been helped by learning what "natural selection" could and could not do for Ethics; and how its function could be interpreted in an idealistic theory of morality.
In treating of Duties and Virtue, to which the rest of the volume is
