principles of historical, ethical, and psychological investigation. Discussions of this character should commend the book to workers in these departments, and to others who are primarily interested in the practical applications of logic, rather than in the philosophical theory.
Review will follow.
J. E. C.
In this work the author has attempted only to deal with the theoretical problems of Ethics. The method employed is a careful analysis of its fundamental conceptions and theories. As an introduction to the questions of present day interest, the second chapter is occupied with the history and development of ethical philosophy from the time preceding Socrates to the close of the period represented by Hume in England and Kant in Germany, only representative men being chosen for the purpose. We thus ascertain the large number of problems that have slowly accumulated in the progress of ethical speculation. The third chapter points out how ethical questions are affected, first, by the various conceptions entertained respecting such terms as virtue, good, right and duty, and, second, by confusion as to the nature of the motives to morality. Under this last topic a careful discussion is given respecting impulse, instinct, and reason, with a view to getting some general meaning for them which will be consistent and useful. In common usage the first two fluctuate between conscious and unconscious influences. This position must be abandoned if the terms are to have any place in morality, which must necessarily be purposive. Hence impulse is treated as a tendency to adjustment with the changes of environment, and so is irregular; instinct, as an organic tendency to action, requiring a fixed environment for its adjustment; and reason as adjustment to both the fixed and changing elements of environment. Impulse and instinct, as unconscious forces, are excluded from consideration.
The fourth chapter discusses at considerable length the freedom of the will, and is based, first, upon a radical distinction between freedom and responsibility, and, second, upon three distinct conceptions of freedom, namely, liberty or physico-political freedom (exemption from external restraint), spontaneity or subjective causation, and velleity or the capacity for alternative choice. The latter is the only real problem in the question, but in the controversy is often confused with the others. The object of the whole discussion is to secure a basis for corrective punishment as distinct from prevention, and to show the limitations to be placed upon responsibility while freedom (velleity) may remain intact.
The subject of conscience is treated in two ways. The nature and the origin of it are separated from each other as different problems. The position taken in the first question is that conscience is not any unique or simple function of the mind, but simply the whole mind occupied about a certain
