enterprise, and to prove that such a system of morals is possible. Much confidence is placed in a Ceylon tribe called the Veddahs, who are reputed to be highly moral and without religion. Morality is of a purely natural origin, arising from the social instinct which has been developed as a means of adaptation to the conditions of life. Among the systems characterized and criticised as artificial are the ethics of religion and of the church, the "Klugheitsmoral," and the theory based on an atheistic nihilistic world-view which offers salvation from the misery of existence by return to primal nothing. In the introduction the writer considers the various classes that might be inclined to sympathize with the aim of the society, and curiously enough comes to the conclusion that only those who are animated by a genuine religious interest in the moral welfare of humanity are likely to give any material aid! The book is a well written and suggestive programme of an ethical system without metaphysics.
The object of this little book is to show that the Golden Rule is the highest ethical principle, and that it has everywhere modified and influenced the institutional life of society. Not much attention is given to a consideration of ethical principles, because these have been dealt with so fully of late by other writers, and what is needed just now is a more careful inquiry into the ways in which ethical principles become active forces in the lives of individuals. In the introduction, the freedom of the will is assumed as one of the essential characteristics of the human mind; and the prevalent theories of Evolutionary Ethics are shown to be inadequate, either as failing to explain fundamental facts of the moral life, or else as vainly attempting to explain the higher in terms of the lower. Then, in somewhat Hegelian fashion, the human mind in its process of self-development is regarded as giving a clue to the ultimate principles of the universe in its process of creation and growth. These ultimate principles are Justice and Grace. Justice is the exaction of what is due to one, and Grace the yielding of what is one's own. Neither is reducible to the other, but the former is primary, and the latter complementary. Evidences of the presence of these two principles are seen everywhere in the universe,—in inanimate nature, in the plant and animal worlds, and above all in the world of man. The second chapter deals with the character of the individual. There are three stages of intellectual development, the child stage, the scientific, and the philosophical, with their respective kinds of emotion, sensuous, psychical, and rational. Corresponding to these are three stages of moral development, obedience to authority, pleasure or self-interest, and altruism. The last-named moral principle is equivalent to the Golden Rule.
The larger part of the work is occupied with an examination of the institutions of society. These are: Family, School, State, and Church. The
