The deepest and most constant instinct of every living being is that of the preservation of the individual and his descendants. This instinct impelled men to form the first family groups, and the need of concerted action for procuring food, for attack and defense, is the origin of the first moral rules as it is of the first language. Morality, like language, is an unconscious collective elaboration. "The law of least effort, of least pain, which is manifest in the history of language, explains the origin of civilization."
"Education socializes the individual." While the brain is still plastic, the family impresses the rules of social order upon the child, and cultivates in him the social sentiments—pity, love, pleasure in the joy of his brothers, and knowledge that all men feel and suffer as himself. Moral precepts are at first the commands which the child received from his elders, and later "the echo of these commands, transmitted from age to age with the language, becomes the inner voice of duty which the religious idea accentuates and amplifies. The discussion of the part played by education in the development of morality is one of the most suggestive portions of the book.
The first five chapters (I. Outlines of the Formation of Society; II. The Individual and Society, The Play of Interests; III. Social Motives; IV. Foundation of the Moral Judgments; V. Sacrifice) are genetic in their aim, giving what might be called a speculative history of morality based on psychological principles, the fifth discussing the historical relation of morality and religion from the point of view of the notion of sacrifice. Chapter VI, Metaphysical Questions, manifests a decidedly agnostic attitude though not dogmatically so. "Metaphysical ignorance appears to be the consequence of individuation and the condition of life.… Metaphysical ignorance leaves room for individual faith."
The three remaining chapters discuss various current social problems such as luxury, socialism, the economic duty of the State to the individual, the woman question, the relation of morality and religion, civilization and the birth rate. To this last topic, is devoted the final chapter of the book. A statistical study of certain districts in Switzerland is presented, and the general conclusion is reached that the increase of wealth and culture tends to decrease the birth rate, particularly in democracies. The ideal is an equilibrium between a sufficient birth rate and a better distributed well-being.
Apart from the general point of view, in which the reader may or may not agree with the author, there is little to criticise. One is somewhat surprised, however, after reading on one page that the will is the measure of the intensity of the motives (p. 102), to find on the next that freedom is a regulative principle which produces inhibition and gives to reflection the time to neutralize the impulses. The thought is clear, rational, and vigorous. While finding in society the explanation of the origin of morality, the author does not forget, as so many now seem to do, that society exists for man, and not man for society. The style is lucidity itself. It is a book that can be read with pleasure and profit by all who are interested in ethical and social subjects.
