through society, since society is the condition of the development of a personality." Caird, Bradley, Sorley, Mackenzie, and others, support some modified form of Hegelianism.
The two later German theorists, Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, have proved, as a whole, unassimilable to the English mind, though their influence is felt. Schopenhauer, according to whom the world is due to an irrational act of unconscious will, productive of hopeless misery, thinks all true morality is summed up in the denial of will, (1) by the repression of egoism, by the practice of ordinary virtue, of love and sympathy; (2) by ascetic self-mortification (he was much influenced by Buddhism). Hartmann says we must aim at the negation of the "will to live" (the incurable source of evil), not each by himself, but collectively, by working towards the end of the world-process and the annihilation of all so-called existence. These systems are not unconnected with the literary pessimism which is often opposed to Mr. Spencer's sociological optimism.
If, therefore, we return to the question of "naturalism versus supernaturalism," as the prevailing controversy is sometimes, though inaccurately, called, we find that this great progress of Rationalistic ethics brings us nearer to a solution. The issue has been gradually contracted until it rests almost exclusively on the ethical problem. If morality can find a secure and permanent basis apart from Theistic belief, most of the defence of that belief which is put forward in modern times breaks down completely. Such a basis is clearly provided in the modern school of independent ethics. In the first place, recent moralists have given a more scientific analysis of morality and immorality than was formerly obtainable. The principle of ethical discrimination is not a new one. For many centuries in Catholic theology—the only systematic moral theology—the ethical criterion has been mainly utilitarian. All theologians admitted that morality or immorality was intrinsic to actions, and did not arise from a divine command or prohibition. Actions were not immoral because forbidden, but they were forbidden because they were immoral. And, in analyzing this inherent immorality of certain acts, it was generally traced to their social harm-
