as a means to the greater happiness of mankind,—or else he would decide that they were not hedonists, but idealists.
Space does not permit me to touch upon Mr. Fite's discussion of idealism, or his method of solving practical moral problems by a compromising diagonal between hedonism and idealism; but perhaps enough has been said to justify the opinion that if, instead of attempting to reconstruct the situation as a whole, from the standpoint of philosophical consistency, he had more closely adhered to his original intention of furnishing a definition and analysis of the several types of ethical theory as actually held, he would have written a less vulnerable book. I agree with Mr. Fite that ethics cannot remain permanently divorced from metaphysics, and that there is a logical connection between the moralist's general philosophical attitude and his ethical position; but in forcing the views of the hedonist to what he regards as their logical implications, in identifying them with a mechanical philosophy, an associational psychology, a Lamarckian biology, and a sensualistic view of pleasure,—and in identifying idealism with the antithesis of all this,—he is stating what he thinks should be the logical position of hedonists and idealists respectively, but he is also giving a very inaccurate and misleading presentation of the facts ; and this because he has chosen to present hedonism as of a single stereotyped form, while the word idealism is regarded as broad enough to include everything except the crassest form of egoistic hedonism.
George S. Patton.
Princeton University.
M. MetchnikofFs enquiry is essentially teleological. He investigates the nature of man for the sole purpose of describing and evaluating the natural end of human life. The thesis, which embodies the author's biological convictions and determines the argument of his book, is that certain fundamental disharmonies exist between the human organism and its environment. Because of these disharmonies man is unable to accomplish satisfactorily the round of his existence and stumbles along through many ills to an unsatisfactory end. Self-consciousness reveals to man and intensifies the evils which disharmony originates. As a first reaction, man confuses the disharmony with the total life process and conceives of life here and now as evil. The whole, however, asserts its preeminence over the parts and brings about a second reaction, viz., the thought of a future life in which evil shall be removed and happiness attained. Thus arise religion and philosophy, the one a blind faith in immortality as a palliative for human ills, the other a reflective promulgation of the same error. Philosophy refutes religion and in turn resolves itself into negation. It thus prepares the way for the true solution of life's problem by the exact and ob-
