a fallacy of the post hoc ergo propter hoc kind. Again, the Utilitarian argument: the act A is performed because it increases the general happiness, for if it produced sorrow, we should avoid it, completely confuses conditio sine qua non and causa efficiens. It is like reasoning: I go to the theatre because it is warm there, for if it were cold I should not go. In so far as the Utilitarian theory ignores certain actual ends and actual conditions, it lays itself open to attack. Ethics can never create absolute imperatives, it must discover them as actual facts. Another difficulty Utilitarianism meets with is the problem of the distribution of happiness. To a self-consistent eudæmonism, which cares only for the presence of the greatest possible happiness in the world, the manner of distribution is immaterial. The moral nature demands a certain equality of distribution, while the sum of happiness can be increased only on the basis of inequality. Pessimism alone can avoid this difficulty by inserting in the formula in place of happiness, freedom from pain. Dr. Simmel finally concludes that endæmonism presents us with a formula that is wholly without a content, as formal as the categorical imperative itself, which it imagines itself to supplement. The volume ends with an examination of the relation between virtue and happiness. There is no logical connection between the two. The association is a product of evolution.
While the present volume is strictly scientific, and therefore not calculated to appeal to the general reader, it is sure to be read with keenest interest by earnest students. The many examples, which are admirably chosen from various branches of science, are highly suggestive in themselves. In short, while the book must be read with considerable care, in order to be appreciated, it will amply repay one for all the intellectual effort required to master its contents.
Frank Thilly.
