and dignity." It will be seen that the author's long and wearisome search for the good has resulted in his taking refuge in a partial intuitionalism. His theory is left in a state of unstable equilibrium, ready to incline either way, according as the "duty ethics" or the "goods ethics" is under discussion.
We have now the key to the author's position, so that it will not be necessary to examine the rest of the book in detail. The theoretical portion ends on page 205, the remaining hundred pages being devoted to a brief survey of our leading ethical relations. Of the remaining chapters, the most important is that on "Moral Responsibility, Merit, and Demerit." The author is a most uncompromising libertarian. Indeed, for him the assumption of freedom in the world of moral action is as necessary as that of the law of causation in the physical world. "The denial of freedom must in logic result in denying all proper responsibility and merit or demerit. . . . Instead of a law of freedom, we have the parallelogram of forces; and life becomes a great Punch and Judy show, in which there is a deal of lively chattering and the appearance of strenuous action, but nothing more" (p. 166). As will be seen, the author makes the familiar confusion of determinism with fatalism. According to fatalism, no matter what I do, that which is destined to come to pass will come to pass; while, according to determinism, all the effort that I put forth will have its due effect. The only doubt is as to whether I shall actually put forth the requisite amount of effort, and of course the event is equally doubtful whether we assume freedom or determinism. This confusion vitiates the arguments throughout the chapter. Moreover, the author does not suggest that for the determinist it is as difficult to understand what is meant by responsibility for actions that do not proceed from one's character as it is for the libertarian to conceive of responsibility without freedom of the will. Even from his own point of view, there is a serious difficulty. "For perfect responsibility, of course, there must be perfect freedom and knowledge, so far as the deed in question is concerned." And yet "Nothing is plainer from experience than that our freedom and knowledge are both limited, and that they vary greatly from one person to another" (p. 169). But there is even greater difficulty in fixing the measure of merit and demerit. "In the mixed development of moral life, the natural impulses and the auxiliary motives arising from non-moral impulses are so many, and our ignorance of the real impulses is so great, that it has been questioned whether a truly moral act has ever been done" (p. 170). Freedom has been assumed to save responsibility, merit, and demerit; but just when the author seems surest of them, they threaten to elude his grasp.
In closing, a word may be said as to the qualifications of the present
