Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/652

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.
[Vol. III.

himself in the preparation of his "Study," a Jacobian bibliography. It is true, he mentions a few writings in a foot-note (p. 16). We should also expect a reference to the collected edition of Jacobi's works in this place; it surely belongs here.

We welcome contributions of the kind presented by Dr. Wilde, but we see no reason why the work should not be done carefully and methodically. There can be no doubt whatever that the author has the ability to do it in that way. He has done the work so well that it is a pity he did not do it better.

Frank Thilly.

The Ethical System of James Martineau. By Joseph H. Hertz, Ph.D. Columbia College, New York, June, 1894. pp. 85.

This pamphlet is the third of the "Columbia College Contributions to Philosophy, Psychology, and Education." It consists of seven chapters. The first is concerned with the questions: (1) Is Ethics a science or an art? (2) What is the proper 'method' in Ethics? Ethics is both a science and an art, according to the author. Moreover, "both as a science and an art [it] is occupied solely with ends, and never with the investigation of causes " (p. 9). On this second point the author does not seem to be quite clear, for, in speaking of Ethics as an art, he says, "It is also a system of rules, which must not alone satisfy the understanding, but move the will, i.e., have motive efficiency" (p. 10). And again (p. 11), "Ethics as an art must ... supply motives for ethical conduct." It is difficult to see how Dr. Hertz proposes to exclude the consideration of causes here. The importance of "hortatory ethics and applied ethical psychology" is insisted upon, and "the wonderful section in William James's Principles of Psychology, entitled the 'Ethical and Pedagogical Importance of the Principle of Habit'" is referred to as a brilliant example of what such literature should be. The chapter ends with a very inadequate sketch of "Early English Intuitionism" in less than three pages. The second chapter takes up Reed, Stewart, Whewell, and Kant. Martineau, of course, is compared with the latter. This chapter also impresses one as scrappy. The style in which the essay is written is very careless from the beginning, and the punctuation almost unpardonably so. And this being true, one is hardly prepared for the thorough and valuable examination of Martineau's system which follows; and still less, perhaps, for the occasional passages of really vigorous writing. Chapter III deals with "Martineau's Fundamental Postulates." The conception of a graduated "scale" of "springs of action" is justly criticised as artificial. "Judgment is here passed upon a living character, not a mere 'spring of action'" (p. 34). In Chapter IV "Martineau's Development and Application of his Fundamental Principle" are considered. Here the difficulties of Martineau's scale of "springs of action" are fully discussed, except from the "consequential" standpoint, which is considered later. Among other