Page:Philosophical Review Volume 4.djvu/351

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335
SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES.
[Vol. IV.

actions; those which are preceded by their idea; and those which are done for pleasure, including the actions which are the result of choice. The physiological counterparts of these actions are similar. Yet all actions are not identical in nature. There is enough to show that the teleological conception is subordinate. The final interpretation of life cannot be in its terms. Nor is a strictly utilitarian explanation satisfactory. Our nature expands in many varieties of activity, and the moral ideal is the development of all our faculties, or, by means of sympathy, the development of the faculties of humanity. A true Ethic would thus put for the ideal of man the development of his faculties.

M. S. Read.

The Altruistic Impulse in Man and Animals. T. Gavaneseul. Int. J. K, V, 2, pp. 197-205.

Man is altruistic as well as egoistic. Altruism appears in the animal world, and man's altruism is but a development of this. The writer cites many instances of true altruism among the lower animals. Sympathy, the force that urges us to act for the good of others, is the psychical side of a physiological impulse that is due to the real organization of the individual. Nature's supreme end is the preservation of the many. Altruism has not been invented by the reason of man; it has a biological basis.

M. S. Read.

La discussion judiciaire et l’état de droit. Gaston Richard. Rev. Ph., XIX, 11, pp. 478-500.

Discussion is the most characteristic feature of the social life of the present; whilst the age is critical, it is also constructive; hence it is becoming more organic, i.e., more living. Juridical humanity is adult humanity reflective has been substituted for spontaneous belief. Doubt is a fruit of the maturity of humanity, and is the measure of man's intellectual elevation. Juridical procedure is a result of the growth of the human mind, and was impossible while men were yet bound by tradition. Ordeal and divination have this in common, that they both rest on the belief in a permanent revelation of God to men. Greek Philosophy is the first great manifestation of the need of proofs and of demonstrated truth. In the development of the state of law testimony is the essential factor, representing as it does the spontaneous inquiry of society into whatever menaces it, the recuperative power which the social body possesses. Testimony in law is subject