The author finds as the result of numerous experiments, that a series of numbers tends to become continuous in memory, i.e., that the numerical difference between successive numbers tends to decrease.
W. B. Pillbury.
ETHICAL.
Ethical hedonism, the theory that pleasure is the ultimate Good, rests upon psychological hedonism, the theory that pleasure is the only thing which we can choose. This psychological theory is false; the belief in it rests upon a confusion between the pleasant idea and the idea of pleasure. Pleasure is the 'efficient cause' of choice: unless the idea is pleasant we shall not try to realize it. The 'final cause,' however, is the content of the idea, which may be anything whatever. The earlier English moralists distinguished between the dynamical and teleological aspects of choice by the two terms 'motive' and 'intention.' Of late the distinction seems to have been ignored. Sidgwick's 'rational hedonism' denies that pleasure is the true object of choice, but makes it the only reasonable ground of choice. We choose, not pleasure, but objects; yet we choose them only because of their 'felicific' possibilities. Sidgwick thus makes the old mistake of supposing that, because we choose only what is pleasant, we must choose it for the sake of the pleasure. Ethical value must be objective as well as subjective. To make truth merely subjective is to destroy truth; to make the Good merely subjective is to destroy the Good. The hedonistic theory of the Good, because subjective, fails in two points: (i) it can interpret the Good only quantitatively, distinguishing between greater and less goods, but not between higher and lower; (2) it cannot transcend egoism.
Ellen B. Talbot.
This article is a comparison of the author's definition of 'value' with Meinong's (Ar.f. sys. Ph., I, 3). Value may be defined by refer-
