tempted to use them" (p. xxviii). What Gay really says is this: "If a man interpret the writers of morality with this due candor, I believe their seeming inconsistencies and disagreements about the Criterion of Virtue, would, in a great measure, vanish; and he would find that acting agreeably to nature or reason (when rightly understood) would perfectly coincide with the fitness of things; the fitness of things (as far as these words have any meaning) with truth; truth with the common good; and the common good with the will of God." Now it must be admitted that this passage, taken by itself, is not free from ambiguity; but, by turning to Vol. II., p. 268, where this part of the Dissertation is reprinted, and examining the context, the reader will find that this is only part of an argument by which Gay attempts to show, indirectly rather than directly, the latent utilitarianism of non-utilitarian systems. Paley, who followed Gay very closely here, as so often, expresses the meaning much more clearly when he says: "The fitness of things means their fitness to produce happiness; the nature of things means that actual constitution of the world, by which some things, as such and such actions, e.g., produce happiness, and others misery; reason is the principle by which we discover or judge of this constitution; truth is the judgment expressed or drawn out into propositions."
But while one may find somewhat to criticise in the Introduction, and in the order of arrangement adopted in these volumes, one can have nothing but praise for the taste and judgment shown by the editor in his choice of the selections themselves. It is hard to see how this really difficult task could have been more satisfactorily per- formed. The topical index of nearly sixty pages is also worthy of all praise. In the hands of a competent teacher, able at once to trace the historical development of English ethics, and to excite in his stu- dents a living interest in ethical problems themselves, these volumes with greatly facilitate the satisfactory teaching of ethics, both in England and in America.
Ernest Albee.
William James. Longmans, Green & Co., New York, London,
Bombay, 1897.—pp. xvii, 332.Professor James is always an original and stimulating writer. In the present volume he is unhampered by the uncongenial demands of severely methodical treatment, and the free play of his genius is specially delightful to follow. On any theme this brilliant writer would
