worthless. Where, we may ask, is the evidence that this is a universal, or even a frequently observable, moral judgment? What are we to make of the facts apparently inconsistent with this view, or does the author know of none such? On what grounds does he deny the possibility of taking perfection of character as an end in itself, or has he never heard of a seemingly self-evident dictum that was annihilated by the concrete realities of experience? And when we read that actions directed towards the welfare of others are in themselves of no moral value, is this too supposed to be a deliverance of the universal moral consciousness, or is it merely what this consciousness ought in consistency to hold? And if the latter is meant, as seems to be the case, why does he not seriously attempt to show that the explanation proposed for the popular judgment upon devotion to others is really tenable as a complete solution of the problem, in the face of the difficulties that seem to stand in its way? To these questions no answer is forthcoming. We must take the author's ipse dixit for any assertions he may choose to make, or at best content ourselves with a reference to some obvious phenomenon which could be explained in terms of almost any ethical theory that has ever been proposed. Let it be clear that the amount of truth and error in the theory itself is not here in question. What we wish to point out is the manner in which it is built up. As it here stands, it is mere autobiography, extremely interesting and indeed valuable as a contribution to the study of contemporary moral ideals, but with no more claim to the title of science than Amiel's Journal intime; and this regardless of the possibility of a future demonstration in the hands of another person.
But perhaps it will be supposed that the desired evidence is to be found in what is the first volume of the present translation, bearing, as it does, the title "The facts of the Moral Life." But such an expectation will be disappointed. The subject-matter here is exclusively the evolution of the moral life from custom to law and morality. This process is traced in the history of language, of myth, and of custom itself, the methods and alleged results of the comparative anthropologists being entirely rejected, as readers of the Logik would anticipate. All of this is interesting, much is valuable, and some of it convincing; but it leads to no conclusion which could not be adopted with equal facility by any school that does not postulate an absolutely unchanging moral code. Of the second volume the same may be said. In a space about three-fifths of that which Sidgwick allows himself for his history of ethics, all the theories of ancient, mediaeval, and modern moralists, down to those of our own gener-
