The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Review: McCosh - Our Moral Nature

by Jacob Gould Schurman

Our Moral Nature: Being a Brief System of Ethics. By James McCosh, D.D., LL.D., D.L., Ex-President of Princeton College. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892.—pp. iv, 53.

This little volume is pathetically suggestive. It is a collection of brief notes in which, without much reasoning or any consideration of alternative views, the author sums up his opinions on a variety of ethical questions, many of them fundamental. In the Introductory Note Dr. McCosh mentions the titles of his various philosophical works. He would like still to write a brief treatise on æsthetics. But the prospect of his writing it is slight: "It is doubtful if advancing age will admit of my doing more." May the memory of past activity mingle its cheer with the shadows of the thick years which are closing in round this honored and honorable career!

Our Moral Nature is not a philosophical treatise; it is rather a series of loosely connected talks given by a good man and an orthodox minister. Twenty-nine subjects are discussed in the fifty-three pages. "Justice" gets scarcely a page; "Moral Law" and "The Will" fare no better; "Evangelical Ethics" overspreads two pages, and "Duties to God" six. This distribution of topics tells clearly enough the nature of the book, so that it is not necessary to allude to the quotations from the Shorter Catechism. But those persons who have been thoroughly trained in the latter will scarcely stand in need of the present volume; nor can it be recommended to the professed student of ethics. But the work is not without value. As an autobiographic record, it is of the greatest interest. It shows us what a man of Mr. McCosh's eminence thinks and feels about the most momentous subjects that can engage the mind of man.

J. G. S.