parts.. He first urges that "in the main we approve of ourselves for having done what we thought right at the time, even though we may have come to think it wrong". This is, I conceive, true as regards the moral judgments of reflective persons: but if we are considering the moral sanction, i.e., the pleasure and pain attending judgments of approbation and disapprobation respectively-I think it must be admitted that the emotional satisfaction with which we contemplate a past act, performed under a sense of duty which we have come to regard as mistaken, is at best a very feeble pleasure. At any rate, the proposition that this feeling should always prevail in conflict with others demands some further justification, besides a mere demonstration that it approves its own predominance. This further justification Prof. Fowler finds in the fact that "human nature, in its normal condition, is so constituted that the remorse felt, when we look back upon a wrong action, far outweighs any pleasure we may have derived from it, just as the satisfaction with which we look back upon a right action far more than compensates for any pain with which it may have been attended ". I infer, however, from a later passage (ch. iv., p. 139) that by a normally constituted" mind Prof. Fowler means a mind where the feelings of self-approbation and self-disapprobation are "very strong "-since it is only in the case of such a mind that he is prepared to affirm that a man always gains more happiness in the long run by following the path of duty". This view, at any rate, importantly limits the application of Prof. Fowler's justification of the moral sanction; and this limitation, I think, snould be more carefully explained in ch. ii. But, further, if the claim of moral sentiments to prevail is justified on the ground that they are more intense and durable than other pleasures and pains," some qualification seems to be needed in the account subsequently given (ch. iii.) of "sacrifice" as an essential characteristic of acts morally approved. I do not see how, according to Prof. Fowler, it is possible for a "normally constituted mind" really to sacrifice its "own good to the greater good of others": I do not even see how moral action can even appear to such a mind under the form of "sacrifice," provided that it has duly apprehended the greater intensity and durability of moral pleasures and pains.

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I have, however, a more fundamental difficulty with regard to the analysis of the moral sentiment given in ch. iii. Prof. Fowler aims at "discriminating carefully between the intellectual and emotional elements in an act of approbation or disapprobation": and following Hume's "peculiarly lucid treatment" of this distinction, he explains that "whether we are reviewing the actions of ourselves or of others, what we seem to do, in the first instance, is to refer them to some class or associate them with certain actions of a similar kind which are familiar to us, and then, when their character has thus been determined, they excite the appropriate feeling of approbation or disapproba

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tion, praise or censure". Here, however, there is a fundamental question to ask, with regard to which Hume's answer seems to me different from Prof. Fowler's. In this intellectual reference of an action to a class which precedes the feeling of approbation or disapprobation, is the class conceived as having ethical characteristics—I mean, as being good or bad, right or wrong—or is it not? That Hume means to answer this question in the negative is quite clear; but if Prof. Fowler means to answer it in the same way, I think his language should be more carefully chosen. He speaks of this intellectual or logical process-when distinguished from the "feeling of moral approbation or disapprobation"-as a "moral judgment," a decision upon conduct": and he gives as illustrations of it that "as soon as we have recognised an act as brave or generous, we regard with esteem or admiration the doer of it. . . no sooner is the act duly labelled as a lie, a theft, or a fraud, or an act of cruelty or ingratitude, or the like, than the appropriate ethical emotion is excited". No doubt it is; only, I conceive, in this "labelling" the acts are implicitly judged to be good or bad. When a plain man recognises an act as "brave he implicitly recognises it as good or deserving of praise, at least in some respects if not absolutely; and in the same way "theft," "fraud," "cruelty," as commonly used, are dyslogistic termse.g., in saying that a vivisector is cruel it is commonly meant not merely that he inflicts a great deal of pain in order to advance knowledge, but also that he ought not to inflict it. If then Prof. Fowler means to use the terms with their ordinary connotation, his view is different froin Hume's; if not, such connotation should be more scrupulously excluded.

To a certain extent, I think, the book shows a hesitation or oscillation between these two incompatible views. Throughout the interesting discussion in ch. iii. (pp. 47-80), in which the distinctive characteristics of the object of moral approbation and disapprobation are determined, Prof. Fowler seems to be considering exclusively moral sentiments; as if he held with Hume that "the final sentence which stamps on characters and actions the mark of approbation or censure" depends on some "internal sense or feeling". And in accordance with this view he explains that the feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation can never be properly described as erroneous the error

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attaches to the preliminary process of reasoning, reference, or classification". În ch. iv., however, we are told that in the logical process of which the moral judgment is the result, "there are two possible sources of error. In the first place, the act of reference or association may be faulty

but even

if the action be referred to its right head, there remains the second question whether we are really justified in regarding the class of actions itself as right and wrong.' This second question clearly relates to a judgment or opinion, not a mere sentiment: there are, as Prof. Fowler goes on to say, "wide divergences of

opinion on matters of conduct," so that it is of vast importance to "discriminate between those acts which are really and those which are only reputed, right and wrong". For this kind of discrimination Hume's view, as I understand it, leaves no room: in attempting it, Prof. Fowler seems to me to have left Hume behind, and to have accepted the fundamental assumption of an objective rightness and wrongness in actions, which is strictly incompatible with Hume's system. Where Hume only explains, Prof. Fowler is prepared to justify.

Where then is the justification to be obtained? Prof. Fowler agrees with Utilitarians in holding that it "must be derived from the observation of the effects and tendencies of actions": and the manner in which he traces the progress of morality as the result of the continued application of this test, at first in a merely semi-conscious and almost instinctive way, and afterwards, in the later stages of civilisation, by the consciously reflective action of philosophers and reformers, affords a good specimen of his terse, fluent and generally judicious exposition. It appears to me, indeed, over-dogmatic to affirm that "wherever any change of moral conduct takes place, unless it be dictated by blind passion, or mere submission to authority the change is invariably due to some change of opinion on what constitutes the advantage of the persons whom it affects"; since to take Prof. Fowler's own instance-I should attribute such a change as that which has brought about the abolition of slavery rather to an increased general concern for the feelings of slaves than to a changed opinion as to what constituted their advantage. But I have a difficulty in criticising closely Prof. Fowler's view of moral progress, since I am unable to conceive with any precision the application of the test which he proposes. He holds, with Bentham, that "we may rightly regard the tendency to produce a balance of pleasure over pain as the test of the goodness of an action"; but he considers that in estimating pleasure and pain we must "frankly acknowledge that there are some pleasures and pains which are incommensurable with one another," and also "recognise the fact that our pleasures differ in quality as well as in volume". Now I cannot myself remember to have experienced any pleasure or pain strictly incommensurable with any other feeling definitely recognised as pleasurable or painful: i.e., I cannot recall any one pleasure so immeasurably greater than some other that I should prefer the former, however limited in duration, to an indefinitely prolonged pleasurable consciousness of the latter kind: and similarly mutatis mutandis of pains. And if such incommensurabilities are really found in the conscious experience of others, it seems fundamentally important to know-what Prof. Fowler does not tells us--how many grades of incommensurability there are, and what pleasures and pains belong to each grade; since it is obvious that, in testing rules of conduct by a rational estimate of

their effects, wherever any pleasure of an incommensurably higher grade comes in, the whole aggregate of pleasures of a lower grade, however prominent they may be in our forecast of consequences, will have to be discarded from practical consideration. Surely a calculation conducted on this plan would turn out very unlike that ordinary regard for consequences which Prof. Fowler represents as being historically the spring of moral pro

gress.

But the calculation becomes still more perplexing if besides these incommensurables we are to take into account differ

ences in " quality" as contrasted with differences in "volume". By what standard are we to compare superiority in quality with superiority in volume? and why is it to be assumed that men's common judgments as to the "high" or "low" quality of pleasures are less open to the charge of "prejudice, fancy and caprice" than their common judgments as to the goodness or badness of actions? I observe that Prof. Fowler prefers to call his ultimate standard of morality "welfare" or "well-being rather than happiness, partly because it "corresponds almost exactly with the evĉayoría of Aristotle". I am afraid that this is, in my view, a reason for objecting to it; since I find that Aristotle, in determining the particulars of evapovia, appeals to just those common moral opinions as to virtue and vice for which a test, in Prof. Fowler's view, is required. Now if, when we ask how to distinguish what is really "good" in conduct from what is reputed such, we are referred to the effects of actions on social well-being, it is clear that the test will be illusory if the notion of well-being is to be, in its turn, wholly or partially identified with that of good conduct; but it is just this identification that is the prominent characteristic of Aristotle's treatment of evĉapovía.

I have hardly space to comment on the last chapter, in which Prof. Fowler gives some examples of the manner in which the test of conduct may be applied to practical questions, either by extending existing rules to cases which do not obviously fall under them, or by suggesting more refined maxims of conduct than those which are commonly prevalent". But I may observe that the particular duties which he proceeds to enforce are to a great extent such as ordinary men would admit to be obligatory in any theoretical discussion, however much they may practically neglect them; at least I cannot recall any grave arguments in favour of smuggling, evading taxes, accepting or offering bribes, reckless gambling, inconsiderate almsgiving, borrowing without a reasonable prospect of repaying, or the minor social faults of impertinent curiosity, impertinent advice, and the like.

those cases in which Prof. Fowler has pronounced on points that are really matters of serious controversy, it seems to me that his reasoning is liable to lack cogency from excessive brevity. Thus it is not made clear why "under all circumstances" suicide involves the "evil example of cowardice" more than any other

avoidance of useless pain: nor, again, why "cock-fights and bull-fights" are to be summarily dismissed as admitting of no justification, if the "beneficial effects in enjoyment" to the foxhunter are to be adduced to justify foxhunting. Still, in spite of this undue abbreviation of the arguments, the frank, earnest, practical survey of neglected duties which this chapter presents is a commendable feature in Prof. Fowler's treatise; and contains instruction for readers of all classes.

H. SIDGWICK.

The Origin of Ideas. By ANTONIO ROSMINI SERBATI. Translated from the Fifth Italian Edition of the Nuovo Saggio sull' Origine delle Idee. Vol. III. London Kegan Paul, Trench, 1884.

Pp. xvi., 442. In this third and last volume, completing the English translation of the Nuovo Saggio (former volumes noticed in MIND XXXI., XXXIV.), Rosmini treats of his intuition or "idea of being," alias "Ideal Being," as source of all certainty," criterion of truth, and inasmuch as "it is the means of knowing all other things (sic), itself Truth or "the truth".

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Incidentally, there is much criticism of other philosophies, especially as to their "starting-points," which is of the same indiscriminate and disproportionate kind as was found in vol i., where enormous space was devoted to the discussion of Dugald Stewart's views and other obsolete or obsolescent strings of opinion. Here, while Kant and Fichte are shortly dealt with, Bouterweck and Bardili have an almost equal place, and Cousin has a whole chapter to himself.

As in the other volumes, there is much declamation and dialectical diffusion, frequent improving of the occasion,' and the reader is continually on the sublime treadmill of "Ideal Being" -a perpetual motion without progression.

From perusal of the 1200 pages or so of the New Essay, the most patient student will probably rise with little but a sense of fatigue and a conviction that all Rosmini had to say to him and this generation, was already sufficiently said in his own summary, the Sistema Filosofico; and that the New Essay, if thought fit for presentation at all, would have been better presented to English readers in a selection of passages with connective comment.

The most to be made of the gift in hand, is by way of looking for further light on the nature and worth of "Being" as a primum cognitum and conditio cognoscendi. And the secret of Rosmini seems to be nearly found in the following sentences: "The ancients were aware that all philosophy started from a fact, and that this fact was no other than the intuition of being taken universally-or, in other words, the actual existence of an intellection" (p. 36). "What do we mean by saying that our mind conceives things as different from itself? Simply this, that