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 138 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Chapter iii, contains " A General Analysis of Conduct." All con- duct is at first impulsive, having no end consciously in view. In the reaction of the induced experiences into the inducing impulse a psycho- logical basis for moral conduct is found. This back reference of the experience to the impulse, is termed the mediation of the impulse, or will. Through it the impulse is on one side idealized or given value; on the other, it is controlled or directed. Around this analysis is then grouped the discussion of the categories of Satisfaction, Good and Value on the one side : and those of Duty, Law, Control, Standard, etc., on the other.

While the Syllabus is limited intentionally to psychological ethics, and brings social conditions into consideration only incidentally, the theory advanced will be found to have very direct bearings on many of the most mooted questions of sociological method. Recent discus- sions have been very warm, as to how far it is possible to have an objective science of society on the pattern of the natural sciences, which is not shot through at every stage with valuations of its subject- matter ; as to the difference between psychology and sociology ; and as to the extent to which individual states of consciousness can be used in explaining actual social transformations. The position which is taken in regard to any of these questions will depend entirely on the psychological theory of conduct which consciously or uncon- sciously is being used; and without agreement here, no methodolog- ical agreement can be hoped for.

It is on account of the light which Professor Dewey's theory of conduct throws upon these questions, whatever one may think of the completeness of the theory itself, that a review of his Syllabus is offered in this place. ARTHUR F. BENTLEY.

An Ethnologist's View of History. An address before the annual meeting of the New Jersey Historical Society, at Trenton, N. J., January 28, 1896. By Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, Philadelphia, pp. 24.

Dr. Brinton has performed a valuable service in maintaining the following thesis :

" I claim, therefore, that the facts of ethnology and the study of social psychology justify me in formulating this maxim for the