Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/475

 REVIEWS.

L fcthique. Le Bien ct le Mai; Essai sur la Morale comicttrte comme Sociologie Premiere. PAR E. DE ROBERTY. Paris, Felix Alcan, Editeur, 1896. Pages xxiv + 237, 8vo.

ONE of the most hopeful indications for sociology is the manner in which the class who formerly devoted their energies to ethics are rallying under the standard of social science. Many of them had long felt that the current ethics presented a barrier to their expansion in the direction of their inclinations, and therefore hailed the new science as affording free scope to their altruistic proclivities. There is a dis- position to consider sociology as a sort of scientific ethics, an ethics which recognizes the law of causation in conduct, and therefore holds out some hope of being some time able to bring it under the domain of law.

Professor E. de Roberty de la Cerda, author of a work on sociology and half a dozen others on various philosophical subjects, has openly espoused this new point of view and begins with the present volume a series of works on Ethics. In adopting the name "L* Ethique" for the general designation of the whole series he admits that he does so for the sake of brevity, and that his conception is best expressed as " Prolegomena of an Ethics in process of formation." He hopes to complete the work in four or five volumes, but has already laid it out under nine heads. These titles sufficiently indicate the originality of the scheme. Among them we find the following : "Social Psychism ; " "The Constitution of Ethics transformed into Elementary Sociology;" "The Intellectual Series of the Future Amorality." This last term amorality" is a sort of keynote to the entire movement voiced in this work. It may be the first use of the word itself, but the thought had been expressed before. On page 114 of Psychic Factors of Civilization occurs the following passage : "To remove the obstacles to free social activity is to abolish the so-called science of ethics. The avowed pur- pose of ethics is to abolish itself. The highest ethics is no ethii s. Ideally moral conduct is wholly unmoral conduct. Or, more correctly

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