Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/605

 592 CBITICAL NOTICES : Mr. Herbert Spencer and Mr. Leslie Stephen. It is open to Prof. Fowl'er to contend that the theories of such writers are irreconcil- able with the admitted facts of evolution. This, however, he never does. Throughout the greater part of the polemical portions of the work the author seems to me if I may say so without disre- spect to be simply beating the air. Prof. Fowler never really comes to close quarters with any system which is actually held at the present day by moraljphilosophers of whom it is necessary to take account. All antagonistic theories are disposed of by such curt remarks as this which we may go back to cite from vol. i. (p. 12): "Any moral system otherwise constructed " than on a purely inductive basis " can have no solid foundation of fact, and necessarily partakes of a metaphysical and transcen- dental, that is, as we conceive, of a purely fanciful character ". Here the two professors appear hardly to recognise that those who conceive of Moral Philosophy as a branch of Metaphysics would admit as fully as they do that " the means at our disposal for the study of moral science consist in a knowledge of the results of those sciences which throw light (1) on the nature of the indivi- dual organism, that is, on the man himself ; 1 (2) on the medium, whether material or social, in which he exists " (p. 11). But these would contend that when we have established by induction the nature of man as he is, there remains the further question, ' What ought he to be ? ' and that no answer to this question can pos- sibly be given without involving an a priori judgment. Induction may prove what is ; it cannot prove what ought to be. Between ' is ' and ' ought to be ' there is a gulf fixed which no possible accumulation of experience can possibly bridge over. The ' con- tent ' of the Moral Law may be established by induction, but not its ' form '. I may find out by Induction what courses of action fall within my conception of ' lightness,' but how can the idea of ' Tightness ' itself be found in experience ? If we take as our ethical criterion the ' greatest-happiness principle,' we may find out by induction what courses of action will tend to produce happi- ness, but it is impossible to proceed to the judgment : 'Actions which conduce to happiness ought to be done ' without the assumption ' Happiness ought to be promoted'. When Prof. Fowler does at length come to face the question of the nature of Moral Obligation, an attempt is made to get rid of this imperious and ever-intruding ' ought : " The obligation to do what is right .... is imposed upon us by our moral nature, by which I mean the whole nature of man, sympathetic as well as self-regarding, rational as well as emotional, capable of reflecting on its own acts, and, as a conse- quence of that reflection, capable of passing definitive sentence of approval or disapproval" (ii. 260). In a note upon the 1 The metaphysical moralist would of course object to the identification of the " man himself " with his " organism ". Perhaps Prof. Fowler himself would hardly, on reflection, defend the concentrated materialism involved in this expression.