Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/181

 No. 34.] [APRIL, 1884. MIND A QUARTERLY REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. I. GEEEN'S ETHICS. By Professor HENRY SIDGWICK. GREEN'S Prolegomena to Ethics is a highly interesting and impressive book ; and no one who makes the study of morality a matter of serious concern to whatever school he may belong can read it without instruction and edification. At the same time I do not find myself able to obtain from it a clear and consistent conception of the author's ethical system, even in outline. It may be said that the book does not profess to give such a system ; its title indicates that it consists merely of " Prolegomena " to a future or possible systematic exposition of ethics ; and the calamity which pre- vented its completion has left it imperfect in the very part in which the plan of such a systematic treatise might have been expected to be at least foreshadowed. I admit the force of these considerations ; and therefore I do not put forward the following arguments as a formal criticism of what has perhaps not been formally attempted : I merely think it worth while to state the reasons why though fully appreciating both the philosophical importance of this work and its remarkable literary qualities I am unable to put , together into a coherent whole the different expressions of Green's ethical view which I find in it. Green's doctrine as to the basis of morality, in the most 12