Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/79

No. 1.] has been of late vigorously reminding us, just as much abstractions from 'real' experience as the concepts of physics are. If physics deals with physical processes as if there were no mind, empirical psychology treats of psychic processes without consideration of any unity of consciousness, and both standpoints may be described as equally abstract, each alike resulting in "a mere partial representation of a part of the full concrete experienced events." In the fourth chapter, Mr. Taylor passes to a consideration of "the material nature of morality." Based on elaborate and rather tedious analyses of specific virtues such as 'justice,' 'chastity,' 'truthfulness,' and the like, the conclusion is reached that there is, "in all our moral actions and judgments, radical and irreducible duality of development along diverging lines" (p. 179). "Altruism and egoism are divergent developments from the common psychological root of primitive ethical sentiment." Neither type can be reduced to the other, nor is there any more comprehensive formula into which both may be resolved. This view, from the standpoint of the philosophical demand for ultimate consistency and unity, the author is fully aware, amounts "to a confession that moral theory is hopelessly bankrupt." "But the bankruptcy is not peculiar to ethics," inasmuch as the current concepts of physics, like those of empirical sciences in general, "seem to involve assumptions no less inconsistent than those made by the moralist." Universal egoism and universal altruism end in equally impossible paradoxes, "and the apparent subsumption of both under a common name by the theory of self-realization, turns out on closer inspection to be little more than a piece of verbal legerdemain" (p. 193). It is impossible here to give a detailed summary of this discussion; the argumentation is acute" and well-sustained, and the illustrations are numerous and well-chosen. The opportunity is not to be resisted, and the author does not fail to take full advantage of the scope thus afforded to exhibit his really striking talent for setting forth the apparently hopeless dilemmas and puzzles of ethical casuistry. For illustration, we may cite the following: "Is Hegel, for instance, to go on with the Phänomenologie while German national life is being extinguished by the cannon at Jena, or to shoulder his musket and do what he can to repel the invader?" (p. 198).

In practice such questions are decided "by the social customs of our day and class," although the 'self-regarding' and 'benevolent' aspects of morality are imperfectly combined in our ordinary notions. Mr. Taylor, of course, points out and insists very strongly "that, in the majority of cases, the path of self-cultivation and the path of social