Page:Philosophical Review Volume 12.djvu/569

5.] reconciliation of the two" (p. 68). But is not Sidgwick's criticism here again a little forced? Even in a theory of Self-realization there is a legitimate place for self-sacrifice, and even if the self-sacrifice of the virtuous man is never a sacrifice of ultimate good, it is surely permissible, and necessary if we would avoid pedantry, to 'speak with the vulgar' on this as on other topics. And as to the ultimate issue between the pagan and the Christian estimate of good, everything depends upon the relation in which we conceive the competitive elements to stand to the non-competitive, upon whether we subordinate the latter to the former or conversely. That for Green the good will is the supreme good is indubitable. On the other hand, the complete good, we may say, includes for him those intellectual and æsthetic elements which, while in themselves they are competitive, cease to be so when subordinated to, or taken up as elements in, the good will, as the supreme good.

Even the severe condemnation which Sidgwick passes upon Green's interpretation of Greek ethics is significant of Green's own real position. The condemnation is that Green reads Christian meanings into Greek ethical thought; Sidgwick finds him "modernizing very naïvely." He tries to make Socrates and Plato say that the supreme good is the will to be good; he seeks to socialize the Aristotelian virtues of courage and temperance. It is hardly conceivable that one whose own thought was at least half pagan should have so completely failed to understand the great expressions of the pagan spirit. 2em

Professor Stratton, of the University of California, has in this attractive sheaf of essays put forth a volume of distinct value—a value due not alone to the intrinsic merit, originality, and pertinence of the data and views presented, but even more to the underlying strength and unity of the interpretation of larger psychological issues that pervades the whole. This interpretation contributes to a reconciliation of the apparent antagonism between the experimentalist and the introspectionist; to a reassertion of the proprietary and hereditary tenure of the psychological estate in behalf of contemporary psychologists, for whom experimental mindedness is an indispensable warrant for continued sovereignty; to a varied proof that the psychology of to-day deals neither with the corpora vilia, nor with the superficial or incidental aspects of mind, but in spite of difference of approach and of novelty