Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/377

No. 3.] salvation from a great danger, and urged them to do all in their power to mitigate the evils of the transition. Lange stands fully on the ground of social ethics in the thought that improvement cannot come to-day by moral preaching to individuals, but only by changing the conditions out of which evil necessarily grows.

The rest of the article is occupied with the recently published books of Th. Ziegler entitled: Die sociale Frage eine sittliche Frage. This work shows the influence of Lange to a considerable extent. It differs, however, in that it does not set out, as is the case with Lange, from general springs of human action and from the struggle for existence, and show the economic causes out of which definite efforts arise, but rather takes its start from ethics, which it declares to be a neighboring province to social science. It maintains that the social question is "perhaps primarily an ethical question," and on this ground handles the problem from the standpoint of ethics. A brief outline and criticism of the work chapter by chapter follows. S. agrees in the main with Ziegler, and gives high praise to the book, but finds that it does not carry out the author's ethical principles as fully and fruitfully as the title and expressed aims of the book would lead one to expect.

F. C. F.

All will agree that ethics is concerned with the value of conduct in respect to its goodness or badness. There is not a similar agreement as to the sphere of economics. Most of the views current on this subject are found unsatisfactory. After an examination of the different views, the conclusion is reached that economic science is concerned with that which we value simply as means to something else. Art-products, virtues, etc., are ends in themselves, or the indispensable conditions of ends in themselves. They are not consumed in order to reach some other ends as are economic goods. The fact of exchangeability is a mere accident of economic goods. The fact of being valued as means is of the essence of such goods. Objects cannot be rigidly divided into economic and non-economic. All objects may be regarded from an economic point of view. Nevertheless moral, aesthetic, and philosophical values are never regarded as mere means, and this distinguishes them from economic values. Ethics deals with ends, and economics with means, and there is a grave danger, in studying the latter, of losing sight of the end and regarding the means as end. The relations between ethics and