Page:Philosophical Review Volume 21.djvu/260

242 Both naturism and characteristic ethics, however, fail to interpret correctly the true end of life, which is fully to realize for its own sake a humanity which includes within itself, but is not circumscribed by, the values of ethics, art, and religion. While neither school has passed beyond these limitations in its ethics, both have developed some exponents of a truer life-philosophy, that of "major morality." "Major moralists" find their premises in "the universal conditions of life" and "the self-affirmation of the soul as the one thing needful and valuable," and they realize that "the world is aiming to produce, not moralists, but men," while "minor moralists" have confined themselves to arranging "the details of conduct for the time," and lack systematic treatment of the life problem as a whole. Logical as this distinction seems to be, it leads to the surprising classification of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Spinoza, Shaftesbury, Hume, Schopenhauer, Spencer and Nietzsche in one group as "major moralists," in opposition to Socrates, the Stoics and Epicureans, Cudworth, Clarke, Butler, Adam Smith, and Kant, who are "minor moralists."

The philosophy of life presented in the work as a whole is noble; and to the present reviewer, in the main convincing. Its most serious limitation, perhaps inevitable in an idealistic system, is the vagueness of its supreme conception, "humanity," an ideal from which practical guidance in a concrete situation could hardly be obtained. Little attempt is made to meet the arguments of naturalistic philosophers. Perhaps the value of the work as a contribution to the theory and history of ethics is to be found in its numerous incidental interpretations and criticisms rather than in its metaphysical system as a whole. In both respects, however, it deserves the serious attention of specialists. Its philosophy of life is lofty and stimulating, and ought to appeal to general readers whenever the author presents it in popular form.

An outline of the general features of this book is hardly necessary, as it has already become well known, and the new edition contains only two important changes the addition of the "food-seeking impulse" to the list of primary instincts (p. 83), and of "remorse" to the complex emotional states involving the sentiments (p. 158). Perhaps, however, some impressions derived from experience with the work as a text in undergraduate courses may be of interest in throwing light upon the successfulness of the book in accomplishing its purpose. This purpose, stated in the Preface (p. v), is to provide students of all the social sciences "with the minimum of psychological doctrine that is an indispensable part of the equipment for work in any of these sciences," and to do this without implying previous familiarity with psychological treatises, in a way that shall be "intelligible and interesting to any cultivated reader." The purpose has, I believe, in the main been successfully accomplished. The social science student receives a modern psychological point of view, freed