Page:Philosophical Review Volume 27.djvu/214

202 the social qualities first diminished under the influence of organic or psychical influences which totally derange organic and psychical life. They are also the social qualities which seem to suffer most when old age mocks at maturity and declines to second childhood. For all these reasons we seem justified in regarding them as criteria of the general development of the social life of each."

As excellent as anything in the book is the fine understanding of the problem and scope of ethics. "It is a false view of ethics which limits its interest to a few social questions specially singled out as 'moral.' Every question of values is a moral question and every purpose of men is relative to a value. Ethical activity is thus peculiarly comprehensive. It is not a species of activity coördinate with economic or political or even religious activity. ... It is not a specific type of activity at all, for it may be revealed in all the specific types. Ethical activity is wider in its range than any other, it is literally universal, revealed in every activity of life. In its pure form it is the most intimate and individualized and free of all activities, and it makes unending demands on every social organization."

The final chapters of the book are devoted to the statement and elaboration of what the author calls the second and third laws of communal development, viz., "the correlation of socialization and communal economy"; and "the correlation of socialization and control of environment." Into the intricate argumentation of these chapters we will not enter, except to refer to the philosophically fresh treatment of the processes of economic antagonism, competition and coöperation.

In conclusion, the reviewer cannot too highly recommend the book as a work of careful scholarship and penetrating thought. It belongs as truly in the field of philosophy as in the field of sociology and is an excellent example of the rapprochment which should be increasingly in evidence among the workers in these two fields.

Conservative and laggard as educational institutions generally have been in the matter of reshaping their ideals, methods, and curricula, the traditionalism and inertia of those educational agencies which may be termed religious have nevertheless been conspicuous. Those only who are intimately familiar with the latter can adequately