Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/246

230 results show a fairly close agreement with the requirements of Weber's Law. A tendency was noticed to displace the stimulus in memory toward the mean value of all the stimuli given. It is suggested that this may serve as a basis for a new law of sense memory.

W. B. P.

As defined by Holland, the antithesis between Ethics and Jurisprudence is that between an ideal recognized by the individual, and a standard imposed by sovereign power. While the two standards are often distinct, there are cases where they are identical. To emphasize the spheres of law and ethics as separate, does not necessarily imply that there is no connection between them. Ethical forces may modify the original data of the problem of law. The sovereign power is not a force operating in a closed sphere. For the analytical jurists, sovereignty is an ultimate fact, but this cannot satisfy the political philosopher. Although all attempts to fortify sovereignty by social contract theories have failed, these attempts indicate the felt need of some basis for it. Sovereignty is not always the creator of law. The material of law is custom. Some customs have, indeed, no ethical significance, but others have, and through these law has at its source important ethical relations. The ethical worth a custom may have possessed is conserved when the custom becomes law. Sovereignty can never alter the nature of that which is essentially right or wrong. The analytical school admits the ethical relations of law in the science of legislation. In Equity, law as it ought to be is contrasted with law as it is. The existence of equity indicates claims of justice outside of, or opposed to, existent law, while the fact of equity decisions being incorporated in statute law indicates a transfer of ethical principles into the body of positive law. Decisions without precedent are based directly upon right and justice—an appeal to universal ethical law. Ethics checks legislation as a source of law. Law reform is due to a conflict between the positive law and a feeling of right, which feeling is an ethical force. International law is founded on principles whose sanction is purely ethical. The appeal must be to generally recognized principles of equity and justice.