Page:Philosophical Review Volume 5.djvu/566

550 either to desire or to feeling. In the first sense, the author had defined it as "the relation (incorrectly objectified by speech) between an object and the human desire directed toward it." Meinong criticises this definition, but it is practically the same as his own. In consequence of one of Meinong's criticisms, however, the author alters his definition. With reference to feeling, Meinong defines value as the capacity of a thing to become the object of a 'value estimation,' i.e., a feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness occasioned by an affirmative existential judgment, and an opposed feeling occasioned by a negative existential judgment. The value is thus proportioned to the sum of the intensities of the two qualitatively opposed feelings. This formula of Meinong's is not general enough to cover all cases. A better statement would be that the value of an object is proportional to the difference between the affirmation and negation feelings with reference to it. This harmonizes with the author's previously developed concept of 'relative furtherance of happiness,' which Meinong attacks, but to which his own theory leads if fully worked out.

This article contains an introduction and three parts. The introduction reproduces the leading features of parts I, II, and III of Spencer's Principles of Sociology; part I epitomizes part IV of that work; part II is a summary of Spencer's discussion of Political Institutions; and part III is a criticism of Spencer's Individualism, and also a reply to the latter's strictures on Socialism. If we seek for the conclusion of Spencer's sociology we shall find it in the doctrine of the two types of society, the military and the industrial, or, what corresponds to them, involuntary and voluntary coöperation. The military type is bitterly attacked, while the industrial type and the laisser-faire principle are regarded with great favor. Despite the fact that Spencer often shows great practical sense in dealing with questions of politics (e.g., the methods of choosing magistrates, direct or indirect suffrage), in showing the inevitableness of lower and higher classes in the highest industrial organizations, in showing the futility of constitutions to regenerate society, etc., he nevertheless is extremely partisan in his advocacy of Individualism. For example, he thinks it is highly unjust to tax the unmarried and the childless to support a system of general education. He also