Page:Philosophical Review Volume 5.djvu/684

668 they vary with time and place. Morality is a necessary condition of social life, but morality is not synonymous with this or that particular moral code. Morality may be reduced to the idea of solidarity. It is the form given to the reciprocal relations of social beings, just as health is the harmony of the functions of an organism. A superior moral code contributes to the chances of the survival of a society by rendering it better fitted for the struggle for life. Progress consists in the better adaptation of individuals to their circumstances.

The author sums up his position thus: "The organic conception of social life involves many important consequences. The first is, that time is an essential factor in social reforms. The second is, that progress consists less in destroying than in using and perfecting that which already exists. The third is, that the end to be aimed at and the means of its attainment must vary with time and place. In a word, it is the ruin of the absolute and of the a priori in politics. It is the advent of the experimental, that is to say, of social intervention based upon the evidence of facts and results." So Dr. Pioger calls for the nationalization of all railroads, telegraphs, and other means of communication, for the limitation of private fortunes, for restricting the right of bequest, etc. Unlike Spencer and the Individualists who regard the mistakes of government as sufficient evidence that state interference is unjustified, he regards those mistakes as a necessary part of the experimental method. Governments must try and try again; only through repeated failures can success be attained.

, Jr.

The writer of this pamphlet divides his work into three parts. Part I, the Introduction, considers "the antecedents of the Dissertation of 1770 in contemporaneous philosophy, and in Kant's own previous work" (pp. 13-43); Part II gives us an English version of the same (pp. 43-86); while Part III discusses the relation of the Dissertation to the Critique (pp. 86-101). The object of the book is, of course, a highly commendable one. We need good English translations of all of Kant's more important writings, especially of those preceding the appearance of the Critique of Pure Reason. But the task is not easy, as students of Kant can readily guess, and should not be undertaken heedlessly. In attempting to render into English the celebrated Latin dissertation of the great German thinker, Dr. Eckoff has bravely attacked a difficult problem. The translation, however, can hardly be called a success. It is awkward, obscure, and artificial. Passages like the following are, unfortunately, not infrequent: "But although phenomena are properly the appearances of things, but not ideas, or express the inner and absolute quality of objects, their cognition is, nevertheless, of