Page:Philosophical Review Volume 6.djvu/614

598 (wonder, love, and hatred), or even to two (love and hatred). In other respects their treatment of this part of the subject is the same, save that More omits what might be called Descartes's physiology. He does not consider the effect which the different passions have upon the heart, blood, etc., and the action of the animal spirits. He mentions the pineal gland only to dismiss any discussion of it. Whether these omissions were the result of conviction or of happy chance, they go far to increase the value of More's treatment. In fact, all the best part of his system is his own. Besides this virtue of omission, he has the positive merit of recognizing the importance of feeling much more strongly than Descartes has done. The latter recognizes to some extent the value of the feelings, but he does so grudgingly, and as if against his will. Hatred, he says, is always bad, while More considers all the passions good in themselves. It is true that in this half-hearted appreciation may have been the germ of More's higher valuation, but the development was due to More, not to Descartes.

Valuable as the passions are, they do not compose the highest part of the mind. The ruling principle is right reason, which is the inscription on man's mind of the divine, all-pervading world-reason, a communication from God. This divine origin is the cause of the obligation attending notions of good and evil, which are comparable to ideas of mathematical principles, and so are not dependent upon this or that feeling, but have an intrinsic value of their own. Of this inner essence right reason is cognizant. Its dictates are the measure of good; for man there is no good save that which seems so to right reason.

As soon as we ask for a more accurate description of right reason we get into difficulty. Its nature is incapable of exact definition. It seems to be a kind of inner sense, a divine