Page:Philosophical Review Volume 7.djvu/97

83 to furnish, within a compass of about nine hundred duodecimo pages, selections that shall fairly represent what was most important and characteristic in the ethical speculations of English writers during the eighteenth century. The editor has not confined himself rigidly to this period, for in the appendices we find, e.g., brief selections from Hobbes, Cudworth and Locke; but the main emphasis is very distinctly upon the eighteenth century writers.

Even keeping to the eighteenth century, however—as was probably best on the whole—it is evident that the selection of typical writers, and the further selection of passages calculated to give an adequate idea of their characteristic views, involves very considerable difficulty. As we shall have occasion later to examine somewhat carefully the principles upon which the editor has proceeded, it may be well at the outset to dispose of the question as to whether such a body of selections is particularly desirable. To this question—while frankly opposed on principle to volumes of selections when not absolutely needed—I must reply, for my own part, with a most emphatic affirmative. The complete ethical works of the writers who would be represented in any such compilation as that before us are by no means universally accessible in small libraries (at least, in a sufficient number of copies for class use), while their possession by the student himself, unless he takes quite special pains to procure them, is, wholly apart from the financial consideration, out of the question. And the difference between reading carefully chosen and extended passages from any philosophical writer and merely reading about his works, is so great that, while neither takes the place of the other, both are absolutely needed—except, of course, when an extended study of the author's works at first hand is practicable. Moreover, while the ethical speculations of Englishmen during the eighteenth century seem to present the most extremely diverse tendencies, they really have a good deal more in common than would at first appear—enough, at any rate, to prevent such a body of selections, judiciously compiled, from being a mass of merely heterogeneous material.

In the preface to these volumes, the editor recognizes the difficulties of the undertaking, and indicates in a few words the principle according to which the authors represented have been chosen. He says: "In the first volume are printed in large type the three principal texts of the sentimental school—Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Butler, followed by Adam Smith and Bentham. In the Appendix, in smaller type, are given additional extracts from Hutcheson's other writings. In the second volume are printed at length S. Clarke, Balguy, and