The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891 - Various

It is true that there are realities other than that of the senses; take as a most simple instance mathematical points and lines. But there is no reality which theoretically considered can not become an object of science. The statement that there are facts to which the ladder of science does not reach, is tantamount to a declaration of supernaturalism and dualism. Professor Adler has discarded the terminology of the old dogmatism, but he has not discarded its basic error. Instead of developing the old faith into a monistic religion, he throws away religion as a basis of ethics, but preserves carefully that element in it which is hostile to science and philosophy.

The Law of Relativity is a very important contribution by Professor Höffding to the Science of Ethics. After stating that the moral law, if it is to be truly universal, must "only judge the general direction of the tendency of the will," he affirms that the individual relativity of ethics, or its personal equation, is a factor which enters into the ethical question, "when different individuals with like ethical principles and in like circumstances, but with different dispositions and capacities have to be considered." The individual is always a part of society, and the life of society is no other than that contained in its members, the ideal being "reached only when the individual's efforts in the cause of society also serve the free and harmonious development of his own faculties and impulses." In an ideal State only that would be demanded of each individual which lay within his range and power. Self-control, as a negative virtue, is a psychological impossibility. It is necessary to take note whether there is room for other inclinations that could absorb the store of energy. The struggle of self-control lasts until the new application of energy gains complete ascendancy. The happiest man is where morality has become organic and "there is an agreement between the task arising from the general principles and the particular circumstances, and the capacities and desires of the individual." Professor Höffding objects to the views of the Italian criminal-psychological school that atavism is a sign of social imperfection, that it "does not justify placing society and the criminal over against each other as absolute right and absolute wrong." He concludes that it is at least an open question whether there are any human beings "in whom no sympathy for the moral law can be awakened, however much the law may be individualised."

The arguments of Professor Clark on The Ethics of Land Tenure are summed up in the following passage: "If a state originally owned its land, in the fullest sense of the term, it had the right of voluntary alienation which is inherent in such ownership. Increments of value, present and future, are its property; in alienating them it gives away its own. If the attainment of its ends requires that they be transferred to others, the title of the grantees is valid. To deny to the state the privilege of alienation is to essentially abridge its natural rights; it is to make its ownership of the land incomplete." In relation to what is incorrectly termed "unearned increments," it is remarked, "if the essence of property is regarded, and not its form, the increments of value attaching to land are not unearned by their proprietors. In an active market land has its fair price, and this is based partly on the future increments themselves." The loss arising from a confiscation of land-value would fall "not merely on millions who have titles in fee simple, but on all who have made loans on land as security…. To every one it would come in the shape of a seizure by the state of property invested in accordance with its own positive invitation."

The communication of moral ideas, and not ideas about morality, which are the abstract or scientific renderings of moral ideas, is considered by Mr. Bosanquet as the proper function of an Ethical Society. The fault of the present time is distraction, and "one great cause of this distraction is the notion of a general duty to do good, or something other than and apart from doing one's work well and intelligently." The only certain way of communicating moral ideas is contagion, and the most useful teacher of morality is "not so much a man of abstract theory as a man of reasonable experience."

Ethics may be of service to philosophy, says Mr. Salter, in opening up the realm of "what ought to be," beyond the realm of "what is and happens." Moral ideas belong to the realm of unverifiable ideas, which are believed in because of "their own intrinsic attractiveness and authority." Ethics tells us of the law according to which men should act, the law of justice and brotherhood; we may conclude "that whatever may be the actual forces in the world at any time, justice and love are rightfully supreme over them all, and that these are so interwoven with the order of things that nothing out of harmony with them can long stand." It is "the imperishable glory of transcendentalism in our country that in the decay and disintegration of the ancient creed," it sounded the high-note "that the soul can in some sense know the object of its worship; that it need not feed on hearsay, and tradition, and arguments, but can have vision." (Philadelphia: International Journal of Ethics, 1602 Chestnut St.)

REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. September, 1890. No. 177.

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