I attach this to a copy of his petition to your excellency and refer to that for what he says of the change that has come upon himself.
Respectfully Yours,
JOSEPH E. GARY.
Professor Lombroso wrote his article with the best intentions, I fully recognise the fact; and certainly he was governed by the most humane motives. But even conceding the correctness of his theory he necessarily failed from the insufficiency of his materials.
One thing more, Anarchism is a collective term like Liberalism. People understand by it many different and sometimes contradictory theories. That part of it which is not in harmony with human progress will fail, shall fail, and must fail, but that part of it which is good will live in spite of all. The mistake, however, which has been made in our special case will not again be made in America; and that also will be for the general good.
Joliet Penitentiary.
M. SCHWAB.
THE PRINCIPLE OF WELFARE.
I.
If we wish to discuss ethical problems in a fruitful manner and form just judgments of ethical theories, we must always bear in mind the fact that there is not merely one single ethical problem, but many. With the solution of one of these problems the solution of the others is not necessarily given, and thinkers who have treated a single problem have not, in dealing with that problem, always determined their position with reference to the others. At all events, it will be an especial and separate task to investigate the relation to each other, the reciprocal dependence or independence, of the different ethical problems. When we speak of the ethical problem as an especial philosophical problem, we must not forget that upon closer examination it resolves itself into a number of different problems.
The reason of this tendency to regard the ethical problem as simple and indivisible throughout, may be partly sought in the fact that philosophical ethics did not develop until the positive religions had lost their undisputed control over the minds of men. Religious ethics is simple and indivisible by virtue of its principle. It is founded on authority. Its contents are the revealed commands of authority; the feeling which impels us to pass ethical judgments is the fear or reverence or love with which men are filled in the presence of divine authority; the same motives impel man to follow in his conduct the commands of the authority; and the principles of the education of individuals and of the order of society are just as immediately given by definite relation to this authority. It is upon the whole the peculiarity of positive religions and the cause of their great importance in the history of mankind that they grant man satisfaction in a lump for all his intellectual wants. The true believer has concentrated in his belief his whole mental life; his belief is at once the highest science, the highest virtue, the highest good, and the highest æsthetics. Philosophical ethics has sought too long to retain the simple unity which is peculiar to religious ethics. The mistakes of the greatest philosophical ethicists may be in part traced to this source. A criticism of Kant and Bentham would more fully illustrate this. The fundamental error—one so often found in the science of the past—is too great a love of simplicity.