Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/602

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590 A. FOUILLEE'S SYSTEMES DE MORALE CONTEMPORAINS. to the form in which the author states the syllogistic rules, I would remark that, having given as Eule 6 that to prove a negative one of the premisses must be negative, it is surely superfluous to add as Eule 7 that if both the premisses are affirmative the conclusion must be affirmative. There are several points of interest in Professor Kay's book to which I should have been glad to call attention, but I must now content myself with a brief reference to a note on Inductive Seasoning with which the work concludes. It has been for some time generally recognised that Mill's so-called Inductive Methods partake largely of the deductive character, and Dr. Kay brings this out very clearly. Except, however, as an argumentum ad hominem it is hardly satisfactory to regard all inductions as reducible under one or other of these methods ; and I am not quite prepared to admit that our author has succeeded in establishing that " all inductive reasonings may be reduced to the syllogistic form ". J. N. KEYKES. Critique des Systemes de Morale contemporaim. Par ALFRED FOUILLE'E. Paris : Germer Bailliere, 1883. Pp. xv., 411. A critical estimate of contemporary moral systems might be written in either of two ways, according as the historical interest or the enforcement of the writer's own views predominated. In the former case, different systems should be treated in their historical connexion, and the different aspects which the same or related moral notions present should be pointed out. But, if the criticism of systems of morality is only a stage in the proof of independent ethical opinions, a different method might fairly be adopted, and historical systems attended to only in so far as they discuss the topics which enter into the critic's proof of his own theory. M. Fouillee attempts to combine these methods. He examines minutely the details of certain systems, and he founds certain positive conclusions of his own on the result. After a preface in which he says that he will endeavour " to develop different doctrines as they represent the logical positions of thought and the gradations of its successive points of view," he proceeds to his critical review of ethical systems. In Book i., which deals with the ethics of Evolution and Dar- winism, he argues that intelligence as well as pleasure is a motive to action, and that the tendency of reason to universality is not satisfied unless others as well as the individual agent are happy : this is the "intellectual motive" which the English school have omitted. The positivists (Book ii.) recognise altruistic and (usually) disinterested sentiments; but though their doctrine is " a useful transition from naturalism to idealism," it affords no way of deciding between egoistic and altruistic impulses. The