half of the volume is new. It will be remembered that the Data of Ethics was published by itself in 1879. After more than ten years of ill-health, partly occupied in further elaboration of his Principles of Sociology, the author wrote The Principles of Ethics – Part IV, Justice, which was published separately last year. He now publishes Part II, "The Inductions of Ethics," and Part III, "The Ethics of Individual Life," thus completing the first volume according to the original plan. There still remain to be written and published the concluding parts of the second volume: Part V, "The Ethics of Social Life – Negative Beneficence"; and Part VI, "The Ethics of Social Life – Positive Beneficence." The author is particularly anxious to complete these parts, since the divisions at present published, taken alone, are likely to leave a wrong impression respecting the general tone of evolutionary ethics. "In its full scope, the moral system to be set forth unites sternness with kindness; but thus far attention has been drawn almost wholly to the sternness."
The large number of contradictory moral principles advocated by different moralists shows that ethics has not yet acquired that certainty of method which makes other branches of knowledge so fruitful. Ethics should, therefore, preface its investigations with a critique of the apparently simple notions with which it deals. Whether it has any claim to existence as a special science outside of this sphere is indeed questionable. Since its subject-matter belongs in part to psychology, sociology, and history, it may perhaps seem inexpedient in the future to embrace such a variety of sciences under a single head. All that the writer aims to do, therefore, is to present a sort of preface or introduction to these special ethical investigations. He criticizes the fundamental concepts of ethics and discovers their highly complicated character, at the same time calling attention to that realism which raises its own abstractions to the dignity of active psychical forces. The concepts examined by Dr. Simmel in this first volume of his work are Obligation (Das Sollen) (pp. 1-84), Egoism and Altruism (pp. 85-212), Ethical Desert and Guilt (pp. 213-292), and Happiness (pp. 293-467). (A review will follow.)
This work, the author informs us, is addressed to those readers who seek to reach a true conception of philosophical systems and to understand the movement which is manifested in their development. It will appeal mainly to those who seek through the study of the History of Philosophy assistance in understanding the problems of philosophy itself. This work differs from other volumes of a similar nature by the limitations it has set for itself as
