This plan the author has succeeded in carrying out most admirably. His 'theory' is that of self-realization, but while this has served him as a principle of continuity and harmony throughout the book, it is kept so completely in the background as in no wise to embarrass a teacher who might wish to enforce the moral precepts more from the utilitarian, intuitional, or theological standpoint. Each of the twenty-two chapters take up some specific object to which we stand in moral relations (e.g. 'Food and Drink,' 'Dress,' 'Property,' 'Animals,' 'Fellow-men,' 'Family,' 'State,' &c.) and discusses it in every case under the categories of 'Duty,' 'Virtue,' 'Reward,' 'Temptation,' 'Vice of Defect,' 'Vice of Excess,' and 'Penalty.' The chief sanction presented is always that of the intrinsic evil effects and not that of extraneous penalties. President Hyde might have taken as the motto of his book the saying of Plato that the greatest penalty of evil-doing is "to grow into the likeness of bad men."
At first sight the book seems easily open to criticism as arbitrary in the choice of subjects and artificial in its treatment of them; but when we consider the age of the pupils for whom it is intended, the sound and bracing way in which each subject is handled, and its entire freedom from all taint of either ascetism or sentimentality, that first impression gives way to one of admiration for the judicious spirit which pervades the whole. In the chapter on 'Knowledge' there is an unfortunate confusion between truth as the aim of scientific investigation and the duty of speaking the truth. The style is clear and forcible. So excellent is the choice of language in general that the terms 'old codger' (p. 21) and 'dude' (p. 23) seem quite out of place. To those teachers in our High Schools and Acadamies who make morals a text-book study for their pupils this book can be most heartily recommended. Others, also, who prefer to use less formal methods in giving moral instruction to young under their charge will find the book stimulating and suggestive.
This is an important work on a most difficult subject. The divisions are: a short general introduction; a consideration of the nature of the Feelings (their psychological and physiological conditions; theory of their origin); the special laws of Feeling; contributions to a systematic classification. Unfortunately, the translation is not all that could be wished, as a glance at the Preface will show. Review will follow.
