Perhaps the most valuable feature of the book is the keen psychological analysis that is displayed throughout. Especially interesting is the use made of the element of sympathy in æsthetics to show that the altruistic sentiments are radically distinct from the egoistic. When practical questions are touched upon it is always in an elevated and inspiring spirit—e.g., the discussion of educational ideals, of the family, and of the woman-question. On the last topic it is urged that just because woman is different from man, she has different interests, and is thus entitled to political representation by her own sex.
The style is clear and compact, and the sentences short. While the reasoning is clear, and the analyses perhaps at times over-refined, the presentation is always so straightforward and free from all incumbering tehnicalities and pedantries as to adapt the work to the general reader who is interested in ethical reflections.
The general standpoint of this work is essentially the same as that of Ribot's Psychologie des sentiments. Will is the fundamental fact to which the life of feeling must be referred. To a perfectly passive being everything would be indifferent, nothing would be agreeable or disagreeable. Activity is thus the condition without which pleasure and pain would not exist. The instincts, appetites, and emotions are still more closely related to will, for they simply represent the definite tendencies to action which are determined by the constitution of the individual's particular nature. As such, they may be called 'inclinations.' They can best be classified according to the end to which they are directed, and may, therefore, be divided into 'personal,' 'social,' and 'ideal' inclinations. The personal inclinations have their source in self-love, or the desire for self-preservation. They include the bodily appetites, fear, anger, the desire for independence, the property instinct, and amour propre, which implies the sense of, personal dignity. Under the head of 'social inclinations,' come love friendship, love of country, pity, emulation. The selfish and social tendencies are both subordinate to the ideal inclinations. "The true, the beautiful, and the good, is the triple ideal towards which all the forces of our being are inevitably attracted." In the case of the ideal inclinations, too, the element of subordination enters. The good is superior to truth and beauty; it completes and dominates them. The particular tendencies to activity, therefore, constitute a species of hierarchy. The particular ends of the special faculties are all subordinate to the end of the organized being as such, which is expressed in the ethical tendency.
Since feeling in all its phases is so closely connected with conduct, it is evident that the education of the feelings is at least as important as the training of the intellect. To indicate the rules which should be observed in
