Page:Philosophical Review Volume 11.djvu/641

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THE PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW.
[Vol. XI.

interpenetrating and all-suffusing quality of moral self-hood which every form of the so-called virtues must have, in order to the realization of any even imperfect ideal of the Virtuous Life." "In devotion to the rational life," to quote only one of the instances given, "it is the bone of veracity" (p. 264). Again, in reference to his so-called virtue of "trueness," "being true," he says, "in conduct and character may be esteemed the one indispensable condition of all virtuousness, the core of all right and dutiful character" (p. 296). (2) Among the virtues discussed by Professor Ladd are, e.g., the following: Humility, Honesty, Resignation, Justness. Now I think it would not be easy to guess beforehand under which psychological rubric these virtues would be discussed. In point of fact, the first two are regarded as forms of temperance and virtues of the will, while the last two are virtues of the judgment. Such a classification seems to me to stand self-condemned. And it does not much help matters that Honesty is mentioned again in connection with Justness. (3) Professor Ladd is himself compelled to introduce after all the rejected division in terms of the object. "It has already been said," he observes, "that kindness as spontaneous and natural feeling cannot be further analyzed or, strictly speaking, defined; but its various manifestations, as these depend either upon the social relations under which the feeling comes into play, or upon the condition of the object toward whom the feeling goes out, require some separate mention" (p. 315),— the "separate mention" being simply the same sort of discussion as had been given to other particular virtues, and the "manifestations" being such virtues as Friendship, Hospitality, etc.

On the later discussions of Part II, relating to Duty and Moral Law, I have not time to dwell, and will only say that a conspicuous merit of Professor Ladd's treatment is his insistence on the superiority of personality over any impersonal law, and on the impossibility of finding in the latter a basis for morality. When we pass to the third division of the work, the point of view just mentioned is further developed in a criticism of the Kantian ethics, and it is perhaps a little surprising in view of all this that Professor Ladd should appear to have so little sympathy with Hedonism, the strength of which certainly lies in just this very conviction that the final worth of any conduct can never consist in its mere conformity to any abstract law, but must always in the last resort be found in some form of personal feeling. At any rate, that the criticism of Rigorism readily connects itself with an insistence on the ultimate character of feeling must be a very familiar fact to the translator of