motives," and also because the word 'motive' has been "a perfect hive of confusions." Ethics must be founded "rather upon an analysis of the reflective judgment than upon an analysis of the action judged" (p. 100). Ethics, then, as an empirical science based upon the wider science of psychology, must (1) "supply a psychological description of these emotional processes in simple and, as far as possible, in non-symbolic terms"; (2) "write a history of their development, regarded as a chapter in the general psychological evolution of humanity"; and (3) "give some account of the classes of action by which, in various stages of the history of civilization, these emotional processes are aroused." Accordingly, there are three main divisions of a scientific theory of ethics: "(1) an analytical, and (2) a genetic theory of the moral sentiments, and (3) an account of the moral ideal and of moral progress" (p. 102). Hence, ethics may be described as we please, "either as the theory of moral sentiments, or as the theory of the moral judgment"; but if we choose the latter designation we must remember that the moral judgment is based upon moral sentiments. The simple and peculiarly ethical emotions are the feelings of approval and disapproval. The 'good' is that which we view with feelings of approval, the 'bad' with sentiments of disapprobation. This "irreducible minimum," the author is aware, will prove unsatisfactory to two very different sets of critics, whose objections he proceeds at some length to anticipate and overrule. But after all has been said, it seems to the present writer that those moralists who attempt to explain the sentiments of approbation and disapprobation by more simple experiences have at least the advantage, not only of simplicity which Mr. Taylor freely grants, but also of a greater degree of consistency with what would seem to be the fundamental implicates of the author's own general position, and his apparent view of what really constitutes genetic description. On the other hand, those who insist on the ultimate nature of 'obligation,' 'responsibility,' etc., may content themselves with Butler's analysis that, whether they are highly complex notions or not, they are involved "in the very idea of reflex approbation." The author's long account of the manner in which the self-consciousness of personality gradually arises, and of the way in which the external sanctions of society and religion become transformed into internal obligation, although interesting and instructive in some respects, attains neither greater nor less success than has attended all such attempts in the history of ethical speculation. It does not seem to contain anything of fundamental and little of detailed originality.
The concept of merit "has presumably passed through much the
