Page:Philosophical Review Volume 8.djvu/557

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539
SUMMARIES OF ARTICLES.
[Vol. VIII.

sults for all parts are the same. A perfectly symmetrical face or body or nervous system is an anomaly. During infancy the body is more symmetrical than at any other time. Asymmetry increases with development. Right-sided persons have larger bones and muscles, hence greater strength and increased functions on the right side of the body and on the left side of the head. The opposite is true for left-sided persons. This asymmetry is true for sensitivity of the eyes, ears, nostrils, and skin. The results have been obtained from too insufficient data to make sweeping statements; but in general it may be said that on one side of the body the bones and muscles are larger, the nerves more refined, and the brain more developed, according as the individual is right-sided or left-sided.

F. M. Winger.

ETHICAL.

James Arbuckle and His Relations to the Molesworth-Shaftesbury School. W. R. Scott. Mind, No. 30, pp. 194-216.

In 1725 we find James Arbuckle in Dublin, the intimate friend of Hutcheson and Molesworth. All three were philosophic followers of Shaftesbury. In 1729 Hutcheson went to Glasgow, and if we regard him as the 'Father of Scottish Philosophy,' then we shall have to say that Scottish philosophy was born in England, and spent its infancy and youth in Ireland. All that we know about the philosophy of this little Molesworth-Shaftesbury club of 1725 is contained in 'Hibernicus's Letters,' one hundred and two in all, written by Arbuckle and published in the Dublin Journal between April, 1725, and March, 1727. Arbuckle's philosophy, as here found, is essentially the æsthetic morals of Shaftesbury. The supreme good is happiness or the beautiful life. Man is ethically an artist. Happiness has three essential elements—pleasure, joy, and tranquility. Pleasure is delight in the beauty of inanimate things; joy delight in the beauty both physical and moral of living and social beings; tranquility delight in the beauty of mental order and harmony. Thus Arbuckle's ethics was essentially æsthetic. Unlike Hutcheson and Shaftesbury, he never uses the expression 'Moral Sense.' Of conscience he has little to say, and this little is writ in æsthetic terms. We cannot, he says, help knowing right from wrong, for "there issues from Conscience to the mind its own picture pure and unspotted." Again, he is not so optimistic as Shaftesbury. Happiness no doubt is the reward of virtue, but is not always really so here below. Hence he has to call in a Deus ex machina who will make all thing right in a future life, where a higher beauty will atone for the imperfections of the present. In treating of government and economics, Arbuckle has to set aside his idea of beauty, and fall back on Shaftesbury's benevolence, which he interprets with Hutcheson as "the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Conclusion—Shaftesbury never decided whether to define virtue as beauty or as benevolence. Arbuckle defines it