New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-09-25
SCIENCE OF RIGHT LIVING.
A READABLE STUDY OF ETHICAL THEORY
AND PRACTICE

THE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS poi BY HSSensy
PIP. XIV, 800. Harper Brothers'
An obvious criticism on Professor Bowne's
method is that he whites too we'll Ills SNORT
cYim hentences follow one another with the hasii
and tinkle OF epiqrams The reader scans them
one after another with delight. lie reads for the
more Measure of reading. But when he comes 10
reflect upon the meaning of the paragraph or
chapter that he has been pernsing, II IL not cear
that he has come any nearer the solution oil ui'i'
cnl. nroblem II one refuses 70 get behind the re-
turns as the saying is if he posts reason as the ui
Innate authority in all of dispute about rght
and wrong he will certainly be right on every
practical question Yet he will have done what
lie can 10 shut the door against the deeper lnVes-
cation by which reason may reach IN time thc
facts Mt the bottom of It's own processes. As man
develops the necessity of this effort TO fathom
reason itself becomes more imperative When
Psyche crossed the Stygian Lake, corpse rose
from the depths and stretched out imploring
hands in the hope of being taken into Charons
crazy ferry boat. But Psyche was on an errand
wholly practical, and following the instructions
which she had received, she shut her eyes to this
misery Of the abyss. But this cannot always he
DONE The corpse-like apparition must be at
ended to sooner or later. Now, beneath the sur
!ace upon which reason floats or less securely,
there is also dca | thing which rises with an i'm
pcrative demand for life or for eternal rest 1t is
The doubt which attacks the very heart Of reason
itself that most formidable sceptcism in the his
tory Of Thought, based the assumption of
priori mental forms, which while they determine
thought, 80 mask me object that we can never
know II as 1t Is.
Neither sensatonalism, whether that Of Locke
u. ..;sl.
.allible humanity; nor the scheme of the ntui-
tionists nor even the common-sense philosophy
Of men like Professor BOVINE has any valid means
OF ncutralizing this scepticsm. 1t can be ir-
uored. In fact. it is Systematically ignored in
ordinary life, because TO accept it would paralyze
action But from old Greek times to the pres
ent day, under one form another, II has turned
! cold and corpse-like stare upon the thoughts
If men, and has proposed its riddle. When IL
receives the right answer 1t will vanish, but
until then, it will force itself upon the attention
1t seemed TO some that the theory of evo-
hutton contained an answer to this scepticlsm
But II only brought out o rcstatcment OF the
problem If the data of ethics arc TO be sought
in the presumably non-moral conduct of ants
and cats and dogs and monkeys who Is going
TO build the bridge between the region Of brutes.
where murder and theft and incest can be com
manity, where each individual is conscious. not
merely of the law of might but Of a re-
sponsibility within himself for his acts? How
did man cross the gulf between brute indifference
and self-conscious discrimination in the merit
of his acts? II is here, says Professor
Bovine. that "the law of identity PLAYS
enc Of its best tricks upon us we
begin with the brute, and assume that IT Is
only brute Then we discover progress and, as
evolution is the word we view the advance as
the product Of the brute condition. and hence, as
the brute itself. How that which is essentially
and only brute can become anything else. or how
the brute which has transcribed Itself still re-
mains the identical brute-these questions are
undreamed of. Both assumptions involve con-
tradiction In the former case we ahhm
eroundess development; in the latter case. we
deny the development while affirming It, Either
we have a groundless change in the identity or
q contradictory idea In the change" While this
IL a very strong statement IL the logical dii-
aculty. It's effect may be somewhat restricted by
remarking that Mr.. Bovine has put the indivld
nal for the race The Implication is that the
evolutionary modification takes place wholly within
the life of a single creature. That may not DE
the case For example. it IS alphabetically pos
sible that a tribe Of men might exist IN winch
selfshness was supreme-hrst the selhshness OF
the individual against all other triDesInen ana
second selfishness Of the tribe as against all
other tribes It might he that In war a tribes
man, though inspired wholly W s"lf-seeklns
motives should meet the death Of brave man
Out of pure seishness. his companions would COM
memorate the fate of one who could no longer
ba a rival 10 them. simply because each felt his
own merit enhanced by the valor shown, perhaps
unwilIingly. hy the dead nan. In tradition the
i1c ttn m
be unknown or forgotten. and in subsequent
war. some spearman, emuous OF a glory which
really was anything but welcome 20 it's earliest
recpient. might give up his life 10 save his
tribe. There would surely. in sich case, be
marked advance from pure sclfshness toward an
ideal unsefshness Yet would not have 10
assume a moral insight. but only such ps"cho-
logical change in the brutal tribcsmen as woud
make credible the beginnings Of memory ana
self-conscousness. But it would be impossible
to infer moral ideas from a series of such acts
until the minds of men attained the moral IN
sight which Professor Bowne insists upon as the
preliminary Of all ethics
Thus while tho author Is right in condemning
'the pretended deduction of moral ideas from
non moral data" and 1.-THE pretended reduction
Of moral ideas to nor-moral elements as purely
verbal and fictitious h., hardly appears TO be 50
fortunate in saying that the actual order OF
graded development in the mental life cannot
he understood as a modification of its earliest
phases, but only as the successive manifestation OF
a law immanent In the whole development" BY
using the word law with it's vexatious ambiguity
he has unconsciously passed over the problem that
really demands solution. so-caled law OF
nature has only subjective efficacy. IT enables |
Us to correatc facts hut not to explain them: il
records processes, but does not account for them
In the present instance what the author says
would bc exactly true OF automata. the m0venents
Of which were governed by some external power
but not of men. who if they can trust their own |
consciousness arc moved from within. 1t seems
A. II Professor BOVINE had violated Psyches rule
and stretched hand 10 the very scepticism which !