Jacob Gould Schurman

“ This volume will make as admirable a text-book for beginners in Ethics as the author's Handbook of Psychology has already approved itself for beginners in Psychology. Professor Murray has the rare capacity for writing good elementary text-books. He knows thoroughly the subjects on which he writes; he is luminous and orderly in his expositions; his style is attractive, and at times it almost glows with literary feeling; and his sense of proportion is so faultless that as a rule he says just what beginners ought to know and leaves unsaid what would only confuse them. ”

“ If these favoring aspects of Greek civilization are not to-day reproduced in the American love of independence and the American respect for law, in the American union of half a hundred "sovereign" commonwealths with all their county and town governments under one federal head, in the American churches with their democratic organization and their multifarious and plastic creeds, in American freedom of thought and speech which has always tended to build and not merely to destroy; then one can scarcely imagine where they are to be found, even in approximation, among the peoples of the earth. ”

“ The new birth of Philosophy amongst ourselves will be the final outcome of devotion to special philosophical interests and of cultivation of special philosophical domains. Our classic systems, if ever we form them, will rest on a much wider induction of facts than any preceding philosophical systems. It is fortunate, indeed, that the spirit of specialization has taken possession of Philosophy, and we may congratulate ourselves on the special investigations and special publications conducted by Americans. ”

“ As to the first, the moralization of natural selection, I can only observe that it is altogether illogical to turn a natural fact that is into a moral law that ought to be. We may hope that in some ultimate scheme, though we understand it not, whatever is is right; and that even such a ruthless process as the evolution of animal life by extinction of the less favored forms is not without rational significance. ”

“ Silberstein does see clearly — and here he is at one with current philosophy — is the absurdity of speaking of a material universe unrelated to an Intelligence. He makes the world "an emanation of the absolute Intellect, an act of its thought." ”

“ If such inequality is needed for the preservation of the state, the need may be recognized without dignifying it with the name of Justice. It may be that free will is an illusion, and that our sense of Justice which demands the requital of desert will disappear along with it. But if so, the new deterministic ideal of Justice is not so likely to be satisfied by the inequalities of natural selection as by the equality heralded in the writings of Bentham and Mill and nowadays demanded by the socialistic reconstructors of society. ”

“ So far from receiving the benefits and evils of its own nature, a member of a species may occasionally be sacrificed for the prosperity and preservation of the entire species.
Human Justice has no other elements than those constituting sub-human justice. The law of the survival of the fittest holds of man as of all inferior creatures. The individuals best adapted to the environment prosper most; the individuals least adapted prosper least. ”

“ I believe there is no better introduction to philosophy — none at once so simple and so profound, so original and so comprehensive, so stimulating and so fascinating, as the beautiful and masterly writings of Berkeley, which are here illuminated and set in their historical framework by Professor Fraser's keen, sympathetic, clear, and exhaustive commentaries. ”

“ Will not each one's just share be the sum of benefits and evils that result from his nature and conduct? Now in spite of superficial likeness, there is a radical difference between Mr. Spencer's doctrine and the view of Justice held by the generality of mankind. The common view is that the principle of distributive Justice requires, in the absence of interventions due to contract or custom, that persons should be treated according to their deserts. And desert implies the free choice of good or evil the power of doing otherwise at the moment of acting. ”

“ Instead, then, of acquiescing in the doctrine that the individual in virtue of his humanity, and without any regard to the state or society in which he lives, has certain inalienable rights, it might be held that the state is the source, the basis, and the regulator of every human liberty. ”

“ But there is no reason or excuse for such a consequence when it is recognized that the conception of human welfare as ethical end implies, first of all, the well-being of existing humanity, each member of which is to be treated as an end in himself, never as a mere means to other ends, and then, secondarily, the welfare of future humanity, — but only in so far as is compatible with the just claims of every living child of man. ”

“ Writers on ethics, politics, and social science, are fond of describing society as an organism; nor is this unnatural, for biology is the dominant science of the day, as physics was in the eighteenth century. But the metaphor of the organism, though juster, is scarcely less misleading than the metaphor of the machine; and Dr. Taylor goes to the root of the matter when he asserts that "the essence of a state is to be a community which is formally, consciously, freely organized, — which therefore has passed beyond the stage of a mere organism into that of an organization ”

“ To this high trust The Philosophical Review would be recreant did it not, for every branch of the Philosophy of Mind and the Philosophy of Nature, equally encourage the accumulation and interpretation of facts and the criticism and construction of systems. Its domain is as broad as mind and what mind knows. And it will be an open forum alike for those who increase the stock of positive data and for those who strive to see new facts in their bearings and relations and to trace them up to their ultimate speculative implications. ”

“ Spencer describes as the "positive element" in Justice — the element which he gets from the biological law of natural selection — is no part whatever of Justice. The so-called "negative element," the equal recognition of others' claims, gives the essential attribute of the notion. It matters not whether you concede to each the full consequences of his nature and conduct, or something entirely different; but whatever be conceded to one, a like allotment, unless the withholding of it is justified by special considerations, must be made to every other member of the community. ”

“ Though receiving support from private endowments, so that its financial basis is sound and durable, it must be and remain, according to the terms of the subsidy, an absolutely free organ, national and international, of general Philosophy. An equal hearing will be given to both sides of every unsettled question. Too much light cannot be thrown on obscure subjects, provided only it be "dry" light. Writers alone will be responsible for their articles, which in all cases will be signed. The periodical itself will maintain the same objectivity of judgment as a journal of Mathematics or Philology. ”

“ But even if each of these subjects had a specialized organ, there would still be need of a general philosophical magazine to bring to a focus the light generated in the several provincial centres and to reflect it upon the wider undertakings of the federal executive. It may not always be easy in practice to draw the line between what belongs to general Philosophy and what should more properly appear in a specialized journal. Nothing remains but for an editor, with due regard for the work of others, to keep always in mind the best interests of Philosophy. ”

“ Spencer that natural selection furnishes us with the content, or "positive element," of the idea of Justice. In a universe with only one person in it, there could be no justice, even though he should receive all the consequences, good and evil, of his own nature, just as a solitary animal does. Justice implies a relation between one person and others, or at least one other, and consists of fair play, impartiality, proportionate distribution of burdens and benefits. ”

“ Besides this sentiment of Justice, which corresponds to and re-enforces the objective requirements, there emerges with the evolution of intelligence an intellectual perception, an idea, or even an intuition of Justice. It is obscure among warlike peoples, but distinct among relatively peaceful peoples. The two elements of the idea are, (1) each man's recognition of his claims to unimpeded activity and the result it brings, and (2) the consciousness of limits necessitated by the like claims of others. ”

“ Buddhism contains a deep moral element. In emphasizing the suffering of the world, it brings to the forefront of consciousness the duty of benevolence. Greek religion contributed less to morality than did political life. Besides, the Greeks judged everything from the aesthetic standpoint, the good being the beautiful, and the bad the ugly. Roman religion had a purely practical utilitarian tendency, and consequently contributed little to the growth of pure morality. ”

“ But we cannot, without a violation of the norms of reason and an outrage of the sentiments of the heart, transform the animal's struggle with its environment into the supreme ideal of human life. Nor does this model commend itself by the additional qualification of reciprocal non-interference with one another's lives. ”

“ Spencer's doctrine of the functions of the state. It is of a piece with his theory of individual rights; and both doctrines proceed from the conception of man as naturally ἄπολις — a self-sufficient unit not adapted to political communion. To such a natural man it involves some sacrifice to be a member of a state; hence the functions of the government should be reduced to a minimum — to the single business of protecting the citizens. A different result, however, emerges if we adopt the Aristotelian, which is surely the correct, view of man as a being made and intended for the state. ”

“ Professor Everett's morality is purely human. What he appeals to in his youthful readers is not their love or fear of God, but their own self-respect and their contempt for what is coarse, selfish, and wrong. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the minority acquiesce, because they recognize that the law corresponds to an eternal order of right, would not the notion of authority be explained, simply by abandoning it altogether? The author's "direct argument" for his theory is not convincing. He argues that authority has been committed to the individual man on the ground of "society's evident and imperative need of a ruler, the absence of every other possible candidate than man, taken individually, and the high degree of fitness which he can bring to the office." ”

“ We are not required, however, to nourish our spirits on expectation merely. The signs and omens already move towards their fulfilment. What is prefigured in the conditions is even now becoming the hatch and brood of time. Never before in our history has there been so deep and so widely diffused an interest in philosophical subjects. ”

“ As Justice becomes more pronounced with the advance of organization, it is higher in man than in brutes, and higher in civilized than in savage mankind. This is especially noticeable in regard to its negative element. ”

“ To the contention that the biological law "possesses the highest possible authority" (p. 150) because it records the process followed in the maintenance and evolution of life, it must be replied that even if this circumstance invested it with "authority," — as it does not, — natural selection, when it reaches the plane of rational life, is subordinated to the higher principle of human sympathy and sociality, which is the taproot alike of morality and of the organized community in which it is realized. ”

“ Although the number of text-books in psychology is rapidly increasing, and some of them are of unusual merit, teachers and students will alike welcome the new competitor with which Professor James has enriched the market. It has great and unique excellences. In the first place, Professor James has the gift of sight and insight. When he looks into his mind, he actually sees what is a-doing or a-happening there. In power of introspective vision, he has no equal among living psychologists. ”

“ THERE is scarcely a province of the entire realm of science and scholarship which is now without an official organ in America. New journals of Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology, Philology, Archæology, etc., have within the last decade or two succeeded one another with astounding rapidity. ”

“ There is neither an organ nor an organization of philosophical activity in America.
If, however, we reflect a little upon the conditions, we shall have to acknowledge that, whatever be the pre-conceptions of supercilious critics, America is a land of great promise for Philosophy. Why did the Greeks excel all peoples of antiquity in their efforts at philosophical inquiry? ”

“ That a combination of endowments, culture, and circumstances, so favorable to the development of Philosophy, should exist in a nation numbering between sixty and seventy millions, is a most hopeful augury for the future of human civilization. ”

“ Now Spinoza does, indeed, take pains to free his substance from all external limitations, but only that it may the more completely determine itself. Professor Caird adopts Erdmann's view of the attributes as relative to percipient intelligence. But this is not to be reconciled with Spinoza's own definition: Per attributum intelligo id quod intellectus de substantia percipit tanquam ejusdem essentiam constituens. It is only when finite things are regarded as res complete, as outside and over against the one substance, that they are illusions of the imagination. ”