a mere amiable desire to please or make happy is involved in Utilitarianism.

The succeeding chapter on "Metaphysical Ethics" is one with which we are in less agreement than any other part, perhaps, of the book. Mr. Moore's discussion is too abstract and verbal, and he is too absorbed in his ethical aspects to be able to realize how deeply related these are, and must be, to the much-reviled metaphysical phases. Mr. Moore too readily assumes his "good"-even with the addition "in itself" -to be something really ultimate and unanalyzable. Ethics would be in danger of becoming a science of the visionary, imaginary, and unreal, if Mr. Moore's "confusion "-the "confusions" of metaphysicians seem dear to him of the distinctive character of a truth as ethical (“unique in kind,” as no one denies) with its absolute unrelatedness to truth or reality, were ever to have the slightest chance of currency. Be it plainly spoken, therefore, the true or the real has much more significance for the good than Mr. Moore's ethical philosophy has discovered or admitted. Metaphysics and ethics have to do with a universe that is real and rational, and we wish Mr. Moore had come into closer grips with reality here. For surely philosophy is, in our time, and none too quickly, awakening to the fact that its business is to transcend all one-sided procedures, and see to it that metaphysics shall be ethical, and that ethics shall do justice to metaphysical presuppositions. It should be thoroughly understood in this connection that the ideal is indeed the fundamental reality, so that metaphysical presuppositions cannot be got away from. When Mr. Moore comes, in the fifth and sixth chapters, to treat of the good and the ideal, he does not set forth the good sufficiently as something determined by us under the truths, laws, and ideals of reason. He makes insistences like "good is good and nothing else whatever," telling us he has "established" this, and urging almost in the same breath that such fundamental truths of ethics are "selfevident" in the sense that no reason can be given for them. This sort of thing gives an irrational cast to ethics which is

hardly to be commended. There is nothing more inspiring about Mr. Moore's book than his own fine, unfailing interest in ethical method as such, but the subject itself is left concerned too little with ethical beings-their characters, choices, volitions, self-determinations-and too largely with abstract ethical objects, to reach the level of interest of which it is capable. The good and its recognition is much too axiomatic an affair for our ethical philosopher, in the rarefied atmosphere in which his thought moves, to care one jot or tittle whether the whole matter has any vital interest for us or not. Not so have we learned ethics, but with "that severe, that earnest air" which marks the strenuous moods of the moral life. It is to be said, however, that Mr. Moore has given us a book which may be cordially recommended to the notice of ethical students on both sides of the Atlantic, as one which, by its fundamental questionings and its acute, ingenious, and brilliant discussions, will prove a valuable contribution to the scientific study of ethics.

A small book from the pen of the veteran philosopher, Dr. J. Hutchison Stirling, is on "The Categories." 1

Though small, the book is extremely able. As Dr. Stirling's, it could not be anything else. Not even its occasional jerkiness of style avails in the least to take away from the fascinating interest of the work. Dr. Stirling lays down in his preface that the net result of modern philosophy is just the ego. That, of course, is no new word, but Dr. Stirling has his own way of amply illustrating its truth.

In his first chapter he deals with the "Categories Generally," remarking at its close that "it is not meant to talk of Categories, as formally the business in hand. What comes into speech here is, for the most part, a general theme, and really in continuance of philosophy as I have of late written on it, say, in my immediately previous book, 'What is Thought?'" The second chapter, on The Double Statement," is supremely interesting, dealing with the contradiction of reason and faith, the reflection-philosophy, and the re1 Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd. Pp. 158. 45.

lations of Hegel and Schelling. Now, it may very well be that Michelet and others have overdone Hegel's indebtedness to Schelling, but we are by no means clear that Dr. Stirling is free from overdoing Hegel's independence of Schelling. No doubt, Hegel-as Dr. Stirling insists-owed enormously to Kant, but it does not seem easy to doubt that he owed much also to Fichte and to Schelling-more than Dr. Stirling is willing to admit. Kant and the Illumination taught Hegel the worth of formal scientific strictness, on which he improved by making it no more abstract; but Hegel learned depth and richness of content from the despised and unsystematic Schelling, and the same Hegel put a quite new logical consecutiveness into Fichte's principle of development, with whose philosophy of spirit as a leading interest or dominant feature Hegel could not but have a certain sympathy. And, in truth, he improved on it by making his emphasis on spirit such as to be untinged with Fichtean contempt of nature. Nor, it may be added, are the faults of Schelling easier found than those of Hegel. Also Schelling is, in any case, a much more considerable philosopher than Dr. Stirling's "beginner would naturally infer from these pages. Hero-worship of Hegel is so perfectly innocent a thing that we have not the slightest objection to it; still, we cannot all agree to be too unmindful of the great precursors of the Hegelian Agamemnon. Hegel is Hegel still, consonantly with all that has now been said, both by reason of originality of conception and massive grandeur of achievement. Let a concession so liberal, richly deserved, and freely given, satisfy the most vehement of his disciples or devotees. Sharing, however largely, their rapturous admiration, we have never forgotten-cannot forgetthere is criticism as well as exposition of Hegel. Verb. sap. The third chapter takes up the "Categories and Physics," and passes on into a lively and somewhat entertaining vein at the expense of certain modern physicist and evolutionist theories. Chapter the fourth deals with "Religion and the Categories." It would, let us only remark, have given Dr. Stirling's "beginner" more cause for gratitude, had the author

not merely set down a few pious phrases to show the religion of Hegel, but actually dealt with the standing difficulty said 'beginner" is sure to encounter, in that, while Hegel is made to stand for the truth of a personality that is Absolute, the same Hegel is set forth roundly declaring it absurd to predicate personality of the Infinite. If Dr. Stirling would do so much for the "beginner "-and no one could do more-why, though Hegel has been glorified, leave the "beginner" long time perplexed?

Let it be said, however, the veritable multum in parvo which Dr. Stirling-clarum et venerabile nomen to all philosophical students-has here given us, will be found of entrancing interest to readers of philosophy, and must prove highly serviceable to very many. As such, we most cordially commend it to readers of the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.

Kilmarnock, Scotland.

JAMES LINDSAY.

ARTICLE XI.

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

AN UNPUBLISHED ESSAY OF EDWARDS ON THE TRINITY, with Remarks on Edwards and his Theology. By GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D., LL.D. Pp. xv, 142. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1903.

We are greatly indebted to Professor Fisher for his valuable and timely monograph on Jonathan Edwards, set forth in connection with the publication for the first time of the notes on the Trinity to be found among the rich collection of manuscripts of the great New England theologian in the Yale library. An air of mystery has for several generations clung to this fragment, throwing around it, indeed, a glamor of romance, and giving it, probably, a disproportionate emphasis. As we see it, at last, in all its rugged plainness in the light of the twentieth century, we may well wonder whether or no a keen sense of humor has followed Oliver Wendell Holmes into the spirit life, enabling him to see in its true farcical light, his rather hysterical call for the immediate publication of this "heretical" document. Perhaps Horace Bushnell, also, in spiritual communion with the literary heirs of Jonathan Edwards, has, ere this, made saintly apology for doubting their honesty in "withholding" from publication the Essay now given us in Professor Fisher's booklet. But here it is at last; and with a sigh we consign the romance clinging to it to the limbo of sectarian controversy.

Dr. Fisher's dedication gives his purpose in setting forth the Essay, and makes evident that he does not overestimate the importance of the Edwards treatise on the Trinity. It reads: "I venture to dedicate this book to the large number of cultivated readers, who, from disinclination or the want of leisure for the task, have not acquainted themselves with