A Treatise on the Moral Ideals. By the late J.
Grote. Edited by J. B. Mayor. (Doighton and Bell, Cambridge.)—In this volume, which Mr.. Mayor, as he tells us in his preface, has been able to give us with the help of the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, we have a valuable contribution to the study of moral philosophy. It seems to have been meant by the author as an answer to Mr. Mill's "Utili- tarianism," only put in what he calls an " uncontroversial form." Like his eminent brother, the historian of Greece, from whom, however, on speculative subjects he widely differed, Professor Grote had a vigorous common-sense, which soon picked to pieces a one-sided or an imperfect theory. Of such theories we may say that moral philosophy has been specially the victim, and among them, as the author convincingly shows, must be included the utilitarianism of Bentham, who, however, in spite of his disclaimers of anything like moral ideals and intitiltrtb morality, was, in fact, one of the greatest visionaries of modern times. With all his talk about the "greatest happiness of the greatest. num ber,"he could not help being him self, in his noble unselfishness, a proof of the inadequacy of his theory, and his dislike to the word " ought " was quite inconsistent with the notion of choice or preference, words which even he could hardly dispense with. All this Professor Grote points out very clearly, and if he is only slaying the slain, be does it so well that it is worth while to go over the old ground with him. Moral philosophy is with him an Heal rather than an inductive science. If we try to get rid of ideals, we do it at the cost of ignoring many of the plain facts of human nature. These ideals are not arbitrary imagina- tions,—they involve the notion of an absolute " should be," which really means that there exists a reason why one of them is better than another. "Moral philosophy," says Professor Grote, "may be said to have existed from the first dawn of human reflection, and to have existed in virtue of man's recognition by reflection that he does form in himself an ideal of something as what he should do; moral philo- sophy is his process of discovering this." To attempt to simplify the subject by reducing it to a mere analysis of pleasure and pain is to deceive ourselves, and those who try to banish the ideas implied in the phrase that man is "a moral being " will be sooner or later reminded of the familiar verse, "Natnram expense f urea, tamen usque recurrit." The subject is not and cannot be made a simple one; it is, in fact, Pro- fessor Grote shows, made up of two sciences, the science of morals or virtue (what the Greeks called 41.14), and the science of well-being (what the Greeks called inarpow'a). These two sciences are, in his view, interlocked in a very complicated manner. What is usually known as "the intuitive theory of morals " was not quite satisfac- tory to Professor Grote, though we suppose he would have ad- mitted that it pointed to a truth. Oar spiritual, that is, our thinking and feeling nature, has wants; hence ideals which stir men to action, and intuitive morality, as he understands it, means simply the taking account of these wants? Great stress is laid on the view of man as an active as well as sentient being, and itis said that "we should be as badly off without a work 'to do as without a world to live in." Professor Grote was clearly to a large extent influ- enced by the philosophy of Plato, and as we think we may add, of Cole- ridge. He seems to have been in agreement with Plato on the abstruse question whether the ideal of the "good" corresponds with that of the " real being." He has some remarks on war which may be read with profit. Civilisation, he thinks, will hardly put a stop to war, but only give it a new character, though we may hope for good results from increased mutual tolerance among nations, and from a growing con- viction of the very small practical utility of war in most cases. Mr. Mayor has rendered students of moral philosophy a real service in editing this volume. His marginal summaries, on which he has evi- dently bestowed the utmost pains, are for the most part clear, and give the drift and substance of the author's reasonings in a convenient form.
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