CHAP, xin DARWINISM IN ETHICS ALEXANDER 127 



should not think for a moment of denying the rights 

 and privileges of reflection, or of questioning its value. 

 When moral opinion has done its utmost in the shape 

 of healthy instinct, very much remains to be learned 

 from the brooding meditative critic, who insists that 

 we shall " see life steadily and see it whole," and who 

 therefore brings our scattered thoughts into focus and 

 tunes them together as a harmonious system. When 

 that is faithfully done the moral philosopher is not the 

 tyrant, but the minister atque interpres of conscience, 

 carrying on its own work and giving it a higher per- 

 fection. He may indeed do more than this. He may 

 provisionally call in question the teachings of conscience ; 

 he may subject them to tests ; provided he recognises 

 that conscience has its own contributions to make to 

 any final synthesis. But all this describes something 

 very different from Professor Alexander's treatment of 

 the subject. We do not blame him for revising or 

 modifying the dicta of moral instinct, but for the kind 

 of revision he practices, one which ignores that the 

 process of interpretation is begun by conscience itself ; 

 one which lays down the law upon questions of morals 

 in obedience to non-moral principles ; one which treats 

 the law thus laid down as decisive against the moral 

 claims of free-will. Conscience is invoked to supply 

 our author with facts for manipulation ; it is allowed 

 to do nothing more. 



We cannot attempt to follow out Mr. Alexander's 

 interesting discussion in detail. We can only name 

 a few points which seem specially noteworthy, either 

 for their own sake, or in connection with the history 

 of the appeal to biology for human guidance. 



The subject is explicitly divided into two main 

 parts a statical and a dynamical ; moral order, and 



