CHAP, xin DARWINISM IN ETHICS ALEXANDER 129 



and characterised by the airy indifference of the 

 foreigner. 



In Part I. the analysis of the moral end leads to 

 the result that goodness is an equilibrium, and one of 

 a twofold order. For first, goodness is an equilibrium 

 among the promptings or desires or actions of the 

 individual ; and secondly, it is social, placing each man 

 harmoniously with his fellows in an order of society. 

 And this positive analysis is supported negatively by a 

 destructive analysis of other views of the ethical end. 

 To this extent therefore Mr. Alexander offers more 

 proof in support of evolutionism in morals than 

 Mr. Leslie Stephen gave us. Intuitionalism of course 

 receives no attention. Intuitionalism holds that the 

 good, like other primary elements of consciousness, 

 cannot be decomposed, and neither can nor need be 

 defined. It is hardly strange that one who is seeking 

 a definition of the moral end should pass over such 

 views in impatient silence. But, if intuitionalism is not 

 discussed, a kindred position is faced when the defini- 

 tion of the end as perfection is brought under notice. 

 This, says Mr. Alexander, gives no help. It carries us 

 no further. Perfectly what should I be 1 Perfectly 

 good, of course. But I am asking you what goodness 

 is ! You have told me nothing ; you have taken for 

 granted the conception of goodness. Next, Hedonism is 

 discussed. Mr. Alexander dismisses as an over-refine- 

 ment the idealist criticism, urged by T. H. Green or Mr. 

 F. H. Bradley, according to which a sum of perishing 

 pleasures is an impossibility. But he himself argues 

 that pleasure cannot be the moral end, on the ground 

 that there are ultimate irreducible qualitative differ- 

 ences between one kind of pleasure and another. 

 Surely this does not seem altogether conclusive, especi- 



K 



