CONDUCT AND DUTY. 233 



presented in essays which have appeared from time to 

 time in the Fortnightly Revieiu and elsewhere. In the 

 present volume he has not collected such essays together, 

 but has dealt with the general subject de novo ; and 

 he has here ' attempted to lay down an ethical doctrine 

 ya- harmony with the doctrine of evolution, so widely 

 accepted by modern men of science.' He remarks 

 well that 'problems of this kind require to be dis- 

 cussed in every generation with a change of dialect, if 

 not with a corresponding change of the first principles.' 

 The standpoint from which he views the general sub- 

 ject differs from Mr. Spencer's. The great teacher of 

 the modern doctrines of sociology has worked out an 

 -encyclopasdic system, of which his principles of ethics 

 are the outcome. Mr. Stephen, starting from the old 

 ethical theories, has endeavoured to bring them into 

 harmony with scientific principles, which he takes for 

 granted. It is well that the subject should be ex- 

 amined from both points of view, that it may be seen 

 how far the results coincide as, of course, they should 

 do, if the general principle underlying both lines of 

 argument is sound. 



I recommend this work to all who have examined 

 the subject from Mr. Spencer's point of view, to all 

 who prefer to examine it from Mr. Stephen's, and to 

 all w r ho, eschewing the modern doctrines of evolution, 

 and decrying the supposed moral consequences of those 

 doctrines, may wish to know what, according to scien- 

 tific reasoning, these consequences are. These last, in 

 particular, will be interested, we take it, to see how 



