February 22, 1900] 



NA TURE 



389 



A number of interesting "Laboratory Notes" and 

 " Notes on Apparatus " complete a most creditable 

 volume of transactions. The illustrations, both process 

 blocks and photo-prints, which are very numerous, are 

 all well reproduced. 



PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES AND MORAL 

 PRECEPTS. 

 The Scientific Basis of Morality. By Dr. G. Gore. Pp. 

 viii + 599. (London : Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd., 

 1899.) 



DR. GORE is one of the increasing many who feel 

 that much in conventional morality is baseless, 

 while more is only not crumbling because built up on 

 other foundations than those commonly alleged. Driven 

 to look for salvation to that science in which we perforce 

 believe with the conviction of practical life, he too 

 would lay bare the groundwork of the coming ethics of 

 naturalism. 



"About the year 1880 the author published a small 

 book, entitled 'The Scientific Basis of National Progress, 

 including that of Morality.' That book has long been 

 out of print, and having been repeatedly advised to write 

 a more complete statement of the relations of science to 

 morality, &c., he has endeavoured to do so." 

 Unadvisedly. 



Such a book as the present must be the despair of a 

 reviewer who sympathises with its object. If extent of 

 reading within certain well-defined limits and a wide 

 range of interest could make a great book. Dr. Gore's 

 advocacy of the naturalistic basis of ethics, and of the 

 maxim that the laws of science are the chief — nay, the 

 only— guides of life, might be what he claims that it is : 

 a book " largely one for the future," " written in some 

 respects in advance of its time," " for those whose minds 

 are in a fit condition to receive scientific truth." As it 

 is, it is a commonplace book in more senses than one. 

 It is not free from the suspicion of bookmaking. It 

 quotes nearly 350 lines, including three stanzas from the 

 hackneyed " Psalm of Life," of Longfellow ; more than 

 200 lines from Pope. -It devotes two whole pages in one 

 place to citations from a fatuous print, entitled " Is 

 Science Guilty?" Many familiar sentences are given at 

 second-hand— ^.,i,'. some of Kant's via the Archbishop and 

 the Dean of Canterbury. And Dr. Gore is not always 

 either relevant or happy in his quotations. Yet excuse 

 for "the brevity of the treatment" is asked of "those 

 who are competent to investigate the matter " upon the 

 ground of "the great amount of evidence which has been 

 om.itted in order to limit the size of the book." 



All this notwithstanding, if the kernel of this, which 

 " is not a polished literary treatise, but a scientific pro- 

 duction," were of a sound character, we would have to 

 accept it thankfully. But a certain lack of analytical 

 insight makes Dr. Gore's best sections curiously in- 

 effective. 



For instance, when our author has pointed out quite 

 correctly that any known or knowable existence must be 

 in relation to us, since it could not otherwise affect us 

 directly or indirectly, and when he has referred with 

 approval to G. H. Lewes, to the effect that there are no 

 relations of the known to the unknowable, though there 

 are to that which is at present unknown, he spoils his 

 NO, 1582, VOL. 61] 



effect by announcing that " man is related to all things," 

 a dictum which loses sight of \the scepticism implied in 

 all naturalism, and is as dogmatic as the mythology which 

 Dr. Gore rightly rejects. Phenomenalism, which at the 

 limit can admit of no lacuna, may be a belief or a natural 

 hypothesis. It must not amount to a dogmatic denial of 

 all else. 



Again, when Dr. Gore has laid down a determinism 

 which satisfies the demands of science, he proceeds to 

 quote writers with approval, whose doctrine is not his 

 own, but an indeterminism with a limited range. And 

 in treating of evil, he fails to follow out his determinism 

 to its logical consequence, viz., that to call the actual 

 either good or evil is absurd. His proof for the relativity 

 of evil is valid for the relativity of good also, but he. 

 preaches the essential optimism of science, continuing to 

 call the world process good, perfect and the like. If Dr. 

 Gore chooses to call the actual as such good, and to say 

 that since there is nothing not actual, evil accordingly is 

 non-existent, he may of course do so. But he solves no 

 problems thereby. When, in treating of pain and of 

 ignorance, he sees that relative ignorance and relative 

 pain, viz. ignorance and pain incident to the stage of 

 progress at any moment attained, are necessary, he 

 surely goes beyond his data in taking the ignorance and 

 the pain as good because any other than the actual 

 would be worse. On his own principles anything other 

 would be impossible ; but does not that rather prove the 

 indifference of the actual to that ideal point of view from 

 which we use the relative and partial epithets "good" 

 and "evil" ? 



Again, Dr. Gore is obscure as to the formula under 

 which he conceives the relation of neurosis to psychosis. 

 He tells us that ideas produce tears, and that mind may 

 be viewed as a mode of energy existing only in nervous 

 substance ; while he quotes with approval the famous 

 description of thought as the secretion of brain, just as 

 bile is of the liver. In saying that "mind is dependent 

 upon brain because it is not proved to exist without it," 

 our author seems to state a truth with a false ground 

 for holding it. 



Once more, Dr. Gore thinks it an additional argument 

 against Paley's stolen illustration of the watch implying 

 a watchmaker, to say that nearly every part of a watch 

 is now made by means of inanimate machinery, and the 

 watchmaker only puts its pieces together. As if the 

 unity of purpose in the process as a whole and the 

 creative activity back of the machinery itself would not 

 satisfy Paley well enough. 



Dr. Gore's rules of conduct according to naturalism 

 might be all summed up under the Stoic formula of life 

 according to nature. His economics are opposed to 

 trades unionism and to united action on the part of the 

 working classes in the direction of shorter working hours. 

 The efficiency-theory of wages which Dr. Gore ap- 

 parently holds does not give ground for this attitude. 

 Dr. Gore's logic lays too much stress on " induction " of 

 the kind which, as a modern teacher puts it, " takes un- 

 analysed concretes as ultimate." 



Much of what Dr. Gore has to say would pass as 

 interesting and thoughtful, though not either original or 

 clearheaded, matter, if put forth in a volume one-quarter 

 the size. H. W. B. 



