July 16, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



91 



(1) That happiness consists in the fulfillment 

 in their appropriate objects (or the anticipation 

 of such fulfillment) of the powers of the self 

 manifested in desire, purposes, eiforts; (2) true 

 happiness consists in the satisfaction of those 

 powers of the self which are of higher quality; 

 (3) that the man of good character, the one in 

 whom these powers are already active, is the 

 judge, in the concrete, of happiness and misery 

 (p. 280). 



This view avoids the exaggerations of both 

 hedonism and perfectionism; it shows also the 

 influence of Professor Dewey's earlier ideal- 

 istic training. But another question comes 

 up here, and that is the time-honored contro- 

 versy between individualism and universalism. 

 And here too later Utilitarianism and Ger- 

 man idealism join hands. 



The genuinely moral person is one in whom the 

 habit of regarding all capacities and habits of the 

 self from the social standpoint is formed and 

 active. Such an one forms his plans, regulates 

 his desires, and hence performs his acts with 

 reference to the effect they have upon the social 

 groups of which he is a part (p. 298). 



The true or final happiness of an individual 

 lies not in the objective achievement of re- 

 sults, but in the supremacy within the char- 

 acter of an alert, sincere and persistent in- 

 terest in those habits and institutions which 

 forward common ends among men (p. 301). 



Regard for the happiness of others means re- 

 gard for those conditions and oijeots ichich per- 

 mit others freely to eaercise their oum. powers 

 from their own initiative, reflection and choice 

 (p. 302). 



Moral worth consists in a readiness to re- 

 gard the general happiness even against con- 

 trary promptings of personal comfort and gain 

 (p. 364). This idea of the place of the self 

 in the moral life is worked out in an interest- 

 ing chapter XVIIL, which discusses Self- 

 Denial, Self-Assertion, Self-Love and Benevo- 

 lence, and the Good as Self-Eealization. The 

 final word is that 



The problem of morality is the formation, out of 

 the body of original instinctive impulses which 

 compose the natural self, of a voluntarj' self in 

 which socialized desires and affections are dom- 

 inant, and in which the last and controlling prin- 



ciple of deliberation is tlie love of the objects 

 which will make this transformation possible. 

 If we identify, as we must do, the interests of 

 such a character with the virtues, we may say 

 with Spinoza that happiness is not the reward of 

 virtue, but is virtue itself (p. 397). 



Morality, then, consists in the social atti- 

 tude; the highest type of moral men con- 

 sciously aim at the social good. This type is, 

 according to Professor Tufts, the product of 

 moral evolution; on the third level of con- 

 duct, the level of conscience, conduct is regu- 

 lated by a standard which is both social and 

 rational, and which is examined and criti- 

 cized (p. 38). It is the stage of complete 

 morality, which is reached " only when the 

 individual recognizes the right or chooses the 

 good freely, devotes himself heartily to its 

 fulfillment, and seeks a progressive social de- 

 velopment in which every member of society 

 shaU share" (p. 73). And 



It is as true of progressive society as of sta- 

 tionary society, that the moral and the social are 

 one. The virtues of the individual in a progres- 

 sive society are more reflective, more critical, 

 involve more exercise of comparison and selection, 

 than in customary society. But they are just as 

 socially conditioned in tljeir origin and as socially 

 directed in their manifestation (pp. 434 f.). 



And it is this social standard that Professor 

 Tufts applies in his sane discussions of the 

 social, economic, political and domestic prob- 

 lems to which the last third of the book is 

 devoted. 



Persons of individualistic temperament will 

 feel that the social element is somewhat ex- 

 aggerated in these accounts. They may grant 

 that the moral is the social in the sense that 

 moral acts have to do with the ordering of 

 social relations. And they may grant that the 

 agent is moral when he strives for the social 

 weal. But it may be questioned whether the 

 social motive is the only moral motive, 

 whether acts prompted by the sense of obli- 

 gation or the love of virtue are non-moral. 

 At the same time the rules of morality are 

 largely social in their origin and purpose, and 

 the social ideal is the guiding principle of 

 moral evolution. 



The book is a valuable addition to the many 



