506 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SC2ENCE. 
The Theory of Morals. By Paul Janet; translated by Miss Mary Chapman. 
Octavo, pp. 490. Charles Scribners' Sons, New York, 1883. For sale by 
M. H. Dickinson, $2.50. 
The object of the author in this volume is to go back to first principles and 
to define precisely the fundamental ideas of morals and to proceed logically to a 
systematic and well connected exposition of thern. It is apparendy intended as 
supplement to the " Elements of Morals " published in 1869 by the same author, 
in which he presented the subject in an elementary form, adapted to the young, 
and divested of all metaphysical discussion and abstruse reasoning. 
Professor Janet takes up the question at the germinal point, calls to his aid 
such authors as M. Jules Simon, M. Renouvier, M. Ferraz, M. Ad. Franck, 
Mme. C. Coignet, M. E. Wiart, M. Herrenschneider, all writers of distinction on 
the subject of Morals, adds to their elucidation the powerful light of his 
own intellect and develops a scheme which, as he modestly claims, contains some 
elements too much neglected heretofore, some untangled intricacies, some solu- 
tions of involved points and some suggestions for future investigators. 
In setting forth he adopts the position of the philosopher, Schleiermacher, 
in resolving all moral ideas into three fundamental ones, viz : the idea of good, 
the idea of duty, and the idea of virtue, and takes this distinction, with a free in- 
terpretation, as the basis of his theory of morals. To show the course of reason- 
ing m this primary statement we quote a few sentences : " These ideas may be 
said to follow each other and to be linked together m the following order : good, 
duty, virtue. Virtue indeed, according to the most generally accepted definition, 
consists in following one's duty, that is to say, in following that rule of action 
which our reason commands or advises. Duty, in its turn, consists in doing that 
which is good, it is the rule of action required of us by the practice of good. 
Thus virtue presupposes duty, and duty presupposes good. If there were noth- 
ing good, there would be no rule of action to teach us to choose one object 
rather than another, there would be no duty. If there were no duty or rule of 
action, there would be no virtue, that is to say, no enlightened choice between 
good and evil. Hence, an enlightened choice of good — that is to say, virtue — 
presupposes a rule of choice, or duty, which again presupposes a reason for the 
choice — that is to say, a good." Following this is a close discussion of the real 
definition of these three terms, resulting in the conclusion that "objective moral 
science will be the theory of g,ood; formal moral science will be the theory of 
duty; suDJective moral science will be the theory of morality or of virtue." 
This is the basis of the whole work, and the remainder of the volume, say 
four hundred and eighty-five pages, is devoted to an examination and discussion 
of ''^ the points of view first of those who consider, in moral science, nothing but 
the subject; second, of those who consider only the form of the object, i. e., 
the philosophy of pleasure; and the philosophy of duty." The ultimate theory 
unfolded in the discussion seems to be that "Morality leads to religion, which 
is simply belief in the divine goodness. If the world is not derived from good 
and does not go to good, virtue is a powerless chimera. Practical faith in the 
