136 



SCIENCE, 



[Vol. VI., No. 132. 



5. They approached the shore mostly during the 

 night, the movement continuing, however, somewhat 

 into tlie early morning hours. They invaded the 

 houses and the yards, and the tower of the light- 

 house up to a certain height, so that we had to brush 

 them away with broonis and shovels, and finally to 

 close the doors and windows, and cover the openings 

 of the water-tanks with canvas and sacking. We 

 lost three tanks of water corrupted by these little 

 creatures. After sunrise they were nearly all killed 

 by the heat, becoming whitish. A few that escaped 

 to the shade lived a few days without growing any 

 larger." 



Prof. S. I. Smith of Yale College, to whom the 

 specimens were referred, reports as follows respect- 

 ing them : — 



"The very small crabs from Cape San Antonio, 

 Cuba, are too young and imperfect for precise deter- 

 mination, but are evidently the young, changed from 

 the free-swimming megalops stage of some Grapsoid 

 crab, probably a species of Sesarma. The four spe- 

 cimens are evidently all of the same species. They 

 measure between four and five millimetres in width 

 of carapax." R. Rathbun. 



TYPES OF ETHICAL THEORY. 



Dr. Martineau (it is a pleasure to re- 

 member that this countiy had the honor of 

 giving him his title) has alread}' reached his 

 fourscore years, yet his work shows no sign 

 either of labor or of sorrow. Its characteris- 

 tics are indeed i)recisel3' the reverse of these : 

 the}' are facilit}' and optimism. There is the 

 same dignified eloquence which made George 

 Eliot write, in 1853, " James Martineau trans- 

 cends himself in beauty of imagery." There 

 is the same calm faith which has always 

 possessed him in the outcome of the philo- 

 sophical controversies of the time. For fort}" 

 years he has stood quite alone among English 

 theists in his breadth of S3'mpathy and his 

 sweep of style ; and there is much pathos to 

 many a grateful student in the words with 

 which he dismisses this work, hoping to deal 

 with further problems, " in case the evening 

 twilight of life should linger a little longer 

 with me, and leave m^- powers of industrj' still 

 unspent." 



It is impossible to review such a book as 

 this with an}' completeness, within the limits 

 which must be here observed. It is the 

 ripened fruit of a lifetime, and it must be 

 recognized, as has been done hy 1\iq Spectator^ 

 as the most important ethical work of this 

 generation. It traces the great types of 

 ethical theor}-, advancing with " man}- cora- 



Types of ethical theory. By James Martineau, D.D., 

 LL.D. 2 vols. Oxford, Clarendon press, 1885. 



panions, statel}' or keen, severe or facile, 

 mystic or humane," until the view of the 

 author is set in final and striking contrast with 

 that of the so-called English school. Here, 

 to most readers, is the central interest of the 

 book. It is Kantian ethics in the hands of a 

 master of style over against the laborious in- 

 adequac}' of Mr. Spencer. Nothing can be 

 more delightful than the ease and brilliancy of 

 this discussion, or more honorable than its rec- 

 ognition of the worth of the opposing school. 

 " The representative writers of this school," 

 Mr. Martineau concludes, ''have in truth 

 theorized in one language, and felt in another, 

 and have retained ideal conceptions of a scale 

 of good, and admirations for types of charac- 

 ter, for which their doctrine can find no corre- 

 sponding place. Nor is this an accident of 

 their individual presentations of the theory. 

 So long as it sets itself to find the moral in the 

 immoral, to identif}' the order of right with 

 the order of strength, to repudiate any stud}' 

 of what ought to be except in studying what 

 has been, is, and will be, it totally shuts the 

 door in the face of all conception and pos- 

 sibility of duty, and by naturalizing ethics 

 reverses the idealizing process which ratlier 

 ethicizes nature. It subjugates character to 

 science, instead of freeing it into religion." 



Two sources of embarrassment are here 

 hinted at, which are felt throughout the work. 

 The one is the loyalty of the writer to the ter- 

 minology of the school in which he has been 

 reared. This is so marked in the presentation 

 of the author's own theory, that the hasty 

 reader may fancy that he is dealing once more 

 with that analysis of faculties which used to 

 satisfy the writers on ethics, and which made 

 the study so dreary. " The virtues and vices, 

 the appetites, emotions, and affections," some 

 one has said of that earlier school, " stood 

 each in its appointed corner, and w4th its 

 appropriate la]3el. Never before had human 

 nature been so neatly dissected, or so orna- 

 mentally packed up." It is not until one has 

 penetrated through this somewhat repelling 

 method, that he discovers the wealth of insight 

 which Dr. Martineau's treatment exhibits. 

 The other source of embarrassment is more 

 serious. It is the obvious conviction of the 

 writer that the principles of ethics cannot be 

 finally described apart from their relation to 

 religion. After all is said and done, human 

 nature remains, as Mr. Bradley most forcibly 

 points out in his ' Ethical studies,' a contra- 

 diction whose solution compels one to the 

 rehgious attitude. Dr. Martineau constantly 

 hints at this necessary incompleteness ; and 



