MR. HERBERT SPENCER’S “ PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS." 
After the lengthened period of fourteen years since the first part 
of the “ Principles of Ethics " was published, Mr. Herbert Spencer 
has given to the world in this ever-memorable year of solar 
activity, 1893, the second and concluding volume of the work, 
containing Parts IV., V., and VI. The first of these (Part IV., 
“ Justice’’) appeared in 1891, and, therefore, the new matter to be 
noticed on this occasion, in fulfilment of a promise in the May 
number of “ The Midland Naturalist," is contained in Part V., 
“Negative Beneficence," and Part VI., “ Positive Beneficence.” 
All students of Evolution and admirers of “ our great philo¬ 
sopher ’’ will heartily congratulate Mr. Spencer on the completion of 
this division of his opus magnum , the “ Synthetic Philosophy," and 
will welcome it as the outcome of his maturest experience and ripest 
wisdom on that greatest of all subjects—a sound scientific basis of 
right conduct. Lest the philosophy of Mr. Spencer should be 
misunderstood as an attempt to supersede the current exposition 
of morality by either so-called orthodox or heterodox teachers, it 
is necessary to point out, as I conceive, that elsewhere (in the 
“ Study of Sociology ") he has demonstrated that:—“ A utilitarian 
system of Ethics cannot at present be rightly thought out, even by 
the select few, and is quite beyond the mental reach of the many. 
The value of the inherited and theologically enforced code is that 
it formulates, with some approach to truth, the accumulated results 
of past human experience. It has not arisen rationally but 
empirically. During past times mankind have eventually gone 
right after trying all possible ways of going wrong. The wrong- 
goings have been habitually checked by disaster, and pain, and 
death, and the right-goings have been continued because not thus 
checked. There has been a growth of beliefs corresponding to 
these good and evil results. Hence the code of conduct embodying 
discoveries slowly made through a long series of generations has 
transcendent authority on its side.” 
Octobur, 1893. 
