tunity, it is hardly fair to consider them as irreclaimable, or to compare them with others of the same race, placed in a position surrounded by no such difficulties.

The book written by Mr. Beaton is one which would amply repay reprinting here. We would advise all our readers who may have access to it, to examine it as a clear and quite impartial account of a very curious country. His opinions are expressed with the candor to be expected from a clergyman, and with an absence of fanaticism rarely to be found in an English tourist. Had our space permitted, we should have been glad to give copious extracts.

ART. IV. Lectures on Moral Science. Delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston. By MARK HOPKINS, D. D., LL. D., President of Williams College; Author of "Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity," etc. Boston: Gould and Lincoln. 1862. 12mo. pp. 304.

way Palmer.

THE announcement of a new work on Moral Science is quite likely, we imagine, to excite, in the minds of some who may chance to see it, a feeling bordering on impatience. It will probably be concluded at once by such persons, that some one who has a special attachment to his own methods of exhibiting the received doctrines of ethics, or who has fancied himself, as to some details by no means essential, wiser than those who have written before him, has produced another work rather for his own gratification than to meet any existing want. It has become so common a thing of late for each teacher to think it necessary to make his own text-book, that the reading public generally, and especially the patrons of colleges and schools, grow weary of perpetual change and jealous of new attempts. It is not strange that, in relation to a work like that before us, some unfavorable impression should exist in the minds of such as have little or no knowledge of the subject.

But more than this. It would be by no means surprising, if even some who have been students of ethical philosophy, and are reputably well acquainted with the course of ethical discussion, should find the doubt arising in their minds whether another volume on the already hackneyed theme can fairly claim attention. Have not the profoundest minds, from Aristotle downward, exhausted their acuteness in the propounding and illustration of the principles, and the analysis, comparison, and demonstration of the essential truths, of morals? Have they not penetrated into the mysteries of psychology and of intellectual philosophy and logic, and traced the relations of these departments severally to moral philosophy? Have not Aquinas and his fellow-schoolmen, Grotius, Hobbes, Leibnitz, Shaftesbury, Butler, Edwards, Hume, Hartley, Condillac, Paley, and the rest, again and again dug over the whole field? Have not men of the latest schools in Germany, France, England, and the United States gathered up, adjusted, and arranged in convenient manuals the results of these various labors? What need, then, can there be of another digest of received opinions?

If it were true that the strong minds that have heretofore grappled with the difficulties of moral science had been altogether successful in their inquiries, if they had reached conclusions that were entirely satisfactory, and had wrought out a complete and coherent system of ethics, so that no room remained for any further advance, then certainly one might well be content with either of several recent treatises which we could name as works of marked ability. The fact, however, is quite otherwise. Notwithstanding the vast importance of questions pertaining to morals, because of their immediate bearing on human character and happiness, it is true beyond denial, both that the progress of ethical philosophy has been extremely slow, and that the systems successively constructed have not been such as to satisfy inquiry. With how much of laborious speculation, and by what gradual advances, the nature and the elementary laws of moral action have been philosophically determined, Sir James Mackintosh has clearly shown in his elaborate and elegant Dissertation; while in regard to many even of the fundamental principles of theoretical

morality the disputants have seemed to wage interminable controversies, to debate like Milton's angels,

"And find no end, in wandering mazes lost."

The great modern movement in speculative philosophy,inaugurated in Scotland by Reid, and producing there, as its best fruit, the vigorous, learned, and to a great extent original discussions of Sir William Hamilton,- contemporaneously revealing itself in Germany by Kant, and culminating at length in Hegel and his disciples, - including also the eclec ticism of Victor Cousin, and the modified and fragmentary transcendental system of Coleridge, has affected the intimately related department of moral philosophy so far, at least, as to create a necessity for the re-examination of its old positions. The result, on the whole, has been manifestly favorable. Since the time of Mackintosh, even, there has been a very considerable advance as regards some of the details of moral science. On one point after another, light has been thrown, sometimes by direct and sometimes by collateral inquiry. But yet, as to the relation of the several parts of the science to one another, and the principle on which the whole should be compacted, there has been, it cannot be denied, a great deal of confusion and uncertainty. The so-called ethical systems have palpably lacked coherence. They have seemed rather like aggregations of distinct and partial truths, than like real systems, the parts of which have been reduced to actual unity in virtue of their necessary and clearly perceived mutual dependence. Indeed, we are inclined to think that the new interest in ethical discussions which has of late been manifested, is itself to be taken as proof of an existing conviction that there were still serious deficiencies that might possibly be supplied. If any writer, therefore, is able to make any important contribution to the supply of these deficiencies, he certainly has a claim to a candid and thoughtful hearing; and a really fresh and original discussion, attempting nothing less than a thorough re-investigation of the whole subject from a new position, may well be heartily welcomed by all thoughtful readers.

It is such a discussion that is furnished in the volume now

before us. President Hopkins is well known to the reading world, by various published essays and discourses, several of them collected and republished in a substantial volume,— and by his able course of Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, delivered some years ago before the Lowell Institute, and now used in Harvard College and elsewhere as a textbook. Ever since his entrance on the Professorship of Moral Philosophy in Williams College, from which, on the resignation of Dr. Griffin, he was transferred to the presidential chair, his reputation as a man of thought, and as a clear and able writer, has been steadily extending. His Baccalaureate Addresses have been heard, from year to year, with an extraordinary interest, not only by those for whom they have been specially prepared, but also by large and appreciative audiences which they have drawn together. Several of these have been published, and widely read and admired by the lovers of fresh and penetrative thought. From a writer of such antecedents, addressing himself deliberately to the task of constructing a system of moral science, and offering to the world the results of his maturest thought, a contribution of solid value would naturally have been expected. It would seem

but reasonable to look for some extension of the circle of vision, or, at the least, for some scattering of old mists that had hung over no inconsiderable portions of the field. How far President Hopkins has met the expectation which the announcement of his work must certainly have excited, our readers may judge when we shall have laid before them, in as summary a way as possible, what he has actually done. We will endeavor to exhibit clearly the fundamental idea of the system, and the vital and salient points of the discussion. Those who are at all familiar with such studies will easily adjust the subordinate topics so as to fill up the outline harmoniously for themselves.

After a graceful dedication to the graduates of Williams College, Dr. Hopkins foreshadows the line of inquiry which he proposes to pursue, in the following paragraph of his

Preface:

"Philosophy investigates causes, unities, and ends. Of these it is the last two that are chiefly considered in the following Lectures.

'Happy' it has been said 'is he who knows the causes of things. But in a world where there are so many discrepancies, both natural and moral, he must be more happy who knows the arrangement of things into systems, and sees how all these systems go to make up one greater system and to promote a common end. An investigation of causes respects the past; of unities and ends, the present and the future. Of these the latter are more intimate to us; and he who can trace the principle of unity by which Nature is harmonized with herself, and man with himself, and the individual with society, and man with God, - who can see in all these a complex unity, and can apprehend their end, will have an element of satisfaction far greater than he who should know the causes of all things without being able to unravel their perplexities."

The first Lecture opens with a parallel between astronomy and moral science, for the sake of exhibiting the reasons for the comparatively slow progress of the latter. As the chief of these are mentioned the difficulty pertaining to the observation of all mental phenomena, arising out of the fact that the mind is at once the observer and the observed; the want of a careful discrimination between the science of morals and other related subjects; the great complexity of the science itself; the fact that observation and analysis become more difficult in proportion as we approach what is most intimate and central in ourselves; the want of definite terms, and the deficiency of men in practical virtue.

In the second Lecture, Dr. Hopkins lays carefully the foundation of his own ethical system. This is done with precision and simplicity. The great difficulty in discussions on morals has always been to find a solid basis on which the several parts might be built into a real unity. It has been clearly seen by many writers, that there ought to be discovered some central principle or fact which should determine the order and harmony of all the rest. This has been the thing sought in the various inquiries as to the nature or ground of virtue; in those that relate to the origin of the moral sentiments, and to the question of a moral sense; and in those that pertain to the doctrine of an ultimate right, eternal and immutable. But, as in astronomy the assumption of wrong hypotheses, while it seemed to afford an explanation of