THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF MORALITY.
The Scientific Basis of Morality. By G. Gore, LL.D., F.R.S. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co. 10s. 6d.)— Tuba portentous work of nearly six hundred closely-printed pages is written, says the author in his preface, "largely for the future, and in many respects in advance of its time." It professes to show that "the entire conduct of man—physical, mental, and moral—is based upon a scientific foundation." We have searched diligently for the originality which is too great for our own age, and we are reluctantly compelled to confess that we have failed to find it. It is only a common specimen of the practical scientist's treat- ment of ethics. Dr. Gore, who has some reputation in his own line, desires to show that the reign of law is universal. For this purpose he piles up innumerable instances from his own studies, and criticises a few old idealistic dogmas. The argument from design, when the instance of a watch is used, he declares to be disproved by the fact that " nearly every part of a watch is now made by inanimate machinery" (p. 31). "Does Will," he asks triumphantly, " drive our steam engines ? " (p. 47). And he clinches this kind of reasoning by quoting some such gem of poesy as :— "Men talk of fate as If a man could sit
Unmoved by action of eternal
But the delusion science drives away, And shows it's only a religious saw."
For six hundred pages he gives instances of the reign of law in the world, which no one doubts, but he never once approaches the real problem. The metaphysical difficulties of the subject, which have occupied philosophers from Heraclitus to Mr. Bradley, do not exist for Dr. Gore. His position is the old naturalistic one, but stated more crudely and with less appreciation of the meaning of proof than we ever remember to have seen it. His evidence, which is mainly composed of quotations from scientific works and a few tags from poets and versifiers, goes to show the systematic connection' of the world as it exists for science, and as he sees no reason why the moral world should not come under the same law, he frames a certain moral code which he finds con- sistent with his general laws of science. This vague creed, which ignores the difficulties in both domains, is stated in ten proposi- tions on the 576th page, and when the perplexed reader reflects upon the thousands of irrelevant instances and quotations that have gone before, he is tempted to wonder what all the pother is about.
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