7 JULY 1928, Page 24

The " stagnation of ethics " as compared with the

vigorous advances of physical science has set Mr. Leon Roth thinking. In an extremely brilliant essay, The Science of Morals, he suggests that the moral philosophers have not progressed because they have been afraid to use the methods of their rivals. (Benn. 5s. 6d.) To the old complaint that you cannot use experimental methods in ethics he replies that " we are always experimenting, both in individual and in social life; and the tale is told in books of history." And he shows that the bases of the physical sciences are always shifting and changing, and in no way so solid as was once supposed, so that ethics is in no worse case than they. The little book is well worth reading ; it is provocative in the best sense.