It would be possible to point out, were it worth while, how, at almost every point, Mr. Adams has really misrepresented things in the most deceitful of all ways. He has told the truth in his historical statements, but he might as well have lied. For he has wrenched events out of their places in history, and set them forth without the relationship to other events, which often puts another color upon them. For instance, the persecution of Baptists was a very bad thing, but it is a thousand times worse when it is related in isolated nakedness, as it is in this book, than when it appears as a single event in that long groping struggle for personal and religious liberty in which these men were engaged.

Mr. Adams is evidently a student of Herbert Spencer. It is to be hoped that he will continue his studies, and that when he finds the following text, he will lay it to heart. "Not as adventitious will the wise man regard the faith that is in himnot as something which may be slighted and made subordinate to calculations of policy, but as the supreme authority to which all his actions should bend. The highest truth conceivable by him he will fearlessly utter, and will endeavor to get embodied in fact his purest idealisms, knowing that, let what may come of it, he is thus playing his appointed part in the world-knowing that if he can get done the thing he aims at-well; if not -well also, though not so well." If ever a man had a reverence for the faith that was in him, and made all his actions bend to it, it was the New England Puritan. And the calm judgment of history, seeing his limitations, and his errors, and his narrowness, and his faith, and his energy, says "Well." But a gentleman from Massachusetts jumps up and shouts, "It isn't well; it's bad; very bad indeed." And the persons who happen to hear him, conclude that there are Adamses and Adamses.

ARTICLE II.--THE VIA MEDIA IN ETHICS.*

No science is of so vital and universal interest as ethics. It concerns every human being. And yet during the last two and a half centuries no science has made such limited progress. Even psychology has made greater advance. No careful student of the history of ethics can fail to recognize the truth of this unwelcome statement. Such is the fact; how can we explain it ?

1. A partial explanation of it is found in the fact that ethics has not yet received a proper treatment. The scientific method -the greatest of modern discoveries has not been applied to this science. To the scientific method we understand the following to be essential: Exact observation, careful experiment, rational hypothesis, and the verification of the hypothesis. As a result of this neglect, the line between the science of ethics, and the metaphysics of that science has never been clearly drawn; the two are constantly confounded. In almost all the other sciences this distinction has been made, and is realizing abundant and valuable results. The physicist, at the outset, takes certain things for granted-matter, force, time, and space. The inquiry concerning the ultimate nature of these fundamental assumptions belongs not to the science of physics, but to the metaphysics of physics. Why not do the same in ethics?

It is urged that ethics does not so readily admit of this distinction. We are told that in the study of ethics it is difficult not to become involved in the ultimate problems of philosophy; in ethical speculation we are constantly treading on the verge of the abysses of metaphysics. The difficulty is real, but for this very reason the demand for this distinction is the more urgent. In this age of accurate knowledge nothing can be called science which cannot stand the scrutinizing test of the scientific method. Ethics, if it is to be a science, must be as truly and as rigidly scientific as any other branch of human

* An Essay presented at the Anniversary Exercises of Yale Theological Seminary, May, 1887.

learning. The scientific treatment of ethics is a demand of the day, not simply for sake of a scientific investigation, but also as a means of securing a firmer and more satisfactory basis for the solution of the practical ethical quesions of the hour.

2. A brief survey of the history of modern ethics confirms our judgment. Modern ethics, as a science independent of Christianity, has its starting point with Hobbes. All the ethical theories which have been propounded since his day may be briefly reduced to two opposing systems-Hedonism, egoistic or universal, and Intuitionism, dogmatic or philosophical. Hedonism may be defined as the ethical theory that explains moral ideas and distinctions in terms of pleasure and pain. The opposite theory, which is commonly designated as Intuitionism, teaches that "rightness is a quality belonging to actions independently of their conduciveness to any ulterior end," and that we have the power to recognize this quality of action. Hobbes was a materialist in psychology, and a hedonist in ethics. His famous Leviathan called out answers from many moralists. Cudworth, with the Cambridge Platonists, was his first antagonist from the standpoint of Intuitionism. These conflicting schools have been always more or less apparent since the days of these two leaders. The Utilitarian and Intuitional schools of to-day are the lineal descendants of these types of thought, though they are now greatly modified. Thus during the last two and a half centuries the various schools of ethics have been occupied with polemics, and have chiefly concentrated their efforts upon a search for the true ground of virtue, as if this were the only fundamental problem of ethics.

This is, however, far from being the case. Ethics deals not with the effect of actions as the Hedonists teach; nor with the quality of actions as the Intuitionists maintain, but with the cause of actions-the doer himself.

3. Although these rival ethical schools have thus sought the mastery the one over the other, no critical and candid student of the science can say that either of them is adequate to the real problems of life and thought.

A defect common to them both is that the attempt is made to account for the ethical by a single faculty of the human soul; at least each system emphasizes the one faculty of the soul to

the neglect of every other. To the Intuitionists, the intellect is of prime importance; to the Hedonists the sensibility. But the subject of ethics is the whole man, and not his intellect, nor his sensibility alone. The will is also an essential element of his nature, but where it has not been entirely overlooked, it has occupied merely a subordinate position in the thought of these schools. Hence the haze that overhangs all English ethical speculation. The most prominent contemporary writer on ethics in England, Prof. Henry Sidgwick himself, is not entirely guiltless of this oversight.

Again, the general tendency of Hedonism is psychological while that of Intuitionism is metaphysical. Hedonism endeavors to find the basis of ethics in the sensibilities, and has a strong psychological spirit, whether its psychology is correct or not. Here is the strength of Hedonism; its weakness is, that it does not raise the question what this constitution of man implies. On the other hand, the strength of Intuitionism is found in its search for the ground and the objective significance of the ethical. But its order of investigation has not been psychological. Here is its characteristic weakness. Thus each is weak where the other is strong.

This brief survey of the history of ethics, with its comparison of the different types of ethical speculation suggest to us its real problems, and its true method. The problems of ethics are-two fold: the psychological and the metaphysical. The one aims to answer the question-How is the ethical possible? In other words, what are its subjective and objective conditions? The other concerns itself with the question, What is the ultimate ground of the principles which are assumed in its possibility? In other words, what is the ground, and what is the significance of morality?

The method of ethics should be the scientific method. For ethics is a science, and should be treated as such. It ought not to be confounded with either theology or metaphysics. This does not imply, however, that ethics does not need metaphysics. The assumptions involved in the possibility of the ethical necessarily lead to metaphysics, and the ethical finds its ultimate interpretation in God--the Absolute Good. Ethics without metaphysics is a building without foundation. This is the

point which Intuitionism rightly emphasizes. But the order of investigation ought to begin with man's capacity for morality, and not with God. It is the merit of Hedonism that it takes this starting point.

Thus the true ethical method is found in a judicious combination of the spirit of the two historic types of ethical theory. Such are the problems, and such the method of ethics. The brief review which we have given of both assures us that a scientific treatment of ethics will bring a more satisfactory result than has yet been attained, and will ground ethics upon a firmer basis than ever before. Thus and thus only can ethics be saved on the one hand from the stigma and the bondage of a theological treatment, and on the other from becoming superficial and Godless.

RIKIZO NAKASHIMA.