tions of their doctrines are pointed out, to reply with contemptuous remarks about "consequence-making," and with "indignant repudiation" of the conclusions. They distinctly teach that men are automata, but when human action is described in terms of their theory, they complain of caricature. They wish to make men machines in theory, and to deal with them as men in practice. Only upon this condition can their doctrines live at all. If human life and action were consistently described according to their view, that view would break hopelessly down at once through sheer excess of absurdity. Hence the propriety of denouncing the "consequence-makers;" hence, also, the value and necessity of "indignant repudiation." Meanwhile it will be well for consistent reasoners to point out that, as logic goes, a conclusion rightly drawn cannot be repudiated without also repudiating the premises. The syllogism is impregnable to indignation.

We suggest, therefore, to the indignant Spencerians that for once they forego repudiating and take to reasoning. But, alas! even that is impossible. There is no self-determination in thought, and reasoning is the powerless symbol of nascent motor excitations. If, then, the plexuses are set for repudiation and bad logic, out they must come. But if there were any power of self-administration in reason, and if our pluxuses would permit, we would suggest to the Spencerians the fol lowing questions: 1. In a system of physical automatism, what warrant can there be for affirming co-existent minds? 2. How can an automaton have duties? 3. In a system of automatism, what is sin? 4. What is the difference as to merit or demerit between sin and righteousness? 5. In what is a socalled wicked man morally worse than an exploding volcano? 6. What moral difference is there between a murderer and the dagger which he uses? 7. What can the new ethics effect in a system where the physical series goes along by itself, and, in going, determines the mental order? 8. Dare we admit that there is no moral difference between sin and. righteousness? 9. If our system destroys all moral distinetions, should we not admit and avow it, under favor, of course, of the plexuses? 10. If our system leaves moral distinctions as valid as ever, is there not some better way of proving it than

by whining about theological bigotry and misrepresentation? If there were a power of self-control in men, we should really insist upon an answer to these questions; but as there is no such power, we expect no relevant answer. The disciples will probably be carried off by the nascent motor excitations into irrelevant moral exhortation, indignant repudiation, and the like. Still, we are not entirely without hope, for the unknowable does not seem absolutely to have set its face against considering the question. We cannot, of course, claim any more self-control for ourselves than we allow for others, though in setting these questions we seem to have done so. The fact is, that the nascent motor excitations have jotted down the questions, and this leads us to hope that they will also permit a relevant answer. Unfortunately, the last clause smacks of the superstition of freedom; for it speaks of the excitations as permitting an answer, as if the answer could come from another quarter. The nascent motor excitations must themselves give the answer. But to whom? We are hampered still by inherited fetters. We have spoken of ourselves as setting questions and hoping for answers, etc.; but this language shows traces of the superstition of a substantial personality. We do not hope, we are the hope; and if an answer were given we should not receive it, we should be it. Alas! that language should be so saturated with falsehood as to be incapable of expressing the truth without betraying it. Perhaps it will be well while considering these questions to inquire, also, if rationality itself does not imply self-control and self-determination.

Doubtless the Spencerian's nascent motor excitations are still in the state corresponding to indignation and to the ideas of caricature, slander, and so on. But the fundamental reality of which we are only a "face," or mask, or modification, protests through our nascent motor excitations that it has neither caricatured nor slandered the system. The same high authority declares that it is ready to cancel all it has said as soon as it is shown to be no implication of the leading doctrines of the system; but until then it insists that the conclusions shall stand. It further avows that not one word has been uttered as sarcasm or ridicule; its only aim has been to secure a logical exposition of certain principles which form the foundation of the new philosophy. It also cheerfully admits that Mr. Spencer may be

an aggregate of the most lovable mental states and the most charming inconsistencies; but it points out that these matters are not in dispute. The one and only question is, What is the logical outcome of a certain impersonal system? And, finally, it adds that even when logical consequences seem absurd, to state them is not to ridicule the system, any more than to state the untenable consequences of the emission-theory of light is to ridicule it. Backed by this high authority of the fundamental reality, we venture to point out that the human mind in general, the inner face of the unknowable, is so constituted that the nascent motor excitations which produce the idea of automatism will not combine with those which produce the ideas of responsibility and demerit; and it is further so constituted that where the former set get the mind to themselves, the resulting nascent motor excitations are apt to be of a kind which would be described in the obsolete terminology of the past as earthly, sensual, devilish. In the common mind the idea of automatism explodes the idea of duty and cancels all sense of responsibility. Now, if a consistent reasoner were possible, it would be his duty either to reconcile these antitheses or to abandon one or the other. Mr. Spencer has done neither. His nascent motor excitations have borne him off to write, or, rather, they themselves have written of ethics without considering whether and how ethics is possible. Still the outcome is as good as could be expected. The treatise is the product of a series of nervous changes, and there is no warrant for believing that any state of consciousness can produce any physical change. Thought, then, having had nothing to do with its production, one cannot wonder at occasional marks of thoughtlessness. On the contrary, it is really surprising that the plexuses have done so well. That they have not done better is a part of the misery of being; that they have not ground out better logic is one of the pessimistic features of existence. There seems to be an innate irrationality in the unknowable which forbids consistency. Formerly, when engaged in theology, it was notoriously illogical, and it does not seem to have improved now that it has taken to philosophy. If ever we looked longingly toward the new era, it was from the belief that there we might be logical and be at peace. The new era has arrived, and has been received with all the honors; but, sadly enough, bad logic still reigns supreme.

Rationalism is as odious a nuisance in the new faith as it ever was in the old; and the methods of dealing with it are the same, namely, indignant repudiation and the like. Alas! that it should always be naughty and wicked to ask questions. We thought we might ask any question when the new ethics should arrive.

The ethics of evolution is based on the conception of physical automatism. Why, then, are not duty, responsibility, and guilt, empty words? And if empty words, why should we as rational beings regard them? The illusory idea of freedom is at the bottom of these "pseudo-ideas," and they disappear with it. These are crucial questions of ethical theory. Already many are using the positions of the new ethics as a reason for relaxing moral restraint, and ominous mutterings are coming from the under-strata of society. But we have our theory to maintain; and what can we do with the questions? Nothing is easier. Since we cannot answer them, and since we dare not avow the conclusions of logic in the premises, and since we hate to abandon our theory, let us escape the difficulty by judiciously and colossally ignoring the whole subject. If we next add a few remarks about altruism and a bit of commonplace moral exhortation, we can safely trust to the average dullness, not only to overlook the sleight-of-hand, but even to defend us against the critic. To help on this good end, while we make men machines in theory, we must be very careful to deal with them as men in practice; and above all, we must resent as slanderous all demands that we shall not use language which has a meaning only in a system we reject. Certainly we have

as much right to our common language as our opponents. Finally, let the critics be repudiated with great firmness, yet kindly, and more in sorrow than in anger, taking care always to remark that this hardness of the critical heart has been foreseen and forgiven, and success will be complete. Of course there is a kind of brutal hard-sense in those seeking an excuse for moral laxity which will not be deceived with such chaff; but, then, the wicked have always been a great embarrassment in every theory.

We pass now to consider some of the specific features of Mr. Spencer's ethics. Ethics he regards as the science of conduct, and conduct is an adjustment of the individual to his surroundings. Conduct is distinguished from action in general by be

ing limited to action performed with purpose, but this is a logical inconsequence. Purpose in this sytem has nothing to do with action. By viewing conduct as adjustment, it is brought into line with his definition of life and mind, and is made to appear as only the highest form of a process essential to all organic existence. The process is simply the adjustment of inner relations to outer relations. In the "Principles of Biology" this simple formula is made to exhaust the significance of animal life in all its forms. In the "Principles of Psychology" it is extended to include all mental phenomena. In the "Data of Ethics" it is made to cover conduct. The formula has been worked out with great apparent thoroughness, and it has so impressed many minds of an inert and passive type that they view it as a magnificent generalization, scarcely, if at all, inferior in significance and indicated genius to Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation. The formula is indifferently given as the adjustment of inner relations to outer relations, and as the correspondence of inner relations to outer relations. We may get some idea of the apparent thoroughness from the fact that eleven chapters are devoted to its exposition in relation to mind. When food drifts against a polyp's tentacles, they contract, the polyp is fed and lives. This is one of the lowest and simplest forms of correspondence, or adjustment. It is direct and homogeneous. The squirrel, acting as if he foresaw the winter, gathers a store of nuts and thus lives till spring. Here the correspondence is vastly more extended than in the previous case, but it is still a correspondence. Finally the man adjusts his thoughts to the movements of the seasons, of the stars, and by mastering nature's laws he reads the past, and foresees and provides for the future. Here the adjustment, or correspondence, is of the most complex and far-reaching type, but it is still correspondence. It is of essentially the same character as that first movement of the polyp's tentacles in response to external excitation. It is throughout an adjustment of inner relations to outer relations. It is easy to see that conduct comes under the same lead. A man who feeds his children, pays his taxes, and does not rob his neighbor, is simply adjusting himself to external relations. The outline is at once so simple and so vast as to be very imposing indeed. And yet what does this formula mean? First of all, what is meant by this adjust