International Journal of Ethics.

The April issue of the Journal of Ethics might well be called a Harvard number, since of the seven articles, two are contributed by Harvard men, Professor C. H. Toy and Professor William James. Professor Toy gives a comprehensive discussion of "The Religious Element in Ethical Codes." He begins by speaking of the actual historical relations which have existed between ethics and religion. and after an examination into the conditions which have modified man's succeeding history, he comes to the conclusion that the end to which human moral history points is a conscience absolutely independent and yet absolutely dependent,-independent in that it refuses to recognize any other authority than its own ideals, dependent in that it receives its ideals from the life of man which is the highest revelation of God.

Professor James's paper on "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life" was originally prepared for the meeting of the Philosophical Club of Yale University last February and appears in print now for the first time. The main purpose of the article is to show that there is no such thing possible as an ethical philosophy dogmatically made up in advance. After dividing the ethical question into three parts,-the pscychological, which asks after the historical origin of our moral ideas and judgments,-the metaphysical, which asks the meaning of the words good, ill, and obligation,-and the casnistic which asks the measures of the various goods and ills of which men take cognizance, Professor James gives an exhaustive discussion of these three questions. His final conclusions are that we all help to determine the content of ethical philosophy so far as we contribute to the race's moral life; that the stable and systematic moral universe for which the ethical philosopher asks is fully possible only in a world where there is a divine thinker with all enveloping demands; and that in the interests of high ideals a divine thinker must be postulated.