In viewing the general influences which bore upon the study of the ethical problem in our period this stress upon the social character of morality is supreme, and is the most distinctly marked. But in addition to the sociological influence there are others which it is both interesting and important to note briefly. There is the influence of traditional religious morality, bound up with Christianity as presented by the Roman Catholic Church. The deficiencies of this are frequently brought out in the discussion, but in certain of the thinkers, chiefly the “modernists,” it appears as an influence contributing to a religious morality and as offering, indeed, the basis of a religion. Other writers, however, while rejecting the traditional morality of the Church, lay stress upon a humanitarian ethic which has an affinity to the idealistic morality preached by the founder of Christianity, a morality which manifests a spirit different from that which his Church has usually shown. Indeed, the general tendency of the ethical development in our period is one of opposition to the ecclesiastical and traditional standpoint in ethics. Then there is the influence of Kant’s ethics, and here again, although Renouvier owed much to Kant, the general tendency is to get away from the formalism and rigorism of his “categorical imperative.” The current of English Utilitarian ethics appears as rather a negative influence, and is rather scorned when mentioned. The common feature is that of the social standpoint, issuing in conceptions of social justice or humanitarianism and finding in action and life a concrete morality which is but the reflection of the living conscience of mankind creating itself and finding in the claims of the practical reason that Absolute or Ideal to which the pure reason feels it cannot alone attain. I Taine and Renan were influenced by the outlook adopted by Comte. It might well be said that Taine was more strictly positivist than Comte. In his view of ethics, Taine, as might be expected from the general character of his work and his philosophical attitude, adheres to a rigidly positivist and naturalist conception. He looks upon ethics as purely positive, since it merely states the scientific conditions of virtue and vice, and he despairs of altering human nature or conduct. This is due almost entirely to his doctrine of rigid determinism which reacts with disastrous consequences upon his ethical outlook. This only further confirms our contention that the problem of freedom is the central and vital one of the period. We have already pointed out the criticism which Fouillée brought against Taine’s dogmatic belief in determinism, as an incomplete doctrine, a half-truth, which involves mischievous consequences and permits of no valuable discussion of the ethical problem.