Progress in philosophy is something concerning which it is always possible to wax sceptical. Ever diverging streams of speculation seem constantly to reverify and intensify such pessimism. And yet in one respect the very luxuriance of the successive emergences seems to afford grounds for a somewhat more humble and negative optimism. Surely there are positions which it is not possible to reassume: blind alleys which the feeble, philosophic torches have perhaps only faintly and fitfully illumined, but which have, nevertheless, been clearly recognized as quite impossible. So far as ethical thought is concerned, many recent philosophers have perhaps oversanguinely congratulated themselves on the discovery of such a cul-de-sac. Hedonism in the most recent literature has undoubtedly been looked upon as something possessing a purely historical interest-something now outgrown. For most of us Butler's criticism of psychological hedonism and egoism, the familiar contradictions of Mill and Spencer, the polemics of idealists such as Green and Bradley, and, last but not least, the keen analysis of Mr. G. E. Moore, have been decisive. It is all the more interesting, therefore, to be confronted with a contemporary attempt on the part of Mr. R. M. Blake to defend this pariah among ethical doctrines.' Such protests against largely unconscious intellectual drifts are always salutary and worthy of serious examination. Mr. Blake, after summarizing what he takes to be the essence of the hedonistic position in seven propositions taken from G. E. Moore, proceeds to answer current objections. In the first place, he disavows psychological hedonism, and dis-