The Buried Ideal

The philosophy which Mr. Lawson sets forth in this volume is unusual in its character and will not at first reading quite incline the readers to acceptance, but as the work progresses, the reasonableness, more or less, of the author's method begins to make itself more apparent. At all events, even if one does accept the author's line of argument, or rejects it on the other hand, the method or system will not prove unentertaining. The ideal that Mr. Lawson is striving to resuscitate is duty, and to illustrate it he goes back to tribal life in England when duty was clearly defined as a matter of personal devotion and reached its highest development in the feudal system. When personal loyalty was loosened and finally broke down, then duty grew shadowy and faded in certain directions quite out of sight. Mr. Lawson's study of his theme closes with several chapters, or sections, entitled "The Message," in which is summed up with considerable fullness the gist of his theories.

-Christian Register, Volume 94 [1915]