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to analyze and classify and describe, but also to explain, to account for a particular group of facts, to tell why they are so and not otherwise, to ascertain the conditions or circumstances which made them what they are, to relate them to other facts, to insert them into a system, as was indicated above.

3. The Science of Ethics. Among the sciences referred to is one called ethics, which we are going to study in this book. It will be our business, first of all, to specify the facts or phenomena, the subject-matter, with which this branch of knowledge concerns itself. And here, perhaps, the different names that have been used at various times to designate our science may help us to understand its boundaries. The ancient Greeks employed the terms, τὰ ἠθικά (ta ethica), ἠθικὴ ἐπιστήμη (ethic ěpistēmē), ethics, ethical science.1 The word oukós is derived from the word 0os (ethos), character, disposition, which is connected with elos (ĕthos), custom or habit. The Latin equivalent for the name ethics is philosophia moralis,2 from which comes the English

1 Though Aristotle (died 323 B.C.) was perhaps the first to employ the term ethics in a strictly technical sense, the name was used by Xenocrates (313 в.c.), and perhaps also by the Cyrenaics. See Sextus Empiricus, Ad. Mathematicos, VII, 15. See also Runze, Ethik, p. 1; Wundt, Ethics, Part I, chap. i.

2 See Wundt, Ethics, English translation, p. 26: "The term moralis, which gave rise to the expression philosophia moralis, was a direct translation from Aristotle. Cicero remarks expressly, in the passage where he introduces the word, that he has formed it on the analogy of the Greek ethicos (noiкbs), 'in order to enrich the Latin language.'

appellation, moral philosophy or moral science.1 The term practical philosophy is also used as a synonym of ethics, or as a more comprehensive generic term including both ethics and politics; 2 practical because it investigates practice or conduct.3

The subject-matter of ethics is morality, the phenomenon of right and wrong. It is a fact that men call certain characters and actions moral and immoral, right and wrong, good and bad, that they approve of them and disapprove of them, express moral judgments upon them, evaluate them. They feel morally bound to do certain things or to leave them undone, they recognize the authority of certain rules or laws, and acknowledge their binding

1 Compare the titles of the works of Paley, Stewart, Reid, Calderwood, Porter, Bain, Bentham, Whewell, Price, Hume, and others.

2 Compare Lotze, Practische Philosophie; Hodgson, Theory of Practice.

8 The term ethics is the preferable one, as it is freest from ambiguity. The name moral philosophy, or moral science, was formerly used in the sense of mental science to distinguish the study of mental phenomena from that of physical phenomena, or natural philosophy. The term practical philosophy is also misleading. The science which studies the principles of conduct or practice is just as theoretical as physics, physiology, or chemistry. Ethics is, like all sciences, both speculative and practical, both a science and an art. It is speculative, or theoretical, in so far as it analyzes, classifies, and explains its phenomena, or searches after their principles or laws, practical in so far as it applies these principles or laws, or puts them into practice. Physiology and chemistry are theories, medicine is practice, or the application of the laws or truths discovered by biology, chemistry, and physics. It is confusing to call ethics practical philosophy simply because it deals with practice. See § 12 of this chapter.

force. They say: This ought to be done, this ought not to be done; thou shalt, and thou shalt not. In short, we seem to approach the world with a certain moral form or category, to impress it with a certain moral stamp; we look at it through moral spectacles, as it were.

Now this fact is as capable and as worthy of investigation as any other fact in the universe, and we need a science that will subject it to careful analysis. Three problems here present themselves for our consideration. (1) What differentiates the subjectmatter of ethics from that of other fields of knowledge? What is there in an ethical phenomenon that allows us to refer it to a special class? In what does it differ from a fact of physics or æsthetics? (2) How shall we explain the fact that men judge ethically, that they pronounce judgment as they do? What do we mean when we say that an act is right or wrong; what is taking place in our consciousness under these circumstances? Is there anything in man that makes him judge as he judges, and what is it? Why does man evaluate as he does? Is it because certain moral truths are written on his heart, because he possesses an innate faculty of knowledge, a conscience, a universal, original, immutable power of the soul that enables him immediately to discriminate the right from the wrong? Or do we gradually learn to make moral distinctions; is the ability to judge morally which we now possess an acquired one, a product of evolution, and as such capable

of further development? (3) What is the nature of acts which are designated as right and wrong? Why are they right and wrong? Is there anything in them, any quality or attribute, that makes them right and wrong, or that makes men call them so? If so, what is it?

All these are questions for the moralist to decide. He must calmly, carefully, and impartially investigate the facts, and, if possible, explain them; he must search after the principles or laws underlying them, if there be any; he must unify them, if that can be done. He must analyze and explain both character and conduct, the inside and outside of action, the mental factor, conscience, or moral judgment, and the physical factor, the act which it judges. He must tell us what they are, and why they are so; he must account for them, show us their raison d'être, indicate to us the place which they occupy in the system of things.

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4. The Data of Ethics. We have stated in a general way what is the subject-matter with which our science deals, and how it is to be treated. Let us now attempt to show what differentiates ethical facts from other facts. Let us imagine that a person has killed a fellow-creature with malice. aforethought. We call the deed murder, we pronounce moral judgment upon it; we say, It is wrong, wicked, reprehensible. The same act, however, may be looked at from the physical or physiological point of view. The energy stored up in the brain cells of

the murderer was liberated by certain currents coming from the periphery, and discharged into efferent nerves connected with certain muscles, which produced the movement of the arm and hand holding the weapon of destruction. And the blow on the victim's skull so injured his brain and the vital functions dependent upon the nervous system as to cause death. The prosecuting attorney, ignoring the physiological and even moral factors involved, may look at the act purely from the legal standpoint. To kill a person with malice aforethought is a crime prohibited by law and punishable by death. The psychologist may try to explain the psychology of the entire affair. Certain motives were aroused in the mind of the murderer by the behavior of his future victim. These motives became more and more intense, and the inhibitions weaker and weaker, until a resolution was finally formed which led to the act.

We see, one and the same circumstance may be examined from different points of view; each individual thinker may select particular elements in it for study, and ignore the others. The physicist looks at the rainbow and tries to understand its physical conditions. I may contemplate it and call it beautiful, and then ask myself what makes it beautiful; why is it that the contemplation of such a phenomenon arouses a peculiar æsthetic feeling in me? The science of æsthetics is appealed to for an answer to this question. In ethics we do not care for the physical or physiological causes which

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