PREFACE.

In the following essay I have endeavoured to give an account of an ethical theory once held in high esteem, but now chiefly valuable as representing an interesting period of English Ethics. To say that Clarke has been in general misunderstood by writers on ethical subjects, would be to assert too much; but it is not too much to say that a complete account of his ethical system is not to be found in any History of Ethics; nor do I know that a monogram on the subject has yet appeared.

Clarke's ethical theory is most completely stated in his second Boyle Lecture, the "Discourse concerning the unchangeable obligations of natural religion"; but his theory of knowledge, of human liberty, and, in part, his doctrine of motives, are more carefully treated in several of his minor works, and these are very seldom read, even by students of philosophy. The two "Boyle Lectures" I have used in the sixth 8vo. edition of 1724; the "Letter to Dodwell", in the fifth 8vo. edition of 1718; and the correspondence between Leibniz and Clarke, in the first 8vo. edition of 1717. Appendixed to these volumes are to be found the minor writings mentioned in Ch. II Sect. I.

The principle works I have consulted, especially with reference to the first two chapters and the last, have been :Ueberweg-Heinze's "Gesch. d. Philos."; Jodl's "Gesch. d. Ethik";

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Zimmermann's "Clarke's Leben und Lehre" ("Denkschrift d. Kaiserl. Akad. d. Wissenschaften", phil. - hist. Cl. 19. Band S. 249-336); Leslie Stephen's "English Thought in the 18th Cent."; Sidgwick's "Outlines of the History of Ethics", and "Methods of Ethics"; Martineau's "Types of Ethical Theory", Vol. II; and "Encycl. Britt.", Art. "Clarke", by Prof. Flint.

Leipzig, Jan. 13th 1892.

J. E. LeRossignol.