CYTILOMMY

it makes a cosmos out of the chaos, it analyzes and classifies.

But it does not stop here. It would know why things are as they are, why they act as they act. The thinker is not content with knowing what is; the great question is, Why is it so, what is the reason for its being as it is? What is its relation to other things and occurrences, what are the antecedents and concomitants upon which it is said to depend, and without which it cannot be what it is? What are its consequents or effects; in short, what place does it occupy in the world of facts, how does it fit into the system of things? The tendency to find out the why and wherefore of things is universal; it manifests itself in the child who wonders "what makes the wheels go round" in his plaything, no less than in the natural philosopher who longs to know why the rain falls and the wind blows and the grass grows. And there is something of a Newton in the most superstitious savage. Science begins with a question mark; it begins when reasons are sought after, and its perfection is measured by the manner in which its problems are solved. Events which were once explained by supernatural causes are now referred to their natural antecedents or concomitants, but the scientific instinct is essentially the same as in those dark ages when our benighted forefathers ascribed the thunder to the thunder god, and regarded Apollo as the hurler of the shafts of disease and death. The scientist is

born when man begins to wonder at facts, and aims to correlate them with other facts or insert them into a system, be it ever so crude.1

2. The Subject-matter of the Sciences. Science, therefore, analyzes, classifies, and explains phenomena. Now we may, for the sake of order and convenience, arrange these phenomena into different groups or classes, and form different sciences. Each particular science marks out for itself a particular subjectmatter, and studies this. Thus physics investigates the general properties of matter, biology treats of matter in the living state, psychology examines mental processes or states of consciousness. Each of these sciences may in turn be subdivided until we have an endless number of special sciences, corresponding to limited fields of investigation. In every case, however, the attempt is made not only

1 See Muirhead, The Elements of Ethics, § 8; Hibben, Inductive Logic, chap. i; Creighton, Logic, §§ 49, 59 ff., 78, 88; Sigwart, Logic, Vol. II, pp. 417 ff. I quote from Creighton's Logic, p. 285: "We have said that Judgment constructs a system of knowledge. This implies, then, that it is not merely a process of adding one fact to another, as we might add one stone to another to form a heap. No! Judgment combines the new facts with which it deals with what is already known, in such a way as to give to each its own proper place. Different facts are not only brought together, but they are arranged, related, systematized. No fact is allowed to stand by itself, but has to take its place as a member of a larger system of facts, and receive its value from this connection. Of course, a single judgment is not sufficient to bring a large number of facts into relation in this way. But each judgment contributes something to this end, and brings some new fact into relation to what is already known."

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 (ethice ĕpistēmē), ethics, ethical science.1 The word oɩkós 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 B.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 (hoikós), '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