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1884
These pages represent an attempt to exhibit a scientific conception ofmorality in a popular form, and with a view to practical applicationsrather than the discussion of theoretical difficulties. For this purposeit has been necessary to study brevity and avoid controversy. Hence, Ihave made few references to other authors, and I have almost altogetherdispensed with foot-notes. But, though I have attempted to state ratherthan to defend my views, I believe that they are, in the main, thosewhich, making exception for a few back eddies in the stream of modernthought, are winning their way to general acceptance among the moreinstructed and reflective men of our day.
It is necessary that I should state that this Essay is independent of amuch larger work, entitled the 'Principles of Morals,' on which I was,some years ago, engaged with my predecessor, the late Professor Wilson.Owing to the declining state of his health during the latter years ofhis life, that work was, at the time of his death, left in a conditionwhich rendered its completion very difficult and its publicationprobably undesirable. For the present work I am solely responsible,though no one can have been brought into close contact with so powerfula mind as that of Professor Wilson, without deriving from it muchstimulus and retaining many traces of its influence.
It has long been my belief that the questions of theoretical Ethicswould be far less open to dispute, as well as far more intelligible, ifthey were considered with more direct reference to practice. This littlebook will, I trust, furnish an example, however slight and imperfect, ofsuch a mode of treatment.
July 25, 1884.
Introduction. The Sanctions of Conduct.
The Moral Sanction or Moral Sentiment. ItsFunctions and the Justification of its claimsto Superiority.
Analysis and Formation of the Moral Sentiment.
Its Education and Improvement.
The Moral Test and its Justification.
Examples of the Practical Application of the Moral
Test to existing Morality.
* * * * *
All reflecting men acknowledge that both the theory and the practice ofmorality have advanced with the general advance in the intelligence andcivilisation