RELATION OF ETHICS TO SOCIAL SCIENCE 679 



moral code will be enlarged. We shall now know at least that it is 

 our moral duty to unite our efforts with those of others in order to 

 remove the social danger of irregular employment. Similarly in the 

 finer instance of the duties of sexes to one another, in the duty of 

 parents to the child, of the citizen to the state, etc., a new knowledge 

 of the means that conduce to the moral end will enlarge, will diversify, 

 and will enhance the stringency of the moral code. Surely this is 

 a wide and noble field. Surely it is worthy of the devotion and en- 

 thusiasm of the social scientist, and offers ample opportunities for 

 the exercise of his highest faculties, both as a scientist and as a man. 

 I have now reached the end of my argument, and here might fitly 

 close this paper. But one question I know will linger in the minds 

 of many who may have followed me thus far. Whence then, if not 

 from social science, or sociology, are the sovereign ethical ideals to be 

 derived? Who is to determine for us what the social end ought to 

 be? Is the hope of unanimity with regard to the ethical standard 

 to be relinquished? Is there no prospect of relieving our highest 

 moral aspirations from the taint of subjectivity which adheres to 

 them? My answer would be that the diversity of ethical standards 

 is unavoidable, and is not the unmixed evil it is often represented to 

 be. Ethical principles are not propagated by being stated as in- 

 tellectual abstractions, but by means of the conduct to which they 

 lead. " By their fruits they are known." Such formulas as the 

 categorical imperative of Kant, or even the equation between our 

 neighbors and ourselves, established in the Golden Rule are not con- 

 vincing except they be translated and envisaged in the life which 

 is led according to them. 'T is the life that converts. The differ- 

 ences in ethical standards are due to differences in degree of develop- 

 ment and in temperament. The higher standards will overcome 

 the lower by the convincing force of example. Our trust must be 

 in the moral endowment that is latent in all men; the appeal must 

 be to human nature in the last instance. But the process of change 

 must in the nature of the case be gradual, and it is well that it 

 should be so, since those who are morally advanced, or believe 

 themselves to be, are thus put on their mettle to propagate the moral 

 truth they hold dear, by putting the emphasis of their efforts upon 

 the life, upon the side of feeling and will, rather than to seek the 

 moral improvement of mankind by means of such intellectual unan- 

 imity as might be worked out in sociological laboratories. Further- 

 more, the prospect even of intellectual agreement among those who 

 are upon the same moral plane would be greatly enhanced if only 

 the independence of ethical science from other branches of human 

 knowledge and interest could be secured. Ethics has been treated 

 in the past as a mere handmaid of religion; at present, notably by 

 the sociologists, it is treated as a mere branch of natural science. 



