A GERMAN VIEW OF THE "DATA OF ETHICS." 197 



their supposed sacred origin, the secularization of morals is becoming 

 imperative. Few things can happen more disastrous than the decay 

 and death of a regulative system no longer fit, before another and bet- 

 ter regulative system has grown up to replace it." For this reason, 

 Herbert Spencer has sought to fill the gap caused by the disappear- 

 ance of the code of supernatural ethics, by a code of natural ethics. 



The vacuum is before us, while some consider the filling of it super- 

 fluous and others impossible. Herbert Spencer believes that it can 

 and must be filled. High above all problems of cultural and scientific 

 endeavor he places that of the foundation of scientific ethics. 



It is presumed, in the conception of ethics, that it shall establish 

 the " ought." Unlike other moral systems, scientific ethics deals with 

 the establishment of the practicable " ought " ; not with duties in 

 abstracto, but with duties which can be performed. For, " by associa- 

 tion with rules which can not be obeyed, rules that can be obeyed 

 lose their authority." Here the critical point of view is established 

 whence scientific ethics must prove the conclusions of moral philoso- 

 phers upon their merits. 



Throughout the " Synthetic Philosophy," which will be closed by 

 the " Principles of Ethics," of which the " Data of Ethics " forms the 

 first part, the fundamental principles of modern evolution are enlisted 

 for the solution of biological, sociological, and psychological ques- 

 tions, to such an extent that this philosophy may be described as a 

 distinct branch of the philosophy of evolution. No system of natural 

 philosophy has, with equal consecutiveness and completeness, adapted 

 the achievements and the hypotheses of modern natural science to the 

 construction of a philosophy on a scientific foundation. 



Herbert Spencer's " First Principles " serve as an introduction to 

 this philosophy, and define the stand-point from which the author sur- 

 veys the whole range of philosophical inquiry. This work undertakes 

 the experiment of a universal application of the fundamental laws and 

 hypotheses of natural science, at the same time generalizing the prin- 

 ciple of evolution, and making it the one great underlying principle. 

 It takes up the work of critical philosophy, defining the limits of the 

 knowable and the unknowable. It attempts the only possible recon- 

 ciliation between religion and science, by pointing to their common, 

 final resting-place in the absolute. The works included in the " Syn- 

 thetic Philosophy " form parts of a great system held together by the 

 principle of evolution ; displaying stupendous learning, and a rare uni- 

 versality of scientific culture, entitling their author to a place, mutatis 

 mutandis, beside Aristotle himself. These comprehensive writings 

 afford, even to those who can not accept their underlying principles, 

 a plenitude of instruction. 



As to the statement of the problem in general form, serious differ- 

 ence of opinion is hardly possible. For every school and from every 

 stand-point, ethics is a regulative discipline ; not laws of the actual, 



