118 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



standpoint of Gizycki who says, " The giving up of the belief 

 in another world tends to lift a man's character. It is better 

 to find one's blessedness through action than through adora- 

 tion." But on the whole, looking through these various treat- 

 ises where this phase of the subject is dealt with, it is quite 

 plainly manifest that a faith in an ethical ideal may be very 

 strong indeed even where the author is quite agnostic on all 

 three problems as to " Gott, Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit." 



It will naturally seem a little strange that in this short 

 statement of mine, I have reserved such a brief space for 

 reference to that great department of ethical science to which 

 the leading writers would perhaps devote one-third of their 

 treatises, or to the consideration of which many independent 

 volumes have been given. It has to do, of course, with the 

 problem of the application of the theories, — the department 

 of applied ethics. 



Each writer is called upon to tell how his theory helps to 

 solve practical problems. But we can see at once that he has 

 a task of enormous dimensions before him. The whole his- 

 tory of the human race is involved here; so too, a knowledge 

 of the complex mechanism of the human consciousness, and 

 also an acquaintance with a vast realm of practical affairs in 

 the intricate movement or workings of the social forces. It 

 is therefore to be expected that in this direction the first re- 

 sults must be crude and unsatisfactory. It is just where we 

 are the most deeply and personally concerned, and where we 

 should be most anxious to have light ; but where the light will 

 come the most slowly. 



What is more, in this part of the subject we are dealing 

 not with a fixed form of the ethical ideal, but with such an 

 ideal in the process of the making. If there is one fact 

 which has been established by the scholars in this last epoch 

 since the time of Darwin, it is just this : that the ethical ideal 

 on its practical side is a progressive one, and must assume 

 new forms from age to age. It is the fundamental thought 

 of Alexander's "Moral Order and Progress," who tells us 



