100 Trans. Acad. Set. of St. Louis. 



our writers have slashed here and there with a defiant bold- 

 ness that must make some of us a little ashamed. So, too, 

 there has been the appallingly careless disposition to assume 

 that in describing the processes of the development of con- 

 science, the stages of its growth, one has also accounted for 

 its origin; just as in the old days, perhaps, a careless thinker 

 in chemistry may have felt that he had the whole explanation 

 of a compound by describing the various elements that went 

 into it, and by being able to put the compound together. 



And yet, as a matter of fact, to-day we know no more as 

 to the very first origin of the moral sense or of the function- 

 ing of the soul in this direction, than we know as to the origin 

 of the living cell from inorganic matter. What is more, it is 

 perfectly clear to my own mind that while, perhaps, the bridge 

 may yet be covered between the organic and the inorganic, 

 the bridge from the conscienceless to the conscience-possess- 

 ino; creature will never be constructed. 



It has to be remembered that ethics is one of the very old- 

 est of the sciences, where earnest searchers after truth have 

 been working with persistence for upwards of twenty-five 

 hundred years ; and it behooves the new thinkers — for this 

 reason, if for no other — to be cautious about their audacious 

 statements and the revolutionizinsj tendencies from doctrines 

 that are only a few decades old. 



As regards this collection of books as a whole, some of you 

 who are absorbed in the study of the physical sciences may ask 

 in amazement what it is that is contained here. Many of 

 these works are extensive treatises, heavy and weighty volumes 

 by some of the leading thinkers or scholars of the world. 

 How is it there is so much to say or dispute over, concerning 

 the subject of conscience and the ethical ideal? What is it 

 that these men are talking about and what are their problems? 

 In answer to this I might suggest to you what queries a 

 student in ethics would mentally [put as he took up for the 

 first time one of these treatises for perusal. In a general 

 way he would desire at the outset to ascertain the author's 

 attitude on perhaps five leading problems, about as follows : 



(1) What is the writer's standpoint as to the theory of 



