Vexed Questions in Mines. 35 



YEXED QUESTIONS IN ETHICS. 



BY REV. F. M. HOLLAND, A. M., BAKABOO, WISCONSIN. 



The best and wisest people differ widely about what is right. 

 John Brown, Stonewall Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, were 

 equally conscientious in their ideas of the duty of Americans 

 towards slavery and the Union. Ardent friends of morality 

 take opposite sides about liquor laws, taxation of church 

 property, Sunday amusements and the use of the bible in the 

 public schools. Similar differences of opinion exist about the 

 duty of dealers to mention defects in their wares, the propriety 

 of giving to strangers who appear needy, and the obligation of 

 speaking the truth when it seems likely to do harm. We 

 need some general rule for solving all such problems, some 

 acknowledged test of right and wrong, some practical moral 

 standard. Two honest men might easily quarrel about the 

 length of a plank, if they had no rule to measure it by ; and 

 we quarrel continually about moral dimensions, because we 

 have no established system of measurement. 



About a dozen different systems are advocated by moralists, 

 but the fact that there are so many proves that no one has 

 been made sufficiently accurate to take the proper place. 

 This diversity of opinion, about the moral standard, arises 

 from the general disagreement about the essential peculiarity 

 of right, distinguishing it from wrong. Corresponding ques- 

 tions are — what is conscience, and what is the ground of moral 

 obligation ? 



We may find great assistance in solving these almost iden- 

 tical problems, by turning our attention to another one, which 

 was thought fundamental in ancient ethics, but has received 

 too little attention from modern thinkers, namely, what is our 



