Sheldon — The Literature of Ethical Science. 1 17 



It is apparent that the answers on the part of the various 

 scholars to this fifth problem will be very much determined 

 by personal temperament. The element of feeling is bound 

 to come in at such a point. If a man himself has no " cos- 

 mic emotion," he will probably leave it out of his ethical 

 system. If, on the other hand, he has a personal feeling of 

 some connection between himself and the cosmos or the Law- 

 maker of the cosmos, he will introduce it as a part of his 

 theor}'. 



About the most recent contribution to this whole problem 

 comes from Prof. Palmer, of Harvard, in his little volume of 

 Lectures, "The Field of Ethics," where he points out a 

 certain antithesis between the provinces of ethics and religion, 

 showing how the first points " man-ward" and the second, 

 " God-ward;" and therefore how it is that the absorption of 

 a person's interest in the one direction may temporarily 

 weaken his interest in the other. And yet according to his 

 opinion, " morality fulfills itself in religion, even though its 

 gaze is directed man-ward rather than God-ward." 



Taking it altogether it might be said that there is a con- 

 sensus of opinion to the effect that the God-belief has not 

 of itself called conscience into existence, nor conscience the 

 God-belief; that neither one evolved out of the other, but 

 that the two beliefs have been very closely interwoven histori- 

 cally and have exerted immense influence on each other. 

 There is also a consensus of opinion, I should say, that the 

 God-beliefs have historically served a great purpose in giving 

 a fixity to ethical codes by impressing them more firmly on 

 the human consciousness in the process of social develop- 

 ment or social evolution, and also given a greater definiteness 

 to the sense of moral obligation. 



Of like interest would be the discussions as to the extent to 

 which conscience and the ethical ideal may depend on the 

 belief in the immortality of the soul. Here, too, in recent 

 years the opinions are likewise diverse in the extreme. For 

 a writer like Joseph Rickaby, of the Society of Jesus, it is to 

 be expected that this belief is absolutely essential to his theory 

 of conscience. On the other hand, we have the opposite 



