672 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



affairs which are not second in importance to the authorized and 

 legalized agencies of the state. 



Among the voluntary associations which are doing effective 

 work in the moral education of the people, and in the wise direc- 

 tion of public sentiment toward the practical solution of our social 

 and political problems, the Ethical Society holds a unique and im- 

 portant place. For a goodly number of intelligent minds — agnos- 

 tics and independents in their theological views — it has already to 

 a large extent supplanted the Church as an agency for moral, and 

 in a qualified and unconventional sense, of religious education. 

 Its aim is broader than that of any of the organizations devoted 

 to specific social or political reforms ; it strives not only to afford 

 the means for wise altruistic efforts in applying ethical data to 

 the practical problems of social life, but also, and in a special 

 sense, to discover the true scientific and philosophical principles 

 which underlie applied ethics and sociology. 



The work of Prof. Felix Adler and his able coadjutors, Dr. 

 Stanton Coit, Mr. Salter, Mr. Sheldon, Mr. Weston, and Mr. Man- 

 gasarian, as teachers of a noble type of ethical theory, and earnest 

 workers among the poor and ignorant of our great cities, is worthy 

 of all praise, and has received the cordial recognition of many who 

 are not in full sympathy with the philosophical foundation on 

 which the able and scholarly teaching of Prof. Adler and his dis- 

 ciples appears to be based. 



The Brooklyn Ethical Association, which is the subject of this 

 sketch, has no connection, however, except through its general 

 sympathetic attitude toward noble workers for common ends, with 

 the societies over which Prof. Adler and his devoted associates 

 preside. This association, which has become known to the public 

 through its efforts to bring the problems of ethics, sociology, and 

 religion to the test of scientific and evolutionary principles, is it- 

 self a product and illustration of natural development. It did not 

 spring, full grown, from the brain of any individual, and its ulti- 

 mate success has doubtless far exceeded the expectations of any 

 who were promoters of the earliest stages of its growth. Its origi- 

 nal nucleus was an adult class in ethics connected with the Sun- 

 day school of the Second Unitarian Church of Brooklyn, N. Y., 

 of which the Rev. John W. Chadwick has been for twenty-seven 

 years the honored minister. For several years this class had been 

 conducted by Dr. Lewis G-. Janes, using as text-books such sug- 

 gestive works as Spencer's Data of Ethics, Mill on Liberty, Gra- 

 ham's Creed of Science, Sidgwick's History of Ethics, and others 

 of a similar character. 



In the season of 1881-82 this class was temporarily in charge 

 of Prof. Franklin W. Hooper, now the able manager of the 

 Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, and to him more than 



