PROLEGOMENA TO ETHICS. 113 



virtues except the Christian verities. Still we should 

 be quite wrong in supposing that the controversy 

 between science, philosophy, and theology in this 

 matter could be represented as a triangular duel, or 

 a " bellum omnium inter omnes" For metaphysics 

 and theology fight side by side against any attempt 

 to make ethics a part of natural science. It is only 

 when metaphysics adopts,, as it sometimes does, 

 a sublimated Christianity in which the Christ of 

 the Gospels and the Epistles is lost sight of in the 

 Christian Idea, that theology is compelled to re- 

 assert the historical character of the Catholic faith. 

 The " Prolegomena to Ethics " is mainly directed 

 to the establishment of morality on the basis of self- 

 consciousness. Such a view necessitates a criticism 

 of those theories which involve a physical theory 

 of conscience and of will, whether in the form given 

 to it by Mr. J. S. Mill, or in the ethics of evolution 

 as formulated by Mr. Herbert Spencer. Against 

 both of these it is necessary to show the reality of 

 the spiritual principle in nature and in man, and 

 the true relation of man to nature. This is the 

 subject of Book L, which is headed " Metaphysics 

 of Knowledge." It is clearly impossible without 

 unfairness to summarize a closely reasoned discus- 

 sion, which includes much valuable criticism. For 

 a summary can do little more than state in a bald, 

 dogmatic form the conclusions ultimately arrived 

 at, indicating roughly and in outline the method 



I 



