ETHEREGE 



the same sulphuric acid. Heck- 

 mann's apparatus is employed on 

 a small, and Barbet's on a. com- 

 mercial, scale. The product is 

 further purified by re-distillation 

 over calcium chloride. Owing to 

 its inflammable nature, special 

 precautions have to be taken 

 against fire and explosion. Large 

 quantities of ether are used in the 

 manufacture of cordite, aniline 

 dyes, and artificial silk. As a sol- 

 vent of gun-cotton it is employed 

 in making collodion, used in the 

 wet-plate process of photography. 



In medicine, ether is employed 

 hi doses of 15 to 30 minims for 

 repeated administration, and 45 

 to 60 minims for single adminis- 

 tration. The following prepara- 

 tions of ether are also used : 

 spiritus aetheris, ether 1 part and 

 alcohol 2 parts, dose 20 to 40 

 minims repeated, 60 to 90 minims 

 single administration ; and spiritus 

 aetheris compositua, or Hoffmann's 

 anodyne, hi the same doses. Ether 

 evaporates rapidly, producing great 

 cold, and a spray directed against 

 the skin eventually numbs sensa- 

 tion sufficiently to permit the 

 performance of small operations. 

 Small doses act as gastric stimu- 

 lants, and are of service in various 

 forms of dyspepsia. Ether also 

 stimulates the heart and is an 

 excellent restorative in cases of 

 fainting. Its most frequent use is 

 as a general anaesthetic, either 

 alone or in combination with 

 chloroform. Though less dangerous 

 than chloroform, it is more apt to 

 irritate the respiratory passages, 

 and should not be administered to 

 those suffering from bronchitis. 



Etherege, Sm GEORGE (1634- 

 91). English dramatist. Born of 

 an Oxfordshire family, he studied 

 law, but gave his tune mainly 

 to the We of a man of fashion. 

 In 1664 his first comedy, The 

 Comical Revenge, or Love in a 

 Tub, was produced at the Duke's 

 Theatre, and from that time its 

 author's name and fame were 

 assured. A second, She Would if 

 She Could, and then a third. The 

 Man of Mode, followed, each a 

 distinct success. In 1685 Charles 

 II, having knighted Etherege, sent 

 him to represent England at 

 Ratisbon. In 1688 he left that 

 city, and passed most of his later 

 life in Paris. 



Etherege may be described as the 

 orginator of the modern comedy 

 of social life. His knowledge of the 

 life of his time was complete, and his 

 portraiture of its gallants, ladies, 

 and their surroundings perfect 

 See Works, ed. A. W. Verity, 1888. 



Ethers. Oxides of the alcohol 

 radicals formed by the elimination 

 of water frcm two molecules of 



2990 



alcohol. Ethers which contain the 

 same radical twice are termed simple 

 ethers. those which contain different 

 ilcohol radicals, mixed ethers. The 

 chief method of preparation is by 

 the action of sulphuric acid on the 

 alcohols. Another method is to 

 dissolve metallic sodium in ethyl 

 alcohol and warm the sodium ethy- 

 late, when ethyl oxide is obtained. 

 Ethers are volatile bodies and are 

 either gases, liquids, or solids. Cetyl 

 ether is solid, methyl ether gase- 

 ous, and ethyl ether (ordinary 

 ether) liquid. 



Ethical Society. Society 

 founded for the culture of morality 

 apart from theology. Its members 

 profess freedom from all religious 



ETHICS 



creeds, butopposition to none. The 

 movement began in the U.S.A., 

 largely through Felix Adler, who 

 founded the New York Ethical 

 Society, in 1877. It spread to 

 England, Stanton Coit (q.v.) and 

 Moncure D. Con way (q.v,) doing 

 much for its advancement. South 

 Place, Finsbury, E.G., and the W. 

 London Ethical Church, Bayswater, 

 W., are the principal London cen- 

 tres. The more important English 

 ethical societies are federated in a 

 Union, the offices of which are at 

 19, Buckingham Street, London, 

 W.C. The ethical movement has 

 a number of periodicals, conducts 

 Sunday schools, classes and lec- 

 tures, and has a large membership. 



ETHICS: THE PROBLEM OF CONDUCT 



A. D. Lindsay, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford 



Further information on philosophy, of which Ethics is a branch, will 

 be found in the articles Metaphysics ; Philosophy ; Psychology. See 

 also biographies of Aristotle; Green; Hegel; Kant; Plato, and 

 other philosophers 



Ethics is the inquiry into human 

 conduct in so far as conduct is 

 right or wrong, or has moral value. 

 The term good is used to denote 

 that which possesses such value, 

 and thus ethics is sometimes 

 described as consisting of an in- 

 quiry into the meaning of good. 

 It is to be distinguished from an- 

 thropology or sociology, sciences 

 which do not exclusively refer to 

 moral values, being mainly descrip 

 tive or scientific, while ethics is 

 essentially reflective or philosophic. 

 " How is human life organized and 

 carried on ? " is the question of 

 sociology and allied sciences. 

 " What is the aim of human life, 

 and what the chief end of man's 

 activities ? " is the question which 

 ethics has to answer. Starting with 

 men's moral judgements of right 

 and wrong, of good and bad, it 

 asks what they imply as to man's 

 nature, in what relation they stand 

 to scientific and aesthetic judge- 

 ments, and how and in what sense 

 they are objective. 



Economic Activity . 



The fundamental conception of 

 ethics is that of value. It assumes 

 that man is not an animal with 

 certain fixed wants, whose different 

 actions are merely different ways 

 of satisfying the same fundamen- 

 tal needs, but tho-t, over and above 

 his simple physiological require- 

 ments, man has other wants, 

 changeable and changing, between 

 which he chooses. This act of 

 choosing between different wants, 

 or the preference of one satisfac- 

 tion to another. ;s valuation. 



From this valuation or appraise- 

 ment of wants must be dis- 

 tinguished the actual steps which 

 have to be taken to satisfy these 

 wants, or the discovery of means 



towards the ends which man has 

 approved. Generally speaking, this 

 may be called the sphere of eco- 

 nomic activity, whether technical, 

 if occupied with the adaptation 

 of the material world to man's 

 peculiar wants, or economic in the 

 strict sense, if occupied with men's 

 relations so far as they will produce 

 most efficiently what man wants. 

 Economic activity, then, unlike 

 ethics, takes for granted the end of 

 man's efforts and deals solely with 

 the means to attain that end. It is 

 not immoral, but simply non- 

 moral. 



Naturalistic Ethics 



Some have denied that this dis- 

 tinction between these aspects of 

 human conduct exists. Natural- 

 istic ethics tries to show that man's 

 conduct can in all respects be ex- 

 plained by the working of certain 

 evolutionary laws and forces. Be- 

 haviour, it is argued, has not 

 changed owing to any change in 

 the conception of the end to 

 be attained, but, being directed 

 always to the one end of the sur- 

 vival and continuance of the 

 human species, has only altered 

 with changes in human environ- 

 ment. Were this conception true, 

 ethics would become only one part 

 of biological science. Looking more 

 closely, however, at the struggle 

 for survival, it is plain that both 

 degeneracy and progress have been 

 produced. The survival of the 

 fittest means strictly the struggle 

 of the fittest to survive, and the 

 judgement that the results of the 



Gcess are some good and some 

 , cannot be got from the pro- 

 cess itself, but from ethical reflec- 

 tion upon it. Adaptation to en- 

 vironment must certainly be taken 

 into account in a history of ethics, 



