OF THE GOOD. 223 



been that these two eminent thinkers were too much 

 enveloped, the first in the political, the second in the 

 literary and ecclesiastical atmosphere of their . age and 

 country, conditions which have never been adequately 

 understood in England. A similar fate, for similar 

 reasons, has fallen vice versa upon the works of Butler 

 in Germany. 



The defect of the utilitarian school, that it attached a 

 one-sided importance to social ethics, neglecting some- 

 what the problem of the individual moral character, was, 

 however, soon to be exposed and to some extent remedied 

 by the appearance of a treatise which may be considered 

 as marking an era in ethical thought. It not only 

 attracted the attention of thinkers of the most different 

 schools in this country, but likewise that of thinkers 

 abroad. It is perhaps not too much to say that next to 

 the ' Critique ' of Kant, it is the most important ethical 

 treatise of modern times, and that no student of this 

 subject can afford to ignore it. This is Henry Sidg- 

 wick's 'Methods of Ethics.' It appeared in 1874, and 



, . ,-L , . i of Ethics 



has run in twenty - seven years through six large 

 editions, marked by important additions and modifica- 

 tions. It took some time before the contents of this 

 book were sufficiently understood, before representatives 

 of the various schools were able to take up a definite 

 position to it or to answer for themselves the different 

 questions which it put before them. For it was less by 

 any constructive effort towards solution than by dividing 

 the ethical problem into its different aspects and clearly 

 defining them, that it has secured and maintained its 



