Methods of Ethics. 3 



scientific treatment at all. Schleiermacher is 

 scarcely an exception, since his profound and pen 

 etrating critique is rather a dialectical exposition 

 of moral principles and ideas than a logical in 

 vestigation into the requirements of a moral sci 

 ence. Yet the question is surely of primary im 

 portance. We cannot think so meanly of science 

 as to believe it possible for the same problem to 

 have opposite solutions. The history of ethics, 

 however, presents us with this incredibility. Is, 

 then, ethics a science ? This question, unfortu 

 nately, was not raised by Kant. Had it occurred 

 to him his legacy to future ages would scarcely 

 have included, along with a demonstration of the 

 impossibility of metaphysics, an actual metaphysic 

 of ethics. But the errors of great thinkers are 

 scarcely less instructive than their perfect achieve 

 ments. And Kant s critique of our a priori 

 knowledge suggests the kind of inquiry from 

 which ethics can no longer be withheld. When, 

 along with the possibility of pure mathematics 

 and physics, he asks, How is metaphysics in 

 general possible ? and, How is metaphysics as a 

 science possible? he formulates the very ques 

 tions which, mutatis mutandis, the history of 

 modern ethics and the logic of the sciences alike 

 make incumbent upon contemporary moralists. 



