Methods of Ethics. 5 



though the analytical geometry of Descartes pre 

 vailed without opposition, a fierce warfare was 

 waged over the comparative merits of the fluxions 

 of Newton and the calculus of Leibnitz. And 

 (to have done with illustration) the Ptolemaic 

 and the Copernican hypotheses long held the 

 field together as rival systems in astronomy. 

 Yet, in the face of such radical opposition of 

 theories, it was never maintained that the sciences 

 of astronomy, mathematics, physics, and biology 

 were illusory, or even impossible. Should not the 

 examples be a warning to us against inferring 

 over-hastily the illegitimacy of ethical science ? 



And yet there is a difference. Those oppo 

 sitions, as we know, have been ultimately set at 

 rest, while ethics remains the scene of perpet 

 ual antinomies. Where the controversies have 

 not been laid, as, for instance, in political econ 

 omy, the legitimacy of the science has actually 

 been denied. To ethics alone belongs the excep 

 tional prerogative of ranking as a science while 

 retaining for subject-matter the still unsettled 

 questions which three-and-twenty centuries ago 

 were already themes of discussion among the 

 savants of the Hellenic world. 



What, then, constitutes a science ? If this can 

 be determined, we shall be in a position to decide 



