Methods of Ethics. 7 



the reasonings and inferences of their every-day 

 life, without reflection, or even without distinct 

 consciousness. Logic, accordingly, gives us no 

 new information. It merely makes explicit for 

 reflection what was already implicit in cognition. 

 But our stock of knowledge is not increased by 

 an analysis of the processes whereby it has been 

 obtained. My syllogistic reasonings, my assump 

 tion of universal causation, my deductive and ex 

 perimental investigations may proceed now, as 

 they did originally, in utter independence of a 

 logical formulation of them. 



Is ethics, now, a science of this character? 

 Some analogy, at least, lies upon the surface. 

 As logic analyzes and classifies the processes of 

 thought, so ethics may be regarded as a system 

 atic exhibition of the phenomena of conscience. 

 It has not to determine of itself the nature of 

 good or evil, but simply to observe, collect, and 

 classify the moral experience of mankind. Its 

 observations should be true, its collections ex 

 haustive, its classifications systematic. The re 

 sult, among other things, would include a list of 

 virtues, such as temperance, fortitude, etc., or a 

 table of duties, such as duties to friends, to the 

 state, to humanity. But an ethical science so re 

 stricted, it would, I think, be difficult, if not irn- 



