Methods of Ethics. 15 



ought to do. It is an extraneous form, into which 

 you pour the . whole ethical content, be that con 

 tent what it may. Morality is not a deduction 

 from theism, but theism a superinduction upon 

 morality. It is only by observation, analysis, and 

 reflection we can discover wherein man s moral 

 life consists. And the results thus experientially 

 established would never have been mistaken for 

 deductions, had men kept in view the distinction 

 between knowledge and the supposed vouchers 

 of it, between the ratio cognoscendi and the al 

 leged ratio essendi. The idea of a Supreme 

 Being is not, nor can it be (as Locke held), the 

 ratio cognoscendi of morality. Whether it can be 

 the ratio essendi is another point which we need 

 not here discuss, but which, though granted, 

 would be a fruitless admission in the face of scep 

 tical and agnostic science. Theological ethics 

 cannot get under way at all without proving the 

 existence of God ; but neither that nor any other 

 superior principle can endow ethics with the 

 demonstrative character of mathematics. 



It has now been shown that ethics is not a 

 science of the type of logic or mathematics. The 

 next thing is to compare it with the natural and 

 historical sciences. If its scientific character pre 

 sents no analogy or only a partial analogy to 



