Methods of Ethics. 19 



from the noumenal freedom in which Kant found 

 the sine qua non of duty, to look for a basis of 

 morality in the sensible facts of the phenomenal 

 world. And it is really claimed that, after the 

 lapse of so many barren centuries of ethical logom 

 achy, the science of morals has at last been set 

 upon an immovable foundation through the dis 

 covery that human conduct is subject to necessary 

 relations of cause and effect, from which all moral 

 rules are ultimately deduced. + 



This bold reconstruction of eth ics on the 



universal causation, after the model ofTHeductive 

 science like astronomy, has been attempted by 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer. Unfortunately, however, 

 of Mr. Spencer s promised &quot;Principles of Mo 

 rality,&quot; only the first part the &quot; Data of Ethics&quot; 

 has yet appeared ; and this instalment, though 

 postulating for ethics an immediate evolution, like 

 that which in the course of centuries transformed 

 empirical into rational astronomy, does not de 

 monstrate the possibility of such a development, 

 still less accomplish it, or even make its accom 

 plishment very credible to anyone who can re 

 sist the contagion of the evolutionist s scientific 

 optimism. When the work is completed, it will 

 be easier to judge how far Mr. Spencer has suc 

 ceeded in deducing moral rules from first princi- 



