Methods of Ethics. 31 



tracing the evolution of moral ideals and institu 

 tions from their earliest to their present form, 

 then its scientific character, which is to-day a 

 reproach, would be firmly established, and it 

 could claim to be a science as unimpeachable as 

 any other branch of history. Some such ideal 

 doubtless floated before- the minds of those 

 writers who saw in ethics a comparative and evo 

 lutionary anatomy and physiology of morals ; but 

 the associations of natural history led them to sub 

 stitute the whole extent and duration of organic 

 life, which is essentially without moral character, 

 for the narrow and brief historyj)f mankind, in 

 which alone moral phenomena are actually found. 

 Here then, at last, we have an answer to the 

 question, How is ethics as a science possible ? 

 If it is ever to rise above the analytic procedure 

 of logic, it can only be by becoming one of the 

 historical sciences. Given the earliest morality 

 of which we have any written record, to trace 

 from it through progressive stages the morality of 

 to-day : that is the problem, and the only prob 

 lem which can fall to a truly scientific ethics. 

 The discovery of these historical sequences con 

 stitutes the peculiarity of the science, which, like 

 every other, presupposes observation, analysis, and 

 classification. Whenever a system of ethics pro- 



