Methods of Ethics. 35 



of moral philosophy. And whoso undergoes not 

 purifications and offers sacrifices there must not 

 profane with sacrilegious step the inner courts of 

 the sanctuary, jx 



Here, then, we have a clear distinction between 

 what we may call ethical science and moral philos-/ 

 ophy. The one is a branch of history, the other of 

 speculation. They stand in the same relation as 

 the science of geometry to the philosophy of space 

 and the axioms. But their development has been 

 far from analogous. Geometry has been built up 

 without regard to the ultimate nature of space 

 and the validity of the axioms : such speculations 

 proved less attractive than the theorems and prob 

 lems of the science. But as morals touch the most 

 vital points of human life, man s practical inter 

 est in their origin and validity has overcome his 

 theoretical interest in the history of their growth ; 

 and we are presented with the striking anomaly 

 of a science still unfounded from philosophic 

 absorption in its first principles. It is obvious, 

 however, that a philosophy without science is as 

 empty as theory without fact, as unconvincing as 

 reason without the voucher of sensuous experience. 



The achievements of modern science in every 

 department of inquiry, and the influence of con- 

 temporary positivism, could not fail to react upon 



