36 Current Ethics Speculative. 



ethics. But although ethics has been taken in 

 hand by men of science, its character has not, I 

 conceive, become scientific. With some abate 

 ment one dogmatic system has merely been ex 

 changed for another. The old Metaphysik der 

 Sitten has given place to the new physique des 

 mceurs y but, though only an occasional champion 

 a Martin eau or a Green comes forward to 

 defend the former, it would take a microscopic 

 intelligence to discern wherein it is more specu 

 lative than the latter, to which the scientific 

 world seems to be giving in its adherence. The 

 masters of the positive sciences have, however, 

 become the spiritual leaders of our generation ; 

 and coming to their own, their own receive them ; 

 so that in morals their unverifiable guesses are apt 

 to pass for scientific hypotheses, or even facts, and 

 their refutation of opposing systems, easier than 

 to damn with faint praise, needs only consist in 

 characterizing them as &quot; metaphysical.&quot; 



Such seems to me the present deplorable con 

 dition of ethics. Speculation, on the one hand, 

 waning but conscious of itself, on the other, 

 waxing but unconsciously taking itself for science. 

 From neither movement can fruitful results be 

 expected. The great desideratum, the sole con 

 dition of ethical progress, is the suspension of all 



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