252 Opposing Eth ical Schools. 



This seems to me a result of considerable im 

 portance for moral philosophy. And it is a re 

 sult that cannot be gainsaid by any school, since 

 it is not a speculation, not even an inference, but 

 an undeniable statement of actual facts. 



Moralists have divided into opposing camps on 

 the question of the ultimate or the derivative 

 nature of morality. While one party recognizes 

 in moral laws nothing but means to ends, the 

 other finds in them the expression of uncreated 

 and unchanging relations, whose closest analogue 

 is presented by mathematics. &quot;When this time- 

 worn controversy is stripped of the accidental 

 features by which party rage has heightened the 

 contrast, it will be seen that these positions are 

 not mutually exclusive. If a moral law is but a 

 maxim for the attainment of an end, then, unless 

 the theory is suicidal, there must be some ulti 

 mate end or ends for the sake of which maxims 

 are enjoined ; and this absolute object might very 

 properly be described as eternally desirable, self- 

 evidencing, and standing in the same relation to 

 the conscience (which recognizes its authority) as 

 a mathematical principle to the understanding 

 (which recognizes its truth). In other words, the 

 relativist cannot logically escape the admission 

 that at least some moral principle or principles 



