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CHAPTER XL 



OF THE LOGIC OF PRACTICE, OR ART; INCLUDING 

 MORALITY AND POLICY. 



1. IN the preceding chapters we have endea- 

 voured to characterise the present state of those 

 among the branches of knowledge called Moral, which 

 are sciences in the only proper sense of the term, that 

 is, inquiries into the course of nature. It is cus- 

 tomary, however, to include under the term moral 

 knowledge, and even (though improperly) under that 

 of moral science, an inquiry the results of which do 

 not express themselves in the indicative, but in the 

 imperative mood, or in periphrases equivalent to it; 

 what is called the knowledge of duties ; practical 

 ethics, or morality. 



Now, the imperative mood is the characteristic of 

 Art, as distinguished from Science. Whatever speaks 

 in rules or precepts, not in assertions respecting 

 matters of fact, is art: and ethics, or morality, is pro- 

 perly a portion of the art corresponding to the sciences 

 of human nature and society : the remainder consisting 

 of prudence or policy, and the art of education. 



The Method, therefore, of Ethics, can be no other 

 than that of Art, or Practice, in general: and the por- 

 tion yet uncompleted, of the task which we proposed 

 to ourselves in the concluding Book, is to characterise 

 the general Method of Art, as distinguished from 

 Science. 



2. In all branches of practical business, there 

 are cases in which an individual is bound to conform 



