LOGIC OF PRACTICE, OR ART. JO.'l 



With respect, therefore, to these cases, jMactical ethics must, like 

 the administration of positive law, follow a method strictly and dirorily 

 ratiocinative : whether the rules themsi-lves are obtained, likc^ those 

 of other aits, from a scientific consi<leration of tendencies, or are 

 referred to the autliority of intuitive consciousness or express reve- 

 lation. 



In cases, however, in which tiiere does not exist a necessity for a 

 common rule, to be acknowledijeil and relied upon a.H the basis of 

 social life; where we are at liberty to iiujuire what is the most moral 

 course under the particular circumstances of the case, without rcfi-r- 

 ence to the authorized expectations of other people ; then? the Methoil 

 of Ethics cannot differ materially fi-om the method of every other 

 department of practice. Like other arts, it sets out from a general 

 principle, or orisxinal major premiss, eimnciative of its particular end: 

 whether that end be the <rivatesr possible happiness, a.s is contended 

 by some, or the conformity of our character to ideal perfection 

 according to some particular standard, as others hold. But on this as 

 on other subjects, when the end has been laid dowTi, it belongs to 

 Science to inquire what are the kinds of actions by which this end, 

 this happiness or this perfection of clraracter, is capable of being 

 realized, ^\^len Science has framed propositions, which are the com- 

 pleted expression of the whole of the conditions necessary to the 

 desired end, these are handed over to Art, which has nothing fiirther 

 to do but to ti-ansform them into corresponding rules of conduct. 



§ 7. "With these remarks we must close this summary view of the 

 application of the general logic of scientific inijuiry to the moral and 

 social departments of science. Notwithstanding the extremi> gener- 

 ality of the principles of method which I have laid dowii (a generality 

 which I trust is not, in this instance, synonymous with vagueness), I 

 have indulged the hope that to some of those on whom the tiLsk will 

 devolve of bringing those most important of all sciences into a more 

 satisfactory state, these obsci-vations may be useful, both in removing 

 erroneous and in clearing up the true conceptions of the means by 

 which, on subjects of so high a degree of complication, truth can be 

 attained. Should this have been accomplished, something not unim- 

 portant will have been contributed towards what is probably destined 

 to be the great intellectual achievemi-nt of the next two or three gen- 

 erations of European thinkers: although, t'ur the realization of the 

 important results, of which it has been thus indirectly attempted to 

 facilitate the attainment, mankind must ever bo principally in<lebted 

 to the genius and industry of ethical and sociological philosophers, 

 whether of the present or of future times. 



