Sheldon — The Literature of Ethical Scieyice. 95 



Prolegomena," by Green; and" The Types," by Martineau, 

 before a single work of the rank of any one of these had 

 appeared in Germany. Then, however, came the change 

 when the mighty work, the '* Ethik," by Wundt appeared in 

 1886, followed by an array of masterly treatises one after 

 another during the last fifteen or sixteen years, such as the 

 ** System," by Paulsen;*' Der Zweckim Eecht," by Rudolph 

 von Jhering; and a series of others. Germany has caught up 

 and more. In this latter list should perhaps be included also 

 the "Ethik," by the great Danish scholar, Hoffding, of 

 Copenhagen. Even from Italy we are now beginning to see 

 mention of works with ethical titles, — although I cannot 

 speak as to their contents. 



In the fourth place you will notice the same tendency 

 manifest as with the physical sciences, — the specializing in 

 departments. The treatises covering the whole science of 

 ethics as such, grow less in number. Looking carefully you 

 will see the tendency increasing for scholars to take up sub- 

 topics and devote one or more books just to a single 

 phase of the whole problem. There are two big volumes, 

 " The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct," by Suther- 

 and, devoted solely to elaborating the one aspect of the 

 subject sketched in the chapter by Charles Darwin in " The 

 Descent of Man ; ' ' and a number of other works have this 

 for their special field. It is already being asserted that 

 within a short time there will be no science of ethics as such, 

 but a list of special sciences into which the one larger field 

 will be subdivided. 



Some of these many works are school or college text- 

 books, prepared not as complete treatises, but in order to 

 bring the facts before the younger students. One on my list 

 is a "Moral Philosophy," strictly for Roman Catholics, by 

 Joseph Rickaby, S. J., and a few of them are only single 

 lectures, or very short treatises of perhaps a hundred pages 

 touching on particular phases only. 



And yet it is evident enough that a mass of literature of 

 this kind could not have appeared in our age, and by such an 

 array of thinkers, without certain marked results. The 



