Sheldon— The Literature of Ethical Science. 119 



there: ** Every moral ideal is an arrested moment in the 

 passage from one ideal to a higher." 



We can also feel assured that in this great department of 

 ethics the social environment or atmosphere in which the 

 scholar or student has lived or been educated, must exert an 

 enormous influence upon him in spite of any effort he may 

 make to the contrary. The German, the Englishman, the 

 Frenchman or the American cannot possibly be expected to 

 handle these issues in the same way. When it comes to such 

 questions as : the relation of the State to the rights of the 

 individual ; does man exist for the State or the State for 

 man and which one is the end in itself; the meaning of 

 *« Justice ;" the function of the Family, and the normal posi- 

 tion and sphere of woman ; the rights of society over children 

 as contrasted with the rights of the parent ; the permanence 

 or dissolubihty of the Marriage tie ; the ethical influence of 

 the Trades Union; the right of private property, and to 

 what extent this right is relative or absolute ; the function of 

 the Church, with its relation to the individual and to society, 

 or the State ; the extent to which law or government should 

 undertake to control private conduct in the interest of the 

 individual or of society ; the responsibility of society for the 

 individual, or of the individual to society; the true principles 

 for the punishment of crime ; the ideal form of life for the 

 individual person and in what way he is to strive after per- 

 fection ; the degree to which self-denial or the opposite, self- 

 assertion, is the foundation principle of the moral ideal; — 

 when it comes to answers for a variety of problems like 

 these, it would be absurd to expect at this stage a unanimity 

 of opinion. The very same theories or abstract principles 

 will perhaps be found to lead, in different minds, to the most 

 opposite conclusions when it comes to the application of the 

 doctrines. There is also the whole department pertaining to 

 the ethical instruction of the young in connection with the 

 science of pedagogy, which I have left untouched. 



Most interesting to me on the whole are the theories with 

 regard to the personal ideal or what constitutes the perfect 

 man. It would be interesting to stop for a moment and con- 



