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Sharp—The Personal Equation in Ethics. 
blind us to the fact that systems of philosophical opinion grow 
from the mind’s instinctive effort to unify by sufficient reason and 
justify by intelligible pleas, its deepest affections and admira¬ 
tions. At all events I attempt no more. ” In other words the 
introspective method may be relied upon exclusively to bring to 
view all the fundamental phenomena of the moral life. 
It is the purpose of this paper to show that this conclusion, 
plausible as may be the reasoning by which it is reached, is en¬ 
tirely fallacious, and that the introspective method, taken by it¬ 
self, can lead to nothing but endless confusion and irreconcila¬ 
ble contradiction. The necessity of supplementing “subjective” 
by “objective” psychology is now admitted by all students 
of the subject. We shall endeavor to prove that a like necessity 
holds equally well for ethics. 
In the first place the correctness of the traditional view de¬ 
pends as we have seen upon the truth of the premise that hu¬ 
man nature is fundamentally the same throughout the countless, 
millions of living beings in whom it has revealed itself. But 
this, it must never be forgotten, is an assumption—a nat¬ 
ural one perhaps, to some extent undoubtedly an inevitable one, 
but none the less an assumption. But who shall take it upon 
himself to determine a priori just how far this similarity ex¬ 
tends? The incredulity with which in many- instances the- 
publication of Galton’s well-known investigations into mental 
imagery was greeted by the general public shows how natural 
it is for us to suppose that powers which we may happen to 
possess must be the common property of all, and that what we 
cannot do must be alike impossible for others. On the other 
hand the results which G-alton obtained proved how peculiarly 
dangerous is this attitude of mind. It may perhaps be admit¬ 
ted that the burden of proof rests upon him who in any spe¬ 
cific case denies the similarity. But whenever properly attested 
evidence presents itself, no conceivable considerations can jus¬ 
tify us either in ignoring it or showing it the door. But the 
collection and examination of such evidence involves the use of 
the objective method, and thus it appears that introspection’s 
standing in court as a source of universally valid propositions, 
is dependent upon the decision of a judge other than itself. 
