FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; AND EXAMINER IN
PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

MDCCCLXXXV

71394

PREFATORY NOTE.

THE Deed of Foundation of the Shaw Fellowship provides that "it shall be in the power of the Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh to require the holder of the Shaw Philosophical Fellowship, during the fourth or fifth year of his tenure of it, to deliver in the University of Edinburgh a course. of Lectures, not exceeding four, on any of the subjects for the encouragement of the study of which the Fellowship has been founded." The following pages consist of four lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh, in accordance with this provision, in the month of January 1884.

Since their delivery, the argument of the lectures has been revised, and in some places enlarged. I have also thought it better to modify their original form by dividing the discussion into chapters.

W. R. S.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

ETHICS AND ITS PROBLEMS.

1. Connection of ethics with theoretical philosophy,

(a) Dependence of ethical on theoretical points of view,

(b) Ethics necessary to complete philosophy,

2. The inquiry into the ethical end,

(a) Fundamental,

(b) Implies a new point of view,

(c) Distinct from other ethical questions, .

3. Scope of the present inquiry,

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(a) From the inquiry into the methods of ethics,

(8) From moral psychology and sociology,