Page:Philosophical Review Volume 26.djvu/40



O such striking contributions to ethical theory in the established lines have appeared during the last twenty-five years as marked the preceding quarter century. Sidgwick's analysis of the morality of common sense, union of utilitarian criterion with intuitionist grounding of obligation, and insistence upon the uniqueness of the moral (1874), Green's penetrating examination of the presuppositions of the moral consciousness (1883), Martineau's inpressive presentation of certain high and fine factors in conscience (1885), Paulsen's catholic restatement of eudemonism (1889) had approached the subject on the level of the best thought of their day, but for the most part had employed familiar categories. Spencer's Principles of Ethics in its completed form falls with the period of our present survey, but the Data of Ethics had appeared in 1879 and Justice in 1891, and Wundt had in 1886 made use of custom and religion in explaining facts of the moral life. On the other hand, within the period in question the genetic study of morality has taken advantage both of the wealth of new material offered by anthropology and of the methods of interpretation suggested by social psychology. In common with law, religion, and art ethics has found the comparative method indefinitely broadening in its outlook, and although the full bearing of the results in this field upon the criteria of conduct is far from having been fully adjudicated it is safe to say that a different perspective and a different relative emphasis is certain to prevail. The genetic method with its partially discerned implications for ethical theory has been one outstanding characteristic of the period. Second, and not yet so fully represented in the technical literature, is a return of interest to the economic, political, and social problems which marked the ethics of Aristotle, Adam Smith, German idealism, and the Utilitarians, but had in this country been rather timidly left to publicists or economists. This interest, already