Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/442

426 description of the end with which it in especial is concerned, and of a code of rules, directions, precepts for its attainment. It is evident that ethics, as described in the first paragraph of this paper, belong to this class of sciences. The fundamental doctrine of ethics, as there described, consists of a statement of the supreme end, the "best," in some one of the many senses of the word good, and of a code of injunctions assigning the means, so far as they are known, for attaining it. If the end in question be one to the realization of which honesty will contribute, the injunction "Thou shalt not steal" will bear the same relation to it that the injunction "Thou shalt not breathe impure air " does to the end of hygiene, that is, to health. The question, then, is: What is the nature of the obligation to follow the precepts of practical sciences? The obligation is not to be foolish, simply. If you are going in for health, and if the rules of hygiene really prescribe the means of attaining it, you are unwise not to follow them, that is all, In every act not reflex there are two parts, the end, which is a matter of desire, and the means, which is a matter of intellect. It is in respect to the latter that one who disregards his obligation in this sense, fails. The moral obligation is but a case of the general obligation to do as one likes intelligently. If you are bent upon following my wishes, or my conscientious scruples, such and such is what you must do; if you do not, you are self-defeating; you are taking a road which will not lead you where you are making for. If you do not go in for health, or for gratifying me, or for my conscientious scruples, then there is no obligation to follow the precepts of hygiene, or of systems of morality of either of the two classes described. And note that the obligation begins only when you start to act. You may desire health as much as you please, but so long as you do not start in pursuit of it there is no obligation to observe the rules of hygiene. So long as one merely contemplates an end with longing there is no obligation to use the means for its attainment; the obligation begins only when one sets to work. And as the obligation to use the proper means is the same in kind, no matter what