make possible the moral aims of man. On the
other hand, Economics must recognise the service of ethical study, and
keep in view the moral purposes of life, otherwise it is apt to limit
its consideration to merely selfish and material ends.

V. While Ethics is thus closely connected with the sciences just
named, there are two departments of knowledge, pre-supposed indeed in
all mental studies, which in a very intimate way affect the science of
Ethics. These are Metaphysics on the one hand and Psychology on the
other.

1. Metaphysics is pre-supposed by all the sciences; and indeed, all
our views of life, even our simplest experiences, involve metaphysical
assumptions. It has been well said that the attempt to construct an
ethical theory without a metaphysical basis issues not in a moral
science without assumptions, but in an Ethics which becomes confused in
philosophical doubts. Leslie Stephen proposes to ignore Metaphysics,
and remarks that he is content 'to build upon the solid earth.' But,
as has been pertinently asked, 'How does he know that the earth is
solid on which he builds?' This is a question of Metaphysics.[7] The
claim is frequently made by a certain class of writers, that we
withdraw ourselves from all metaphysical sophistries, and betake
ourselves to the guidance of commonsense. But what is this commonsense
of which the ordinary man vaunts himself? It is in reality a number of
vague assumptions borrowed unconsciously from old exploded
theories--assertions, opinions, beliefs, accumulated, no one knows how,
{18} and accepted as settled judgments.[8] We do not escape philosophy
by refusing to think. Some kind of theory of life is implied in such
words, 'soul,' 'duty,' 'freedom,' 'power,' 'God,' which the
unreflecting mind is daily using. It is useless to say we can dispense
with philosophy, for that is simply to content ourselves with bad
philosophy. 'To ignore the progress and development in the history of
Philosophy,' says T. H. Green,[9] 'is not to return to the simplicity
of a pre-philosophic age, but to condemn ourselves to grope in the maze
of cultivated opinion, itself the confused result of these past systems
of thought which we will not trouble ourselves to think out.' The aim
of all philosophy, as Plato said, is just to correct the assumptions of
the ordinary mind, and to grasp in their unity and cohesion the
ultimate principles which the mind feels must be at the root of all
realit