is a delusion (or at least, in the
last resort, a negligible element) and that man is but one of the many
phenomena or facts of a physical universe--then we may continue,
indeed, as some evolutionary and naturalistic thinkers do, to speak of
a science of Ethics, but such a science will not be a study of the
moral life as we understand it and have defined it.

Ethics, therefore, while dependent upon the philosophical sciences, has
its own distinct content and scope. The end of life, that for which a
man should live, with all its implications, forms the subject of moral
inquiry. It is {21} concerned not merely with what a man is or
actually does, but more specifically with what he should be and should
do. Hence, as we have seen, the word 'ought' is the most distinctive
term of Ethics involving a consideration of values and a relation of
the actual and the ideal. The 'ought' of life constitutes at once the
purpose, law, and reason of conduct. It proposes the three great
questions involved in all ethical inquiry--whither? how? and why? and
determines the three great words which are constantly recurring in
every ethical system--end, norm, motive. Moral good is the moral end
considered as realised. The moral norm or rule impelling the will to
the realisation of this end is called Duty. The moral motive
considered as an acquired power of the acting will is called Virtue.[11]

[1] Cf. Mackenzie, _Manual of Ethics_, p. 32; also Wuttke, _Christian
Ethics_ (Eng. Trans.), vol. i. p. 14.

[2] _Metaph. of Morals_, sect. i.

[3] Mackenzie, _Manual of Ethics_, p. 8. See also Muirhead, _Elements
of Ethics_.

[4] Hyslop, _Elements of Ethics_, p. 1.

[5] Schiller, _Ueber Anmuth und Wuerde_. Cf. also Ruskin, _Mod.
Painters_, vol. ii.; Seeley, _Natural Religion_, and Inge, _Faith and
its Psychology_, p. 203 ff. See also Bosanquet _Hist. of Aesthetic_.
We are indebted to _Romanticism_, and especially to Novalis in Germany
and Cousin in France for the thought that the good and the beautiful
meet and amalgamate in God.

[6] Browning.

[7] Cf. Newman Smyth, _Christian Ethics_, p. 8.

[8] See Author's _History of Philosophy_, p. 585.

[9] Introduction to Hume's _Works_.

[10] Mackenzie seems to imply this view. _Ethics_, p. 25.

[11] Cf. Haering, _Ethics of the Christian Life_, p. 9.

{22}

CHAPTER II

THE POSTULATES OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS

We now proceed to define Christian Ethics and to investigate the