Excerpt from The Principles of Ethics, Vol. 1 of 2
The divisions of which this work consists have been published in an irregular manner. Part I was issued in 1879, Part IV in 1891; Parts II and III, forming, along with Part I, the first volume, were issued in 1892; and Parts V and VI, concluding the second volume, were, along with Part IV, issued in 1893. The reasons for this seemingly eccentric order of publication, primarily caused by ill-health, will be found stated in the respective prefaces of the parts and the volumes as originally published; but as the contained explanations are no longer needed I now suppress them with the exception of the first, which has a permanent significance.
It was there said that "the establishment of rules of conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need. Now that moral injunctions are losing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin, the secularization of morals is becoming imperative. ... Those who reject the current creed appear to assume that the controlling agency furnished by it may safely be thrown aside ... those who defend the current creed allege that in the absence of the guidance it yields, no guidance can exist: divine commandments they think the only possible guides." Dissenting from both of these beliefs, my primary purpose has been to show that apart from any supposed supernatural basis the principles of Ethics have a natural basis. In the two volumes which here follow, this natural basis is set forth and its corollaries elaborated.
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