Excerpt from The Principles of Moral Science: An Essay
In this book I have endeavoured to state, in language as clear and simple as the subject permits, the Principles of Ethics that have been handed down by a tradition of many centuries in the Catholic schools of theology and philosophy.
I shall not be surprised to find the success of the attempt questioned and denied by many, if not most, of those who have spent the best part of their lives in the study of the great Catholic writers on morals. I admit, nay claim, that some important conclusions at which I have arrived differ from those of the ordinary hand books on Human Acts, Laws, and Conscience, and are not to be found in any published treatise with which I am acquainted. If it were otherwise, I should not have thought of writing or publishing.
Very soon after I began to teach Moral Theology, I noticed a considerable difference between the principles of the science as explained in the treatise on Human Acts, and the less general conclusions reached later on, when dealing with particular virtues. As time advanced this difference seemed to increase rather than diminish, and I resolved to try whether I could not formulate the principles so that, while perfectly reasonable in them selves and breathing the spirit of the School, they might stand the test of being brought into comparison with all the less general, and therefore more easily ascertained, conclusions of moral science. Unless forced by what I deem compelling reasons I have not ventured to advocate a new form of statement: the reader must decide for himself whether the reasons that appeal to me so strongly are as conclusive as I deem them.
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