Excerpt from Christian Ethics, Vol. 1
In my labor upon this translation I have aimed at the truest practical reproduction, sentence by sentence, of the thoughts of the author. This method I deliberately preferred, rather than incur the risk of impairing the clearness of thought by entirely recasting the forms of speech. In a few cases I have employed unusual compounds, rather than resort to paraphrases or to an undue multiplication of subordinate clauses. On the whole, I am persuaded that those who are best acquainted with the difficulties of the original will be most indulgent toward the style of the version. This first volume, although only the Introduction to the entire work, is yet a complete whole in itself, viz., a survey of the whole current of the ethical thought of humanity from the earliest dawn of scientific reflection down to the latest results in Christian theology.
The motives that led me to undertake the translation have been various. Esteemed teachers exhorted me thereto, as soon as notices of the work began to appear. German scholars spoke to me enthusiastically of its unparalleled excellence. My chief motive, however, has been a compound of gratitude and hope, - gratitude to the devout thinker whose work had been, to me, the medium of so much spiritual good, - and a hope of helping others to the same good. For, in fact, no other human production has lifted, for me, so many vails from shadowy places in Revelation and Providence; none has worked so effectually in definitively directing my mind and heart toward that Light which stands, serene and ever-brightening, over against the comfortless spectacle of the successive and rapid extinguishment of every effort at social reform which does not kindle its torch at the central Source of all light.
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