Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, sy J. T. CHAMPLIN In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Maine PREFACE. THE favor with which my text-book on Intellectual Philosophy has been received, and the need which I have felt in my own classes of a similar book on Ethics, have induced me to add this to the many excellent treatises on that subject already in existence. The great enlargement of the list of studies in our schools and colleges, of late years, renders it more desirable than ever that text-books should be brief, presenting only essential principles, to the neglect of details, which may be supplied by the teacher, or by general reading. These considerations have determined the form of the present treatise. 869031 (3, At the same time, I have hoped to present a more orderly outline of the principles of the science, and supply a more rational foundation for them, than has usually been done in treatises on Ethics. The doctrine that right is conformity in conduct to the nature and reason of things, is not, indeed, a new doctrine, but it has been a good deal overlooked of late, and has never, perhaps, been fully and consistently carried out. Whether it has beez in the present instance or not others must judge. Aiming at an orderly and consecutive development of the principles of the science, I have introduced the opinions of others but sparingly into the text. These have generally been reserved to the end, where they have been presented together, in the form of an Historical Abstract, which, it is hoped, will be found both interesting and profitable. WATERVILLE COLLEGE, July 1, 1861. |