ALTHOUGH the following pages have taken shape in connection with class-room work, they
are intended as an independent contribution to ethical science. It is commonly demanded of
such a work that its readers shall have some prefatory hint of its sources and deviations. In
accordance with this custom, I may state that for the backbone of the theory here presented-
the conception of the will as the expression of ideas, and of social ideas; the notion of an
objective ethical world realized in institutions which afford moral ideals, theatre and impetus …

TO A STRICTLY logical mind the method of the development of thought must be a
perplexing, even irritating matter. Its course is not so much like the simple curve described
by a bullet as it speeds its way to a mark, as it is like the devious tacking of a sail boat upon a
heavy sea with changeable winds. It would be difficult to find a single problem during the
whole record of reflective thought which has been pursued consistently until some definite
result was reached. It generally happens that just as the problem becomes defined, and the …