authority, and which may, for cause, withdraw it? There is no hint of
such in the treatment of ethics which we are considering, and we seem
to have on our hands, not so much a science, as a collection of
practical rules, of the scope of which we are more or less in the dark.

The interesting thing to notice is that this view of ethics is very
closely akin to that adapted unconsciously by the majority of the
persons we meet who have not interested themselves much in ethics as a
science.

By the time that we have reached years of discretion we are all in
possession of a considerable number of moral maxims. We consider it
wrong to steal, to lie, to injure our neighbor. Such maxims lie in our
minds side by side, and we do not commonly think of criticising them.
But now and then we face a situation in which one maxim seems to urge
one course of action and another maxim a contrary one. Shall we tell
the truth and the whole truth, when so doing will bring grave
misfortune upon an innocent person? And now and then we are brought to
the realization that all men do not admit the validity of all our
maxims. Judgments differ as to what is right and what is wrong. Who
shall be the arbiter? Not infrequently a rough decision is arrived at
in the assumption that we have only to interrogate "conscience"--in the
assumption, in other words, that we carry a watch which can be counted
upon to give the correct time, even if the timepieces of our neighbors
are not to be depended upon.

The common sense ethics cannot be regarded as very systematic and
consistent, or as very profound. It is a collection of working rules,
of practical maxims; and, although it is impossible to overestimate its
value as a guide to life, its deficiencies, when it is looked at