ABSTRACT
Ethics differs from science in the fact that its fundamental data are feelings and emotions, not percepts. This is to be understood strictly; that is to say, the data are the feelings and emotions themselves, not the fact that we have them. The fact that we have them is a scientific fact like another, and we become aware of it by perception, in the usual scientific way. But an ethical judgment does not state a fact; it states, though often in a disguised form, some hope or fear, some desire or aversion, some love or hate. It should be enunciated in the optative or imperative mood, not in the indicative. The Bible says “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself”, and a modern man, oppressed with the spectacle of international discord, may say “would that all men loved one another”; these are pure ethical sentences, which clearly cannot be proved or disproved merely by amassing facts.
