ABSTRACT
THE contribution which I have endeavoured to make to philosophy is concerned mainly with the significance of ethical ideas.x For the most part ethics, and in general the whole region of values, have been treated by philosophers either simply for their own sake or with a view to practical issues, and their investigation has been regarded as supplementary to, rather than as an essential part of, the problem of knowledge and reality. On the other hand theories of reality have been constructed in exclusive dependence upon the data derived from sense-perception and the cognitive conditions required for understanding these data, without any account being taken of the facts of value and the appreciation of values. This procedure has indeed frequently been challenged, or dissatisfaction has been felt with its results; and then an appeal has been made to a neglected aspect of things : types of metaphysical theory have been rejected because they fail to satisfy the emotional longings or spiritual aspirations of man, and ideas of worth or value, omitted in the formation of systems, have been introduced afterwards to decide between competing intellectual views.
