ABSTRACT
The greater part of moral theory has to treat of ethical science, and this science, like any other, is in the first place highly specialized, and in the second place limited by the purpose of its own pursuits. Ethical science, as we have seen, is concerned with investigations into a certain entirely specific set of questions which are forced upon us whenever we attempt to justify our ways of living, and its sanest policy is to stop at the point at which it is able to evolve an intelligible answer, not to every problem that it meets with, but to the central issues with which it has to do. In these respects a science differs from philosophy, and moral science from moral philosophy. For philosophy is the attempt to approach the ultimate so far as the human understanding may, both analytically and synthetically. Synthetically, again, moral philosophy attempts the attainment of a resolutely catholic perspective.
