ABSTRACT
Thinkers and statesmen alike have declared that the laws of ethics not only do not coincide, but sometimes must actually conflict with the principles of politics. And yet to accept this position would be not simply to limit the sphere of ethics, it would be to undermine the foundations of ethics. Ethics, recognizing the various claims made by the various societies upon men, should seek to determine, in the light of the single and chief end of man which these in different ways fulfill, the place of each in the life of conduct. Ethics alone stands out as the science of conduct, because it alone can look beyond the various particular spheres, and, regarding man as in his complete self-consciousness he presents the world of his activity to himself, can thus alone lay stress on motive, the inward and vital principle of action.
