Category: Philosophy & Ethics

On Mr. Spencer's Data of Ethics

This volume completes the critical examination of Mr. Spencer's system of Philosophy already pursued through two previous volumes entitled respectively "On Mr. Spencer's Formula of Evolution," and "On Mr. Spencer's Unification of Knowledge." The entire task has been undertaken...

Chapters

2. CHAPTER I.

Always a very complex problem, the study of ethics, in Mr. Spencer's works, becomes in some respects still more complex from the necessity he is under of affiliating it in some...

8. CHAPTER VII.

Two distinct theories may be held by the Evolutionist with respect to volition, both of them being strictly causational, and, therefore, of a scientific, as opposed to a mystica...

4. CHAPTER III.

We shall best arrive at an adequate estimate of Mr. Spencer's ethical system by studying first what he terms the biological view of ethics. But to do this properly requires a su...

9. CHAPTER VIII.

The recognition of the ultimate tendencies of evolution suggests two further enquiries, one as to the personal relation with the far-off result, and one as to the origin of such...

6. CHAPTER V.

We have thus seen that the origin and authority of Ethics are to be found in Sociology; but to allow the enquiry to rest here is only half to understand the nature and imperativ...

1. CHAPTER IX.--SUMMARY 120

This volume completes the critical examination of Mr. Spencer's system of Philosophy already pursued through two previous volumes entitled respectively "On Mr. Spencer's Formula...

3. CHAPTER II.

Modern thought since the publication of the "Origin of Species," has been more and more forced into the recognition of ethics, (together with all other forms of human conduct) a...

7. CHAPTER VI.

Mr. Spencer very justly claims for his system that it gives a new meaning and authority to all previous systems of Ethics and theories of human action. In his system they all ha...

5. CHAPTER IV.

We now enter upon the study of Ethics proper. Notwithstanding Mr. Spencer's attempt at the outset of the chapter to identify "right living" with the universal biological princip...

10. CHAPTER IX.

Whether we consider Biology as a process of equilibration of physical factors in a state of moving equilibrium, (including in this formula the process of reproduction and heredi...