Nothing is more striking at the present time than the convergence of different schools of Ethics--English Utilitarianism developing into Evolutional Ethics, on the one hand, and the idealism associated with the German philosophy derived from Kant on the other. The convergence is not, of course, in mere practical precepts, but in method also. It consists in an "objectivity" or impartiality of treatment, commonly called "scientific." There is also a convergence in general results which consists in a recognition of a kind of proportion between individual and society, expressed by the phrase "organic connection." The theory of egoism, pure and simple, has been long dead; Utilitarianism succeeded it and enlarged the moral end. Evolution continued the process of enlarging the individual interest, and has given precision to the relation between the individual and the moral law. But in this it has added nothing new; for Hegel, in the early part of the century, gave life to Kant's formula by treating the law of morality as realized in the society and the state. The change in ethical conception is not due to biological research alone, but to the study of history also, and to other general changes in the practical data on which its principles are built. The social and political history of the century represents the growth of the idea of freedom, which has properly two sides--that of individual liberty of healthy development, and that of the solidarity of society and the responsibility of the individual to it. With the increasing complexity of interests and the growth of individual freedom, has come, however, a certain sense of loneliness to the individual in the midst of modern competition, and this explains, to a great extent, the increase of suicide in the present century. The convergence of dissimilar theories affords us some prospect of obtaining a satisfactory statement of the ethical truths towards which they seem to move. Our inquiry falls into two parts, according as we analyze the conceptions which relate to the existence of the moral judgment or those connected with its growth, maintenance, and change--the statics or the dynamics of morality. To these two divisions is to be added a third, preliminary division, more closely allied with the statical examination of morality. These three parts are represented by the questions: (1) What is it that is good? To what are the terms good and bad applied? (2) Why is it good? What does its goodness mean? (3) How does goodness come into being; how is it maintained; how does it advance?