Finally, Ethics may be considered not only as the science of the highest good or ultimate end of life, but also as the study of all that conditions that end, the dispositions, desires and motives of the individual, all the facts and forces which bear upon the will and shape human life in its various social relationships. II. Arising out of this general definition three features may be mentioned as descriptive of its distinctive character among the sciences. {12} 1. Ethics is concerned with the _ideal_ of life. By an ideal we mean a better state of being than has been actually realised. We are confessedly not as we should be, and there floats before the minds of men a vision of some higher condition of life and society than that which exists. Life divorced from an ideal is ethically valueless. Some conception of the supreme good is the imperative demand and moral necessity of man's being. Hence the chief business of Ethics is to answer the question: What is the supreme good? For what should a man live? What, in short, is the ideal of life? In this respect Ethics as a science is distinguished from the physical sciences. They explain facts and trace sequences, but they do not form ideals or endeavour to move the will in the direction of them. 2. Ethics again is concerned with a _norm_ of life, and in this sense it is frequently styled a normative science. That is to say, it is a science which prescribes rules or maxims according to which life is to be regulated. This is sometimes expressed by saying that Ethics treats of what _ought to be_. The ideal must not be one which simply floats in the air. It must be an ideal which is possible, and, therefore, as such, obligatory. It is useless to feel the worth of a certain idea, or even to speak of the desirability of it, if we do not feel also that it ought to be realised. Moral judgments imply an 'ought,' and that 'ought' implies a norm or standard, in the light of which, as a criterion, all obligation must be tested, and according to which all conduct must be regulated.