The study of Ethics from the Evolutionist's point of view assumes an altogether different phase from the old methods of inquiry and rests upon an altogether different basis. Its ground of authority is seen to rest in the very nature of humanity and does not come to him as an imposed law. Confidence is first shaken and then fully restored. From the new point of view the merit of all preceding systems is seen, and how they all fall into harmony in a wonderful manner in the consensus of mutual support and enforce ethical law by an united authority. The chief merit of Mr. Spencer's "Data of Ethics" is that it puts the study upon an entirely new basis in grafting it upon the study of the larger science of Biology. Heretofore the study has been isolated, and supposed to be complete within its own borders. Henceforth no professor or student will be considered competent to express opinions without being well grounded in the study of Biological and Psychological evolution. Ethics, along with Sociology, must be studied as part of the greater movement. FOOTNOTE: [1] "Revue Philosophique," Dec. 1883. ON MR. SPENCER'S DATA OF ETHICS. CHAPTER I. ETHICS AND THE UNIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE. THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW. 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 way upon the cosmical process. Conceiving all knowledge to be capable of unification as a system of causation, so that when the relations of the original factors are understood, all histories are merely corollaries from these ultimate truths, Mr. Spencer feels bound, in the first place, to show that each particular science falls into its due place in the logical scheme. Consequently, one of the main ideas permeating the "Data of Ethics" is this view of ethics as interpretable only by an adequate knowledge of the cosmical process in which it forms a feature. Indeed, the proposition is laid down at the outset that parts can only be properly understood through a knowledge of the wholes of which they form part.[2] Upon this Mr. Spencer reasons that since ethics deals with purposed conduct, that kind of conduct can only be understood through a scientific knowledge of conduct in general, which again forms part of the study of action in general, bringing us at once to the cosmical process upon the understanding of which, therefore, depends the understanding of our special subject.