Not only had this idealist movement in its beginnings a predominantly ethical tone. It was really started in the interest of moral ideals as well as of intellectual thoroughness; and its contribution of greatest value to English thought was a work on ethics. The 'Prolegomena to Ethics' of T.H. Green was a fitting result of his unwearied controversies in defence of the spiritual nature of man and the universe. No one is more worthy than he to be called by the Platonic name a 'friend of ideas,' And he was a friend of ideas because he saw their necessity for maintaining and realising the higher capacities of human life. Green's 'Prolegomena' was published in 1883, the year after his death. And, had I been speaking twenty years ago, I should have had to emphasise the ethical character of the metaphysics of the day. His metaphysical thinking, through all its subtleties, never strayed far from the moral ideal. Owing to his teaching that ideal, and the general character of the philosophy with which it was associated, have permeated a great part of the better thought of the present day, and have influenced its practical activities in various directions,--social, political, and religious. But the magnetism of his personality has been removed; and those whose business it is to test intellectual notions have been impressed by the difficulties involved in Green's metaphysical positions and in his connexion of them with morality. The single word 'self-realisation' has been taken to express the view of the moral ideal enforced by Green. And it is as suitable as any single word could be. But it is clear that, in every action whatever of a conscious being, self-realisation may be said to be the end: some capacity is being developed, satisfaction is being sought for some desire. A man may develop his capacities, seek and to some extent attain satisfaction--in a manner, realise himself--not only in devotion to a scientific or artistic ideal or in labours for the common good, but also in selfish pursuit of power or even in sensual enjoyment. So far as the word 'self-realisation' can be made to cover such different activities, it is void of moral content and cannot express the nature of the moral ideal. Green is perfectly alive to the need of a distinction--and to the difficulty of drawing it. According to his own statement it is true not only of moral activity but of every act of willing that in it "a self-conscious individual directs himself to the realisation of some idea, as to an object in which for the time he seeks self-satisfaction."[1] And he proceeds to ask the question, "How can there be any such intrinsic difference between the objects willed as justifies the distinction which 'moral sense' seems to draw between good and bad action, between virtue and vice? And if there is such a difference, in what does it consist?"[2] Now we may define a good action as the sort of action which proceeds from a good