It is on this ground, therefore,--because I believe that the ethical question is no longer so purely an academic question as it was some years ago, because it affects not only the philosophic thinker but the practical man who is concerned with the problems of his day,--that I have selected the topic for these lectures. It is not merely that many modern writers assert some general doctrine as to the relativity of right and wrong. So much was implied, though it was not much laid stress upon, in the utilitarian doctrine. For the utilitarian conduct is right according to the amount of happiness it produces: goodness is relative to its tendency to produce happiness. But a much greater importance may attach to the assertion of the relativity of morals when one couples that doctrine with the idea now prevalent of the indefinitely great changes which the progress of the race brings about, not only in the social order but also in the structure and faculties of man himself. Hence it is not surprising to find that there are at the present day some writers who ask for nothing less than a revision of the whole traditional morality, and in whose minds that demand is connected with the dominant doctrine of progress as it is expressed in the theory of evolution. Perhaps we might trace the beginnings of this controversy as to the content of what is right and what is wrong to an older opposition in ethical thought, an opposition which especially affects the utilitarian doctrine--the controversy of Egoism and Altruism. If we look at these two conceptions of egoism and altruism as the Utilitarians did, if we regard the conception of egoism as having to do with one's own personal happiness, and that of altruism as describing the general happiness, the happiness of others rather than of oneself, then obviously the questions arise whether the conduct which produces the greatest happiness of others will or will not also produce the greatest happiness of the individual agent, and which should be chosen in the event of their disagreement. Is my happiness and that which will tend to it always to be got on the same lines of conduct as those which will bring about the greatest happiness of the greatest number?