is eluded, the insatiable covetousness, the base greed, the deep hypocrisy, or the spiteful tricks of men are apparent in all their ugliness, we recoil with horror, supposing that we have stumbled on some unheard-of monster: whereas, without the compulsion of law, and the necessity of keeping an honourable name, these sights would be of every day occurrence. In order to discover what, from a moral point of view, human beings are made of, we must study anarchist records, and the proceedings connected with criminals. The thousands that throng before our eyes, in peaceful intercourse each with the other, can only be regarded as so many tigers and wolves, whose teeth are secured by a strong muzzle. Let us now suppose this muzzle cast off, or, in other words, the power of the state abolished; the contemplation of the spectacle then to be awaited would make all thinking people shudder; and they would thus betray the small amount of trust they really have in the efficiency either of religion, or of conscience, or of the natural basis of Morals, whatever it be. But if these immoral, antinomian forces should be unshackled and let loose, it is precisely then that the true moral incentive, hidden before, would reveal its activity, and consequently be most easily recognised. And nothing would bring out so clearly as this the prodigious moral difference of character between man and man; it would be found to be as great as the intellectual, which is saying much. The objection will perhaps be raised that Ethics is not concerned with what men actually do, but that it is the science which treats of what their conduct =ought= to be. Now this is exactly the position which I deny. In the critical part of the present treatise I have sufficiently demonstrated that the conception of =ought=, in other words, the =imperative form= of Ethics, is valid only in theological morals, outside of which it loses all sense and meaning. The end which I place before Ethical Science is to point out all the varied moral lines of human conduct; to explain them; and to trace them to their ultimate source. Consequently there remains no way of discovering the basis of Ethics except the empirical. We must search and see whether we can find any actions to which we are obliged to ascribe =genuine moral worth=: actions, that is, of voluntary justice, of pure loving-kindness, and of true nobleness. Such conduct, when found, is to be regarded as a given phaenomenon, which has to be properly accounted for; in other words, its real origin must be explored, and this will involve the investigation and explanation of the peculiar motives which lead men to actions so radically distinct from all others, that they form a class by themselves. These motives, together with a responsive susceptibility for them, will constitute the ultimate basis of morality, and the knowledge of them will be the foundation of Ethics. This is the humble path to which I direct the Science of Morals.