the completest possible knowledge of each. My object, then, in the present work, is to expound as clearly and as fully as my limits will allow the different methods of Ethics that I find implicit in our common moral reasoning; to point out their mutual relations; and where they seem to conflict, to define the issue as much as possible. In the course of this endeavour I am led to discuss the considerations which should, in my opinion, be decisive in determining the adoption of ethical first principles: but it is not my primary aim to establish such principles; nor, again, is it my primary aim to supply a set of practical directions for conduct. I have wished to keep the reader’s attention throughout directed to the processes rather than the results of ethical thought: and have therefore never stated as my own any positive practical conclusions unless by way of illustration: and have never ventured to decide dogmatically any controverted points, except where the controversy seemed to arise from want of precision or clearness in the definition of principles, or want of consistency in reasoning. FOOTNOTES: [9] The exact relation of the terms ‘right’ and ‘what ought to be’ is discussed in chap. iii. of this Book. I here assume that they may be used as convertible, for most purposes. [10] I use ‘Politics’ in what I take to be its most ordinary signification, to denote the science or study of Right or Good Legislation and Government. There is a wider possible sense of the term, according to which it would include the greater part of Ethics: _i.e._ if understood to be the Theory of Right Social Relations. See chap. ii. § 2. [11] The relation of the notion of ‘Good’ to that of ‘Right’ or ‘what ought to be’ will be further considered in a subsequent chapter of this Book (ix.) [12] See the Preface to Butler’s _Sermons on Human Nature_. [13] The phrase is Butler’s. [14] See the last paragraph of chap. iii. of this Book. [15] See chap. ix. of this Book, and Book iii. chap. xiv. [16] For a full discussion of this question, see Book ii. chap. v. and the concluding chapter of the work. [17] Bentham, _Memoirs_ (vol. x. of Bowring’s edition), p. 560. [18] Bentham again, _Memoirs_, p. 79. See note at the end of Book i. chap. vi. The Utilitarians since Bentham have sometimes adopted one, sometimes the other, of these two principles as paramount. [19] I use the terms ‘Excellence’ and ‘Perfection’ to denote the same ultimate end regarded in somewhat different aspects: meaning by either an ideal complex of mental qualities, of which we admire and approve the manifestation in human life: but using ‘Perfection’ to denote the ideal as such, while ‘Excellence’ denotes such partial realisation of or approximation to the ideal as we actually find in human experience.