[6] _Gründl,_ p. 36 _sq.; Kr. d. prakt. Vernft._ pp. 15, 21-28, 43, 145; cf. _Metaph. d. Sitt._ pp. 208-209. [7] _Metaph. d. Sitt._ pp. 22, 23, 246. [8] _Gesch. d. Phil._ iii. p. 535. [9] La Rochefoucauld, _Maximes_ (ed. Gamier), nn. 159, 185, 224. [10] Wolf, _Psych, emp.,_ Frankfort and Leipzig, 1738, §§ 584, 880. [11] Croce, _Estetica,_ pp. 324-328. [12] _Kr. d. prakt. Vern._ pp. 79, 108. [13] _Tract. theol._ c. iv. § 7. [14] Cf. Croce, in De Sanctis, _Scritti vari_ (Napoli, 1898), i. pp. xiv-xvi, pref. [15] _Zum ewigen Friede,_ in _Werke_ (ed. Rosenkranz-Schubert), vol. vii. pt. i. p. 370. [16] _De uno univ. juris principio,_ § 46. [17] _Encykl._ § 474, and cf. other passages: _Phän. d. Geistes,_ pp. 484-486; _Encykl._ § 474; _Phil. d. Rechtes,_ § 124; _Phil. d. Gesch._ pp. 39-41. [18] _Gesch. d. Phil._ ii. pp. 405-6. [19] _System der Sittenlehre,_ p. 180 _sq._; cf. p. 15. [20] _Einleitung,_ § 82 (Italian transl. p. 102). [21] _Op. cit._ § 128 (It. tr. p. 172). [22] _Allg. prakt. Phil._ p. 35. [23] _Grundzüge der Ethik,_ §§ 12, 14. [24] _Gesch. d. neueren Philos._ (1796-1804), sect. iv. cap. 18 (Fr. tr., Paris, 1816, v. 432-753) [25] _Phil. d. Rechts,_ § 189 _sqq._ [26] "L'Économie et la sociologie au point de vue scientifique" in _Rivistetele Scienza,_ i. (1907) 293, 312. [27] See M. Losacco, _Le dottrine edonistiche italiane del secolo XVIII_ (Napoli, 1902). [28] Galluppi, _Elementi di filosofia_ (Napoli, 1846), ii. 265-266, 406 _sqq._ SECOND SECTION THE ETHICAL PRINCIPLE I CRITIQUE OF MATERIAL AND OF FORMALISTIC ETHIC [Sidenote: _Various meanings of "formal" and "material."_] It is a much-disputed question whether the Principle of Ethic should be conceived as _formal_ or _material._ The question, already difficult in itself, has become yet more difficult, so as almost to cause despair of its solution, owing to the fact that those terms, "formal" and "material," are understood (as often happens in philosophy) in a double sense. Hence, those who win assent to their thesis as to the formality of the ethical principle are afterwards wont to avail themselves of this assent, in order stealthily to introduce another thesis, which, although it be also beneath the banner of the "formal," yet has nothing to do with the first and is as false as that is true. And since those who maintain the material principle do the same thing, both alike come to expose their flanks to one another's blows. In the process of unravelling this tangled skein, we shall begin by giving to those two words the meaning that they usually bear in philosophical terminology, meaning by "formal" the universal and by "material" the contingent. And in this signification we affirm, above all, that the principle of Ethic is _formal_ and certainly not _material._ [Sidenote: _The ethical principle as formal (universal) and not material (contingent)._]