tigated the questions
of disposition and purpose, of intention and motive, which lie at the
root of all conduct, and without which actions are neither moral nor
immoral. It is surely a mistake to say, as some do, that as logic
deals with the correctness of reasoning, so Ethics deals only with the
correctness of conduct, and is not directly concerned with the
processes by which we come to act correctly.[10] On the contrary,
merely correct action may be ethically worthless, and conduct obtains
its moral value from the motives or intentions which actuate and
determine it. Ethics cannot, therefore, ignore the psychological
processes of feeling, desiring and willing of the acting subject. It
is indeed true that in ordinary life men are frequently judged to be
good or bad, according to the outward effect of their actions, and
material results are often regarded as the sole {20} measure of good.
But while it may be a point of difficulty in theoretic morality to
determine the comparative worth and mutual relation of good affections
and good actions, all surely will allow that a certain quality of
disposition or motive in the agent is required to constitute an action
morally good, and that it is not enough to measure virtue by its
utility or its beneficial effect alone. Hence all moralists are agreed
that the main object of their investigation must belong to the
psychical side of human life--whether they hold that man's ultimate end
is to be found in the sphere of pleasure or maintain that his
well-being lies in the realisation of virtue for its own sake. The
problems as to the origin and adequacy of conscience, as to the meaning
and validity of voluntary action; the questions concerning motives and
desires, as to the historical evolution of moral customs, and man's
relation at each stage of his history to the social, political and
religious institutions amid which he lives--are subjects which, though
falling within the scope of Ethics, have their roots in the science of
the soul. The very existence of a science of Ethics depends upon the
answers which Psychology gives to such questions. If, for example, it
be decided that there is in man no such faculty or organ as conscience,
and that what men so designate is but a natural manifestation gradually
evolved in and through the physical and social development of man: or
if we deny the self-determining power of human beings and assume that
what we call the freedom of the will