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• Preface to Volume Ii
• Preface to Part Iv (when First Issued Separately)
• Part IV.: The Ethics of Social Life: Justice
• Chapter 1.: Animal Ethics
• Chapter 2.: Subhuman Justice
• Chapter 3.: Human Justice
• Chapter 4.: The Sentiment of Justice
• Chapter 5.: The Idea of Justice
• Chapter 6.: The Formula of Justice
• Chapter 7.: The Authority of This Formula
• Chapter 8.: Its Corollaries
• Chapter 9.: The Right to Physical Integrity
• Chapter 10.: The Rights to Free Motion and Locomotion
• Chapter 11.: The Rights to the Uses of Natural Media
• Chapter 12.: The Right of Property
• Chapter 13.: The Right of Incorporeal Property
• Chapter 14.: The Rights of Gift and Bequest
• Chapter 15.: The Rights of Free Exchange and Free Contract
• Chapter 16.: The Right to Free Industry
• Chapter 17.: The Rights of Free Belief and Worship
• Chapter 18.: The Rights of Free Speech and Publication
• Chapter 19.: A Retrospect With an Addition
• Chapter 20.: The Rights of Women
• Chapter 21.: The Rights of Children
• Chapter 22.: Political Rights–so-called
• Chapter 23.: The Nature of the State
• Chapter 24.: The Constitution of the State
• Chapter 25.: The Duties of the State
• Chapter 26.: The Limits of State Duties
• Chapter 27.: The Limits of State Duties–continued
• Chapter 28.: The Limits of State Duties–continued
• Chapter 29.: The Limits of State Duties–concluded
• Part V.: The Ethics of Social Life: Negative Beneficence
• Chapter 1.: Kinds of Altruism
• Chapter 2.: Restraints On Free Competition
• Chapter 3.: Restraints On Free Contract
• Chapter 4.: Restraints On Undeserved Payments
• Chapter 5.: Restraints On Displays of Ability
• Chapter 6.: Restraints On Blame
• Chapter 7.: Restraints On Praise
• Chapter 8.: The Ultimate Sanctions
• Part VI.: The Ethics of Social Life: Positive Beneficence
• Chapter 1.: Marital Beneficence
• Chapter 2.: Parental Beneficence
• Chapter 3.: Filial Beneficence
• Chapter 4.: Aiding the Sick and the Injured
• Chapter 5.: Succor to the Ill-used and the Endangered
• Chapter 6.: Pecuniary Aid to Relatives and Friends
• Chapter 7.: Relief of the Poor
• Chapter 8.: Social Beneficence
• Chapter 9.: Political Beneficence
• Chapter 10.: Beneficence At Large
• Appendices
• Appendix A.: the Kantian Idea of Rights
• Appendix B.: the Land Question
• Appendix C.: The Moral Motive
• Appendix D.: Conscience In Animals
• Appendix E.: Replies to Criticisms
• References

PREFACE TO PART IV (When First Issued Separately)

In the Preface to The Data of Ethics, published in June 1879, there occurred the sentence: “Hints, repeated of late years with increasing frequency and distinctness, have shown me that health may permanently fail, even if life does not end, before I reached the last part of the task I have marked out for myself.” There followed the statement that since “this last part of the task”–the affiliation of ethics on the doctrine of evolution–was that “to which I regard all the preceding parts as subsidiary,” I did not like to contemplate the probability of failure in executing it. Hence the decision to write The Data of Ethics in advance.

Something like the catastrophe foreseen gradually came. Years of declining health and decreasing power of work, brought, in 1886, a complete collapse; and further elaboration of the Synthetic Philosophy was suspended until the beginning of 1890, when it became again possible to get through a small amount of serious work daily Of course there arose the question–What work to undertake first? Completion of The Principles of Ethics was, without hesitation, decided upon: the leading divisions of The Principles of Sociology having been executed. A further question presented itself–What part of The Principles of Ethics should have precedence? Led by the belief that my remaining energies would probably not carry me through the whole, I concluded that it would be best to begin with the part of most importance. Hence, passing over Part II, “The Inductions of Ethics,” and Part III, “The Ethics of Individual Life,” I devoted myself to Part IV, “The Ethics of Social Life: Justice,” and have now, to my great satisfaction, succeeded in finishing it.

Should improved health be maintained, I hope that, before the close of next year, I may issue parts II and III, completing the first volume; and should I be able to continue, I shall then turn my attention to Part V, “The Ethics of Social Life: Negative Beneficence,” and Part VI, “The Ethics of Social Life: Positive Beneficence.”

Between this Part IV of The Principles of Ethics, and my first work, Social Statics, with the constructive portion of which it coincides in area, there are considerable differences. One difference is that what there was in my first book of supernaturalistic interpretation has disappeared, and the interpretation has become exclusively naturalistic–that is, evolutionary. With this difference may be joined the concomitant difference, that whereas a biological origin for ethics was, in Social Statics, only indicated, such origin has now been definitely set forth; and the elaboration of its consequences has become the cardinal trait. And a further distinction is that induction has been more habitually brought in support of deduction. It has in every case been shown that the corollaries from the first principle laid down, have severally been in course of verification during the progress of mankind.

It seems proper to add that the first five chapters have already been published in The Nineteenth Century for March and April 1890.

H.S.

• London

June 1891