non est pro magno habendum quid homines senserint, sed quae sit rei veritas (It is the truth about a thing, not men's opinions thereon, that is of importance); but also because it would be like ??a??a? e?? 'A???a? ??�??e?? (i.e., carrying coals to Newcastle); for previous attempts to give a foundation to Ethics are sufficiently well-known to the Royal Society, and the very question proposed shows that it is also convinced of their inadequateness. Any reader less well-informed will find a careful, if not complete, presentment of the attempts hitherto made, in Garve's Uebersicht der vornehmsten Principien der Sittenlehre, and again, in St�udlin's Geschichte der Moralphilosophie. It is of course very disheartening to reflect that Ethics, which so directly concerns life, has met with the same unhappy fate as