BY THE REV. WILLIAM SEWELL, M.A. FELLOW AND TUTOR OF EXETER COLLEGE, AND PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. PREFACE. CANNOT permit this little book to be put forth, without acknowledging, what is no excuse to the writer, but may be a warning to the readers, that from the pressure of unforeseen circumstances, it has been necessary both to write and publish it hastily. It was commenced with a wish to make it popular, like the other volumes of this series: but popular Ethics are already provided for us in our Catechisms and Bibles; and it was soon found impossible to treat the subject scientifically, without entering into abstruse questions. It is therefore designed principally for students, who may be capable of deeper researches than mere questions of common casuistry. My object has been mainly to restore the connexion so long dissevered between the science of Ethics and the Catholic Christianity of the Church; and to touch chiefly on those questions, which are most prominently discussed in the present day. Perhaps it may not be useless to state in a tabular form, as an outline of the contents, the chief principles which are sug- 1. That Ethics are the science of education. 2. That books and writing, without oral in- structors, are a very imperfect mode of teaching. 3. That external historical testimony of God's revealed will is the only true basis of 4. That the Catholic Church only has the right or the power to educate. 5. That the science of Ethics and Chris- tianity are necessarily connected, and yet must 6. That certain rules are to be observed in the study of Ethics, so as to avoid three great errors in the present day, namely, Rationalism, 7. That in education forms are of the greatest 8. That the Sacraments of the Church, especially the Sacrament of Baptism, cannot be 9. That there is in the world a real personal |