EDITORS PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION THE works by which Professor
Green has hitherto been chiefly known to the general public are his
Introduction to Messrs. Longmans edition of Humes Philosophical
Works, and his articles in the Contemporary Review on some
doctrines of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Lewes. When in the year 1 877 Mr.
Green became Whytes Pro fessor of Moral Philosophy, his main desire
was, both in his teaching and writing, to develope more fully and
in a more constructive way the ideas which underlay his previous
critical writings and appeared in them. The present trea tise is
the first outcome of that desire and doubtless it would have been
only the first but for the premature and unexpected death of the
author in March, 1882. Even the Prolegomena to Ethics the title is
the authors own was left unfinished. The greater part of the book
had been used, some of it twice over, in the Professorial lectures
and about a quarter of it the first 116 pages was printed in the
numbers of Mind for January, April, and July, 1882. But, according
to a letter of the author written not long before his death, some
twenty or thirty pages remained to be added, and, though with this
ex ception the whole was written out nearly ready for print ing no
part of it can be considered to have undergone the final revision.
At his death Mr. Green left the charge of the manuscript to me and
I have now only to explain the course I have followed in preparing
it for publication. The manuscript was written in paragraphs, but
other wise was continuous and I may add that it was com posed
without regard to arrangement in Books and EDITORS PREFACE IX
Chapters. For that arrangement I am responsible, and also for
thenumbering and occasional re-division of the sections, and for
the frequent division of a section into two or more paragraphs. I
have also made the few cor rections in expression which seemed to
be necessary, and in one case I have ventured, for the sake of
clearness, to transfer a passage from one place to another.
References have been verified and supplied translations of Greek
quotations have been given, where their meaning was not obvious
from the text and a few notes have been added by way of explanation
or qualification, for the most part only where a mark in the
authors manuscript showed that he intended to reconsider the
passage. The Editors notes, except where they give merely a
reference or translation, are enclosed in square brackets. My
desire throughout has been to make no changes except in passages
which I felt sure Mr. Green would have altered had his attention
been called to them. With the further object of rendering the work
as intelligible as possible to the general reader I have ventured
to print an analysis. Mr. Green would probably have followed the
plan he adopted in the Introduction to Hume, and have placed a
short abstract on the margins of the pages. I have thought it
better to print my analysis as a Table of Contents, as that
arrangement clearly separates my work from the authors, and will
also probably be the most useful to those who care to read an
analysis at all. Perhaps I may further suggest to any reader who is
unaccustomed to metaphysical and psychological discussions that
much of the authors ethical views, though not their scientific
basis, may be gathered from the Third and Fourth Books alone. It
has been already explained that the book was leftunfinished. But on
the whole I thought it best to make no attempt to add anything,
especially as the comparison x EDITORS PREFACE which occupies the
last chapter seems to have reached a natural conclusion. The reader
will also find in the text indications of subjects which were to
have been dis cussed. In particular the author at any rate at one
time intended to introduce a criticism of Kants ethical views see
page 177. But I think this intention must have been abandoned
during the composition of the book, and, as it is hoped that before
long Mr...
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