Classical Moralists, The by Benjamin Rand (1856 - 1934)

The book is virtually a history of ethics, based not upon the ordinary description of systems, but upon selections from the original sources and upon translations of the authors themselves. It is sought, so far as is practicable, to present by means of the case method the most distinctive and constructive features in the ethical systems of the successive moralists. The evolution of ethical thought is thereby revealed, stripped of its controversial material, from Socrates to Martineau. Such a work, it is hoped, will prove indispensable as a text-book of required reading, alike for the historical and for the systematic study of ethics in the universities. - Summary by Preface