Excerpt from The Theory of Good and Evil, Vol. 1: A Treatise on Moral Philosophy

With regard to my criticism of the able work of Professor A. E. Taylor (the Problem of Conduct), I should wish to explain that the recent number of the Philosophical Review in which he withdraws his View about the merely apparent character of evil did not come into my hands till the whole of my criticism was printed and some of it had been finally passed for the press, though I had not failed to notice the change of tone already traceable in his Elements of Metaphysics. I can only therefore express my regret for having devoted so much space to the criticism of a position which its author has abandoned.

It is useless for an author to offer apologies for the defects of a book which he is not compelled to write. In explanation Of such deficiencies of the present work as may arise from the absence of a more exhaustive knowledge of the literature bearing upon this and cognate subjects, I may, however, be allowed to plead, for the information of persons unacquainted with our English system of University teaching, that Oxford College Tutors are very far from possessing the leisure of a German or an American Professor, and that they have to choose between publishing imperfect work and not publishing at all. They may perhaps console themselves with the reflection that the method of individual teaching by means of essays and conversation gives them opportunities of appreciating the real wants of students which are hardly accessible to teachers who see their pupils only in the lecture-room. I have a strong feeling that the progress of knowledge, especially in the region Of Philosophy, is often retarded by an excessive shrinking from criticism, and by an indefinite postponement of publication in the hope of more completely satisfying an author's ideal.

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