Practical Ethics. - 1898

London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co; Macmillan Co., New York,, 1898. Inscribed to a close friend and confident of Sidgwick First edition, presentation copy, inscribed to "HG Dakyns / Mr / from Henry Sidgwick. / Jan 17 1898" on the front free endpaper. Presentation copies from Sidgwick are notably scarce in commerce, as are copies of Practical Ethics: this is the first such copy we have handled. Henry Graham Dakyns (1838-1911), a schoolmaster at Clifton College, was a close friend and confident of Sidgwick - the two men were contemporaries at Trinity College, Cambridge. They corresponded at length on Sidgwick's ethical theory: in an 1862 letter, Sidgwick stated his focus on "a reconciliation between the moral sense and utilitarian theories" (quoted in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). On a more personal level, Dakyns was, like virtually all Sidgwick's closest friends, homosexual - in this respect, the Practical Ethics's focus on the capacity and aims of ethical societies is particularly interesting. Five of the nine essays in this collection were originally delivered as addresses to ethical societies in Cambridge and London. Two essays, "Public Morality" and "Clerical Veracity", are published here for the first time. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, front cover ruled in blind, gold patterned endpapers. With loosely inserted author's compliments slip. Cloth bright, light bumping and rubbing to spine, faint browning to endpapers and outer leaves, minor foxing to edges: an excellent copy.