Practical Ethics. A Collection of Addresses and Essays.

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, "HG Dakyns, me [Greek letters], from Henry Sidgwick. Jan 17 1898". Henry Graham Dakyns (1838-1911), a schoolmaster at Clifton College, was a close friend and confidant of Sidgwick - the two 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). 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.…