this advantage, that they bring rational processes to bear upon dogmatic morals; they check undue dogmatism, and they define the sphere in which dogmatic morals are legitimate. It has been shown, I think, that utilitarianism as an aim, including true egoism as an aim, is not incompatible with the intuitionism which I have defined. It is the work of the speculative moralists to decide and to define the ultimate aim. Where each of us sets out empirically, and with but a narrow range of vision and a narrower range of knowledge, the speculative moralist will bring the wider range of vision of his study of all human nature, and the wider range of knowledge which that vision has afforded him. It is part of my aim to strive to find out what effect speculative morals, obtained by the "light of pure reason," can have on practical work-a-day life, to what extent our old friend, the man-inthe-street, is affected by this speculative reasoning. this point, therefore, I come back to the original question, what method of ethics, what guide to every-day conduct, has the ordinary citizen?

At

Briefly, I would reply, the intuitionist, and none other. As so stated it may seem to be old-fashioned, and I do not opine that even so it would on that ground be objectionable. But whilst I say that it is intuitionist, I consider that it is intuitionist with its intuitions lit up and vitalized by high ideals, among them the ideal of the utilitarian, the ideal of the true egoist, and the ideal of the transcendental philosopher who believes that each of us has an individual nature to develop, and a potential self to realise.

But, it will be asked, if I seriously say that ethical methods are impracticable for the man-in-the-street, can I equally seriously say, with any hope for consistency, that this compound of many methods is the science of conduct

adopted by untrained and unthinking minds? I think I

can.

Imagine for a moment a utilitarian at the street corner. He preaches to those who pass him by. "O, my friends, we are all selfish and self-seeking. Let us lay aside all our past narrowness. Let us in future act in every detail of our lives that the greatest good may be for the greatest number, and that everyone shall count for one, and no one for more than one." Would that fire a crowd with moral enthusiasm, even though the charmers were Bentham and Mill themselves? Apparently not. Imagine, on the other hand, that the utilitarian preachers held forth-as many who would repudiate the name of utilitarian are at this moment holding forth-that we must watch carefully lest we give offence "to one of these little ones,' that our consciences—our intuitions—must be as quick to the injury of others as to the injury of ourselves; that we are all members of one body. That is a doctrine which not only would appeal, but one which has appealed time and time again since the multitudes of men-in-the-street, the common people, "heard" Someone "gladly." Or again, suppose an egoist, say a follower of Hobbes, took to street preaching. He tells his audience that even benevolence is selfish, and must be selfish; he warns them against all selfish acts; he builds up a moral theory upon desire for personal "good" or benefit. Even the man-in-the-street would revolt against such a doctrine, unaccustomed as he is to high flights of altruism. Yet an egoism is popularly taught. It has crept into the proverbs of the day; we assure our children by the means of copy-book headings, not that honesty is dogmatically right, but that it is the best policy. Butler has proved in his sermons that selfinterest is quite a legitimate lure to the performance of moral action, but he places the main deliverance in the

dogmatic dictate of intuition, the self-interest follows respectfully after.

To sum up, therefore, a long and tedious argument, we have arrived at an acceptance of moral sentiments. They are clear and definite in our minds; they are more or less clear in all minds; they are capable of development and even of training, and it is the work of the speculative philosophers to develop, to classify, and to emphasize the moral sentiments. The man-of-the-world, untrained in ethical speculation, will have his clear and definite moral sentiments; he will differ from the philosopher, not in the essentials of the moral sense, but in the ultimate aim to which the moral sense applies itself. From day to day the impress of dogmatism will be on his mind, but for the philosopher the whole tendency of human action will be laid bare.

This is, as I consider, the difference between the sceptical and the constructive aspects of ethics. The sceptic will try to place utilitarian, or perhaps egoistic, sanctions in the stead of intuition. Moral sentiments he will deride; great distinctions of right and wrong are to him only degrees of expediency. But when expediency is shewn to be correlative to right and wrong; when the ultimate good of ethical systems is shewn to be realisable by the day-to-day fulfilment of intuitionist deliverances, we are coming near to an objective body of morals; we are coming very near to practical ethics.

For, after all, it is this question of objective morals. which is the stumbling-block. If there is only expediency, if morals only mean the good of me or them, or "everybody counting for one, and none for more than one,” it is evident that, once blot out the human race, and right and wrong cease to be. Subjective ethics are very dangerous. There is the destructive element, the element of difference

Whether a man

between individual and individual. believes in the existence of God or not, he is clear in his own mind that he has a duty ad externam. "Could Robinson Crusoe do wrong?" is an old question. At least, this is fairly certain that Crusoe had periods of moral depression, had a sense of "reigning in this solitary place," and if reigning does not connote the performance of right and wrong, nothing does. It does not require any dogmatism as to the nature or attributes of God to help us to lay down quite categorically that a large sphere of moral action does not concern our relations towards other human beings. Similarly, our duty to ourselves is but a small section of our duty. Hence it follows that outside us, independent of our existence, there is right and there is wrong, an objective ethic. It may seem that I have shewn that mere reason cannot give us a moral doctrine only to prove afterwards that, by way of intuition, reason succeeds in performing the impossible. If this were so, I admit the argument is vicious. But my contention is that reasonapart from moral intuitions-is insufficient to establish moral doctrine; and that reason, co-operating with moral intuition is all-sufficient, not merely to establish moral doctrine, but to point and to rationalize its ultimate aims and its inalienable results.

What follows from the acceptance of an objective right and wrong, subjectively cognizable, but independent of the mere existence of the subject? At once follows the existence of a Subject to whom right and wrong is cognizable independent of our existence. It is Berkeley's argument for the existence of God stated in ethics, rather than in metaphysics as Berkeley states it. Things only exist, he says, in relation to a sentient mind; things in themselves exist in relation to the sentient mind of God. As regards moral sentiments, therefore, since they are not

mere fleeting phantoms in the minds of individuals, but moral apperceptions of objective morals, these will exist when the mortal minds are no more: they will exist in the mind of God.

And our old friend, the man-in-the-street, bears eloquent testimony to the argument. He may cast away religious influences from him, but none the less he has his perceptions of right and wrong-perceptions clear and unmistakable- only mistakable indeed when wrong chooses for its purpose the chameleon nature. Not from legislation, or convention, or from expediency, did he gain his moral intuitions; though legislation and convention and expediency may and do have their due effects upon them. He has obtained them, though perhaps he does not admit it, by the broken light of reflection from the greater light of eternal moral truth.