volving himself and his peace of mind in the accidents and pains of others. This system looked alone to the individual as its ultimate fact, and proposed only how he might escape pain and secure pleasure. Hence this is emphatically the system of selfishness.

The Stoic, however, while recognizing the law of necessity as existing in the world, assumed the existence of a world of mind, ever in conflict with this world of necessity; over which he assumed the mind was capable of obtaining such an ascendency as to rise above all its accidents and causes, and even become indifferent to if not independent of the same. With the Stoic, then, life was a battle and a progress, out of which was developed that sturdy self-reliance which looked down upon the accidents of earth and the social conflicts and their petty aims, with scorn and contempt.

The errors in each of these earlier systems grew out of a too hasty generalization. They assumed the world and man to be what they were not. They misconceived the character of the facts with which they had to deal; and hence all their systems and all their reasonings ended only in flat absurdities, and could not end otherwise. Such systems were in open contradiction with human consciousness, and, however logical and well reasoned they might be, could have no hold upon the popular mind, could exert very little sway over it. The mass rely upon consciousness, and not upon logic; while the philosopher, taking his premise, his datum, his starting point, follows his logic into whatever absurdities and impossibilities it may lead him, setting aside as illusory the plainest facts of consciousness, when they come in conflict with the conclusion wrought out by his logic. But nature is stronger than logic, and will in the conflict prevail. Hence all such systems have been limited in their influence, and ultimately laid aside as intellectual rubbish, fit only to be burned up.

No correct moral system can then be constructed unless the facts of life are truly comprehended, unless the true theory of life has

been comprehended. The facts must be first ascertained; the facts upon which depend all morality, and without which a science of duty cannot exist. If these facts are misunderstood, or false facts are assumed, the system must be false and will end in contradictions and palpable absurdities—must end in contradicting human consciousness.

In moral science these two things are to be done : first, the facts must be found, assumed; secondly, the relations which humanity sustains in view of these facts-the life which these facts implyis to be ascertained.

In the progress of the following work we shall endeavor to keep this two-fold duty in view. We shall endeavor to ascertain and separate facts from mere theory and speculation, and then elaborate the truths, the laws, the relations under which humanity comes in view of these facts. We think many a knotty dispute in moral metaphysics will be solved by a simple appreciation of facts too often overlooked, too often misunderstood.

If our object was simply dogmatic, we might begin by an enumeration of the facts, an admission of which is necessary, is indispensable, to the construction of moral science, a science of duty, of human life; but our object is analytical rather than dogmatical; hence the several facts must stand forth as they are severally approached in the progress of our analysis. Beginning in some one fact, we must work our way out of and through that into other facts, and in this way seek to demonstrate not only the truths deduced, but the genuineness of the facts upon which these truths depend. Our object is not simply to instruct, but also to verify the facts upon which a science of duty depends, and demonstrate the law which these facts necessarily imply, involve; not simply to lay down the law of duty, but to make the student comprehend the grounds and reason of the law.

CHAPTER II.

THE UNIMPEACHABLE VERACITY OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.

THE first fact in all moral science is the existence and unimpeachable veracity of human consciousness. Human consciousness is a fact about which there must be no debate; and its veracity is as little to be questioned as its existence. Whatever human consciousness declares, must be so, and cannot be otherwise. If we are conscious of being endowed with a free will, this fact must not be disputed; it cannot be disputed without involving the world in absolute scepticism. Surely, if there is any thing we can believe in, it is the veracity of our own consciousness. Nor can we be required to admit any fact inconsistent with its revelations. To do so is an impossibility. Whenever, therefore, the deductions of our logic conflict with the teachings of consciousness, we may know our logic is at fault, or its premises untrue.

If we deny this unimpeachable veracity, we have no means of proving it, since we can reason only through and by consciousness; and, if that is questioned we are doomed to absolute scepticism. We cannot move a step without the assumption of this veracity; to deny it is to assume that we are so organized and constituted that we can be conscious of something without being conscious of it; since the only means of this knowledge is the evidence of consciousness itself; and if this evidence is not to be implicitly relied upon, we are destitute of all proof, and the possibility of all proof

whereby we can learn that we are conscious of what we are conscious of. Nor will it answer to say we may believe it to a certain degree, yet not implicitly. This qualified opinion is just as fatal as an absolute denial. Human consciousness is reliable or it is not; it cannot be both reliable and unreliable. If it is not to be relied upon in all it discloses, what is to settle when it is to be credited, and when not? How can this be determined by a consciousness which is liable to err? If liable to err, there is no means to settle the truth but a consciousness liable to err; and if liable to err, it cannot be relied upon at all. It would be to settle one liability to err by another liability; out of which liability to err no certainty could ever arise.

To deny the veracity of consciousness is to deny our own existence; since it is only through consciousness that we learn even our existence. If we deny that we exist, there is no means of proving it; existence is a simple fact which underlies all other facts; which all other facts must assume or they cannot exist. What fact can be brought forward to prove that we exist, if that existence is denied? It would present the absurdity of one nonentity undertaking to prove the existence of another nonentity. It cannot be proved; it must be taken for granted, because we are conscious of it. The formula of Descartes, "I think, therefore I am," is an absurdity. If existence is denied, how is thought possible, since thought is only an attribute of this being, whose very existence is denied? To assert that I think, is only another form of asserting my own existence, since I cannot think except upon the assumption that I exist. Existence, then, is a fact incapable of being denied or proved. It must be taken for granted in all reasoning, and can be disputed but by a mad man. To dispute it as a fact, is as reasonable as the conduct of the mad man who asserted he was glass.

It is through consciousness, also, that we obtain a knowledge of the existence of matter. The me, and the not me, to borrow the

terminology of German metaphysics, are developed at the same instant; the moment we become conscious of self, we also become conscious of something not self. This, too, is a fact which, if denied, is incapable of proof. To deny a material world is to deny the veracity of human consciousness. All men, all minds, are conscious of it; hence it must be, or consciousness is false; and if that is false, then we have no means of proving its existence. We must admit the veracity of perception before we can take a step in reasoning; and if that is admitted, then no reasoning is necessary to prove that which consciousness has already made known to us. How can we reason of an external world of matter of which, it is asserted by the objector, we know nothing? The whole thing is simply an absurdity. Hence all discussions having for their object to prove an external world, and the manner in which the mind comes to a knowledge of it, are not only idle, but wicked; since we have undertaken to prove the unknown by means of a witness whose testimony cannot be relied upon, whose veracity we have already denied. This is to prove truth by falsehood. We must rely upon the veracity of perception and consciousness, and we can rely upon nothing else. It matters not whether we can explain the mode of this connection between mind and matter, the me and the not me, or not; there is the fact about which none can doubt. We know just as little about the movements of electricity. Why does the movement of a key in Boston move the register in New York? Can any one tell the how? And yet we know the fact that it does, though we cannot as yet catch the secret connection which links the two facts together.

It is also through consciousness that we become aware of our mental and moral faculties. We know that we have such faculties and powers, because we are conscious of the exercise of them; and we can obtain this fact in no other way. To deny their existence, is to deny the possibility of establishing that existence. It is not now a question of how accurate knowledge is to be gained; it is