once express in the form which I take to be the simplest and purest possible, viz.: Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, juva.

(Do harm to no one; but rather help all people, as far as lies in your power.) This is in truth the proposition which all ethical writers expend their energies in endeavouring to account for. It is the common result of their manifold and widely differing deductions; it is the ?,t? for which the d??t? is still sought after; the consequence, the cause of which is wanting. Hence it is itself nothing but the Datum (the thing given), in relation to which the Quaesitum (the thing required) is the problem of every ethical system, as also of the present prize essay. The solution of this riddle will disclose the real foundation of Ethics, which, like the philosopher's stone,