Thus the foundation which Kant gave to Ethics, which for the last sixty years has been regarded as a sure basis, proves to be an inadmissible assumption, and merely theological Morals in disguise; it sinks therefore before our eyes into the deep gulf of philosophic error, which perhaps will never be filled up. That the previous attempts to lay a foundation are still less satisfactory, I take for granted, as I have already said. They consist, for the most part, of unproved assertions, drawn from the impalpable world of dreams, and at the same time — like Kant's system itself — full of an artificial subtlety dealing with the finest distinctions, and resting on the most abstract conceptions. We find difficult combinations; rules invented for the purpose; formulae balanced on a needle's point; and stilted maxims, from which it is no longer possible