The truth I have here laid down, that Compassion is the sole non-egoistic stimulus, and therefore the only really moral one, is a strange, indeed almost incomprehensible paradox. I shall hope, therefore, to render it less extraordinary to the reader, if I show that it is confirmed by experience, and by the universal testimony of human sentiment.

(1) For this purpose I shall, in the first place, state an imaginary case, which in the present investigation may serve as an experimentum crucis (a crucial test).

But not to make the matter too easy, I shall take no instance of loving-kindness, but rather a breach of lawful right, and that of the worse kind. Let us suppose two young people, Caius and Titus, to be passionately in love, each with a different girl, and that both are