philosophers have set up; for these are composed of abstract, sometimes even of hair-splitting propositions, with no foundation other than an artificial combination of ideas; such that their application to actual conduct would often incline to the comic. A good action, inspired solely by Kant's Moral Principle, would be at bottom the work of philosophic pedantry; or else would lead the doer into self-deception, through his reason interpreting conduct, which had other, perhaps nobler, incentives, as the product of the Categorical Imperative, and of the conception of Duty, which, as we have seen, rests on nothing.

But not only is it true that the philosophic moral principles, purely theoretical as they are, have seldom any operative power; of those established by religion, and expressly framed for practical purposes, it is