The principle, which we discovered to be the final explanation of Ethics, now in turn itself requires explaining; so that our present problem has to deal with that natural Compassion, which in every man is innate and indestructible, and which has been shown to be the sole source of non-egoistic conduct, this kind alone being of real moral worth.

Now many modern thinkers treat the conceptions of Good and Bad as simple, that is, as neither needing, nor admitting any elucidation, and then they go on, for the most part, to talk very mysteriously and devoutly of an “Idea of the Good,” out of which they make a pedestal for their moral system, or at least a cloak for their poverty. Hence I am obliged in this connection to point out parenthetically, that these conceptions are anything but simple, much less a priori;