The ground-principle in moral science lies in our obedience to that moral law, or moral nature, that instinctively loves, tends towards and seeks the good. By the good is meant whatever is pure, true, right. This instinctive love for the good is also properly called an appetency for the good.

The good is to be distinguished from a good. The good pertains to and inheres in the abstract notion of the pure, true and right, that belongs to the moral nature and is grounded in it.

The good is found in whatever harmonizes with the pure moral nature. It is not the thing itself— it is not the veritable real feeling, thought or act that should be, and may be, in harmony with the moral nature; but it is that pure, right state of the soul that gives rise to and produces pure feeling, thought and act. The good, then, lies in the character of the soul as pure, right. A good is a right feeling, thought or act, in which the feeling, thought or act itself—separate from the good-—produces enjoyment either in the subject or the object.

The good relates to what is good in a moral sense. A good relates to what is good in an external or material sense. The good is abstract; a good is concrete.' The good is in the love of the pure, true, right, because it is loveable, and we have an affection for it or a tendency or an appetency towards it. We love the beautiful for a similar reason or cause; namely, we have a natural appreciation of the beautiful and admiration for it; hence the good belongs to the true and the right in every form of it.

The highest good: A good cannot be a good in

a moral sense except it be grounded in the right. It is the right in it, or at the ground of it, that makes any state or constitution a moral good; hence the highest good lies in that from which all good proceeds; and as this is what the moral nature seeks after, it follows that man attains to his highest good when his soul is obedient to the voice of his moral nature seeking and demanding the right.

The true is to be distinguished from truth. The moral nature has appetency for the true. The intellect determines what is true, or what is truth. The truth as to what men owe to each other-as to obligations is truth about rights; hence rights is the concrete in mutual obligations, and is the product of intellect. Rights impel to action-not necessarily to moral action; it may not be right or duty to insist on rights.

15. MORAL LAW.-Moral law determines the way a man should think, feel and act in accord with his moral nature, and implies that moral thought, feeling and action are necessarily followed by a certain effect.

As natural law is conjoined with the notion of cause and effect, so moral law implies that a man's moral state or act is naturally, and so necessarily, followed by certain effects or consequences; and these sooner or later prove to be either joyous or painful.

The moral nature must have been given to man by the Creator, hence it has a necessary and imperative character.

Wayland's Moral Science makes moral law denote

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an order of sequence between the moral quality of acts and their results. This enlarges the idea-as it should be to include in the effects or results, not merely the effect upon the immediate actor or doer, but the effect upon all who may be morally responsible, for moral law regards moral acts in their reality as facts-not merely the moral quality, as to the individual doer, which is largely in the intent.

When God says "Love me," he means a pure and true love in very fact and deed. This love accords with man's moral nature, when the true law of man's nature is free to manifest itself, or is free to act.

No love of man's distorted imagination will fulfill this law. Saul imagined he showed love to God by persecuting the Christians. The moral quality of his act as affecting his personal guilt and liability was modified, but was not changed from bad to good, by his honest though mistaken intent. There is a degree of responsibility for doing a bad act even with honest intent. Saul's act was contra to the law of his moral nature, for that nature uses all the faculties of the soul in its search for the true and the right. Saul did not do this, but allowed himself to be subject to the prejudices of his race, and his one-sided education.

16. WRITTEN MORAL LAWS.-Written moral laws are the authoritative statement of rules to regulate moral conduct; such are the commandments of the decalogue and other Divine precepts, as well as the regulations and laws found in accord therewith, and made and established by wise legislators.

The authority of moral law is either in the Divine utterance of it, or else in its evidently being in accord with the law of the moral nature, or both, namely: the wisdom and the Divine utterance of a moral law may both be evident. For instance, the first commandment is: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

There is wisdom and there is necessity seen in this commandment when we reflect that the violation of it would contravene the native primary moral law of the soul, to-wit: its tendency to love the true and the right, for by the study of God in his word and work we see that he alone is the true, the right and the good; and to set up another God, or another Good, would be to pervert, even to subvert, man's moral nature.

And, too, there appears to be a necessity for the Divine utterance of this command, because without a display of Divine authority men might never have fully apprehended the wisdom of this first law of the decalogue; and if necessity be in it, then its idea or type is that of a self-evident universal law.

The moral act of obedience to the moral nature implies a will, whose office is to choose and to do the right act.

From the view now given of the moral nature we see its function and the auxiliary faculties and powers.

First, its innate appetency for the true, right and good and its innate cognition thereof, when there is an à priori necessity, or is ground for the selfevident.

Second, the reasoning faculty, that inquires into particular cases of right and wrong, and determines why this act or that act is right, when there is not self-evidence.

Third, the will, that spontaneously, or of its own accord, chooses and carries into effect or executes the right act or the wrong one.

Fourth, the conscience, with its intuitive discernment or immediate knowledge of the disposition of the will to do wright or wrong, and with its power to give joy or sorrow to the soul, according as the intents and acts of the soul are good or bad.

Origin of the moral: The moral nature is prior to the discovery and the discernment of relations between one's soul and some other being, and it lies at the very foundation of moral ideas: In accord with this is the tenor of the scripture referring to Gentiles. "who do by nature the things contained in the law (Romans 2: 12-15.).

The context shows there must be good-will; a conscience bearing witness; and also intelligent action the thoughts of the soul "accusing" or else "excusing," as to the determinations of the will.

For this intelligent action, Kant gives the expression, "Act always in such manner that the immediate motive of thy will may become a universal law." This his categorical-imperative-demands that what we will to do shall, in moral aspect, be such as all holy intelligences--God, angels, and men of good-will and of sound mind—would pronounce true and right-right in motive and in act. This is simply Kant's philosophic view and enunciation of