io Ethics compared with Mathematics. 



regard to ethics. Though he never undertook the 

 task, and when urged to it, late in life, by his 

 friend Molyneux, declined on the ground of a 

 preference for the practical morals of the ^N&quot;ew 

 Testament, Locke nevertheless tells us, more than 

 once, and maintains, in accordance with his doc 

 trine of the self-archetypal character of complex 

 ideas, that the rules of morality maybe demonstrat 

 ed in the same manner, and with the same evi 

 dence, as the propositions of geometry. He recog 

 nizes, as compared with moral ideas, the greater 

 simplicity of mathematical ideas, and their repre- 

 sentability by diagrams or other sensible marks ; 

 and though he admits this gives to the ideas of 

 quantity a real practical advantage, and has made 

 them thought more capable of certainty and dem 

 onstration, he yet emphatically reiterates that 

 &quot; from self-evident propositions by necessary con 

 sequences, as incontestable as those in mathematics, 

 the measures of right and wrong might be made 

 out to anyone that will apply himself with the same 

 indifferency and attention to the one as he does to 

 the other of these sciences.&quot; What, then, are 

 these &quot; self-evident propositions&quot; which constitute 

 the foundations of our duty and rules of action ? If 

 we look for anything so simple and evident as the 

 axioms, definitions, and postulatesof geometry, we 



