ii RELATIVITY OF KNOWLEDGE 233 



the senses contrary denominations, as they in fact 

 produce contrary effects. In deciding what is to be 

 called good or bad, honourable or base, nature and 

 custom have been the chief agents, and alterations have 

 issued from the slow rise and victory of different 

 opinions. Among the Druids and Magi certain things 

 were performed publicly at sacrifices which now, even 

 when committed in privacy, are regarded as execrable, 

 and are so by way of law, and in the present condition 

 of affairs. Philosophy, as it teaches to abstract from 

 particulars, to bring the nature and condition of things 

 as far as possible under an absolute judgment, must 

 define differently the useful and good in an absolute 

 sense, from the useful and good as contracted to the 

 human species. Objectively there is no definitely 

 good or definitely evil, definitely true or definitely 

 false, so that from one point of view we may say that 

 all things are good ; from another that all things are 

 evil ; from a third that nothing is good or evil, as 

 neither of the contraries is true ; from a fourth that 

 all things are both good and evil, as each of the 

 contraries is true. No sense deceives or is deceived : 

 each judges of its proper object according to its own 

 measure. There is no higher tribunal to which to 

 refer its object, nor can reason judge of colour any 

 more than can the ear ; sensible truth does not follow 

 any general or universal rule, but one which is 

 particular, mutable, and variable. In the working of 

 an external sense there may be different degrees of 

 perfection or defect, but not of truth or falsity, which 

 consist in the reference of the subject and predicate 

 to one another. The faculty by which we judge this 

 or that to be true colour or light, and distinguish from 

 apparent colour or light, is not in the eye. To affirm 



