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our power of apprehending such conformity is at the 

 root of our whole intellectual life. The mental acts by 

 which we perceive that anything is certainly " true," or 

 has been found certain (like the acts by which we 

 apprehend our own existence, or the existence or 

 qualities of the objects which we directly perceive), are 

 called intuitions. As they essentially pertain to our 

 intellect, they are also called "intellectual intuitions." 



Another of our perceptions of the highest practical 

 importance is our perception whether any given action 

 is, under its circumstances, a " good " action or not our 

 perceptions of goodness. 



This perceptive faculty of ours must be carefully 

 distinguished from keen feelings of sympathy, of shame, 

 or of regret. The idea of " goodness " is quite distinct 

 from the ideas of "utility" or "pleasure," and is a 

 perception or " intuition " of duty as concerns ourselves 

 or others. The radical distinctness which exists between 

 our idea "goodness," and every other conception, is 

 easily shown by an example. Let us suppose that any- 

 one is told he " should pay his tailor," and the truth of 

 the saying is disputed by him, the only possible way of 

 trying to convince him as to his duty in that respect, 

 would be to call his attention to some more general 

 moral precept, such as " every man is bound to pay his 

 debts." If this again were disputed, we might further 

 urge : "A man is bound to satisfy obligations he has 

 voluntarily incurred," and so on. In every step we take 

 to explain why a duty should be performed, there must 

 always be a further and more elementary declaration of 

 duty, until we come to some assertion of the kind the 

 truth of which is admitted as self-evident. This proves 

 conclusively that no judgment as to moral obligation 

 could ever be, or could ever have been, developed from 



