Preface. 



Action or Thought, founded 

 on the laws of nature, and not 

 violating the rights of others,. 

 is Morality, The Author. 



It seems to me that in the issue of any publication 

 every author must have in view the aim of that publi- 

 cation. These aims are of course subjective, and mine 

 amongst the number ; but I special!}' desire to give to 

 the aim of my present work a broad human significence. 

 What I now offer to the public and to the learned world 

 is the labor of fifteen years of earnest observation and 

 research, a labor called into action by life itself. Its fun- 

 damental idea is human morality. 



What is morality ? Up to the present we kuow no 

 definition; but the saying "so many men so many minds" 

 can well be applied to the extant definitions of morality. 

 There is no society, there is no family, there is no indi- 

 vidual unable to set forth his or its own moral prin- 

 ciples, meanwhile societies and families and individuals 

 are so various in their moral developments that to reduce 

 these developments to unity is beyond all human possi- 

 bility. It might seem that religion should be able U> 

 effect this unity, but in the promises of peace which 

 different religions supply there are so many contradic- 

 tions that unity is inconceivable. The Christian says - 

 Morality is the Gospel ; the Mahometan says it is the 



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