which touches morality touches the heart of society; a high and pure morality is the life-blood of humanity; mistakes in belief are inevitable, and are of little moment; mistakes in life destroy happiness, and their destructive consequences spread far and wide.  It is, then, a very important question whether we, who are endeavouring to take away from the world the authority on which has hitherto been based all its morality, can offer a new and firm ground whereupon may safely be built up the fair edifice of a noble life.”

I then proceeded to analyse revelation and intuition as a basis for morals, and, discarding both, I asserted:  “The true basis of morality is utility; that is, the adaptation of our actions to the promotion of the general welfare and happiness; the endeavour so to rule our lives that we may serve and bless mankind.”  And I argued for this basis, showing that the effort after virtue was implied in the search for happiness:  “Virtue is an indispensable part of all true and solid happiness....  But it is, after all, only reasonable that happiness should be the ultimate test of right and wrong, if we live, as we do, in a realm of law.  Obedience to law must necessarily result in harmony, and disobedience in discord.  But if obedience to law result in harmony it must also result in happiness—­all through nature obedience to law results in happiness, and through obedience each living thing fulfils the perfection of its being, and in that perfection finds its true happiness.”  It seemed to me most important to remove morality from the controversies about religion, and to give it a basis of its own:  “As, then, the grave subject of the existence of Deity is a matter of dispute, it is evidently of deep importance to society that morality should not be dragged into this battlefield, to stand or totter with the various theories of the Divine nature which human thought creates and destroys.  If we can found morality on a basis apart from theology, we shall do humanity a service which can scarcely be overestimated.”  A study of the facts of nature, of the consequences of man in society, seemed sufficient for such a basis.  “Our faculties do not suffice to tell us about God; they do suffice to study phenomena, and to deduce laws from correlated facts.  Surely, then, we should do wisely to concentrate our strength and our energies on the discovery of the attainable, instead of on the search after the unknowable.  If we are told that morality consists in obedience to the supposed will of a supposed perfectly moral being, because in so doing we please God, then we are at once placed in a region where our faculties are useless to us, and where our judgment is at fault.  But if we are told that we are to lead noble lives, because nobility of life is desirable for itself alone, because in so doing we are acting in harmony with the laws of Nature, because in so doing we spread happiness around our pathway and gladden our fellow-men—­then,