We have now reached the truly moral condition, a state perfectly distinct from either of the foregoing.  Even when the egoistic and the moral determination prescribe the same conduct, the one only counsels, while the other obliges.  The one, having in view only the greatest satisfaction of our nature, is personal even when counselling benefits to others; the other regarding only the law of Order, something distinct from self, is impersonal, even when prescribing our own good.  Hence there is in the latter case devouement of self to something else, and it is exactly the devouement to a something that is not self, but is regarded as good, that gets the name of virtue or moral good.  Moral good is voluntary and intelligent obedience to the law that is the rule of our conduct.  As an additional distinction between the egoistic and the moral determination, he mentions the judgment of merit or demerit that ensues upon actions when, and only when, they have a moral character.  No remorse follows an act of mere imprudence involving no violation of universal order.

He denies that there is any real contradiction among the three different determinations.  Nothing is prescribed in the moral law that is not also in accordance with some primitive tendency, and with self-interest rightly understood; if it were not so, it would go hard with virtue.  On the other hand, if everything not done from regard to duty were opposed to moral law and order, society could not only not subsist, but would never have been formed.  When a struggle does ensue between passion and self-interest, passion is blind; when between egoism and the moral determination, egoism is at fault.  It is in the true interest of Passion to be sacrificed to Egoism, and of Egoism to be sacrificed to Order.

He closes the review of the various moral facts by explaining in what sense the succession of the three states is to be understood.  The state of Passion is historically first, but the Egoistic and the Moral states are not so sharply defined.  As soon as reason dawns it introduces the moral motive as well as the egoistic, and to this extent the two states are contemporaneous.  Only, so far is the moral law from being at this stage fully conceived, that, in the majority of men, it is never conceived in its full clearness at all.  Their confused idea of moral law is the so-called moral conscience, which works more like a sense or an instinct, and is inferior to the clear rational conception in everything except that it conveys the full force of obligation.  In its grades of guilt human justice rightly makes allowance for different degrees of intelligence.  The Egoistic determination and the Moral state, such as it is, once developed, passion is not to be supposed abolished, but henceforth what really takes place in all is a perpetual alternation of the various states.  Yet though no man is able exclusively to follow the moral determination, and no man will constantly be under the influence of any one of the motives, there is one motive commonly uppermost whereby each can be characterized.  Thus men, according to their habitual conduct, are known as passionate, egoistic, or virtuous.