It has been said that codes derived from the moral sense have no stability since this sense ratifies one principle at one time and place, another at another. The same objection applies, however, to every other system of morals, and happily there is an answer to the objection. The error criticised is one of application, not of doctrine. The decisions of the Geometric Sense are conflicting; yet there are certain axioms upon which all agree; and in the same manner there are moral axioms to be found, upon which all must agree. Disagreement is to be looked for among imperfect characters. But nature's laws know no exception: Obey or suffer are the alternatives. A progress from entire unconsciousness of these laws to the conviction that law is universal and inevitable, constancy an essential attribute of divine rule, is the substance of the progress of man. The end of these unbending utterances is universal good; we have no alternative but to assume the law of constancy to be the best possible one. As with the physical, so with the ethical; all religions teach the inevitableness of punishment and reward, with which deeds are _necessarily_ and _indissolubly_ connected. It is of infinite importance to recognize and follow the laws of society. To the objection that one cannot always be guided by abstract principles, that there are exceptions where prudence must act, it may be replied that there are no exceptions to the laws of nature; that even if, in a particular instance, partial good may result, a far greater general evil is entailed by the opening of the way to future disobediences, and that we cannot, moreover, be sure that an exceptional disobedience will bring the anticipated benefits. Moral as well as physical evil is the result of a want of congruity between the faculties and their sphere of action. With regard to the results of varying conditions upon man, we have three alternative theories from which to choose: either man remains entirely unaltered by his surroundings, or he grows more unfitted for them, or else he grows more fitted for them. The first two suppositions being absurd, we are obliged to admit the remaining one. And since all evil results from non-adaptation, and non-adaptation is being continually diminished, it follows that evil must be continually diminishing. The evil in society shows that man is not yet completely adapted to a state which requires that each individual shall have such desires only as may be fully satisfied without trenching upon the ability of other individuals to obtain a like satisfaction. The primitive condition of man required that he should sacrifice the welfare of other beings to his own; the old attribute still clings to him in some measure; the belief in human perfectibility amounts to the belief that man will eventually become completely suited to his mode of life. Progress is not an accident but a necessity; and if, instead of proposing it as a rule of