Thus it is that love to parents tends to produce “peace and good will” among children, who, in their little broils, are restrained by the desire to please their parents, when love to each other fails. Here we have a view of the importance of _right conceptions_ of God’s character, in order to secure the perfect action of finite minds, especially in the first stage of existence. It has been shown that the rules of right action are to be gained, in many cases, only by long experience and by a course of reasoning. Often, too, general rules (such, for example, as that we are _never to lie_, even to save life, or for _any_ reason,) must be obeyed when a person can see immediate evil, and no good to self or to any one by obedience. Now it is impossible for a rational mind to choose _pure evil_. There must be _some good_ in an object to excite desire, or it is impossible to choose it. But pleasurable emotions toward an all‐wise Creator, whose benevolence and wisdom excite love, delight, and confidence, may be such that _to please him_ gives abundant motive to obey the rules of right he enjoins when no other good can be perceived except that obedience will please him. And the more we perceive in him that excites admiration, love, and gratitude, the more strength of motive is gained. It has been shown that a choice or act is _virtuous_ in all relations, when it absolutely is best for all, and when it is done in reference to a rule of rectitude, or _because_ it is right. The motive or reason of a choice decides whether or not it is virtuous. Now as the Creator’s will and the rules of rectitude are the same, when we say that any act, in order to be virtuous, must have reference to God’s will, the question comes up, is an act virtuous _because it pleases God_, or does it please God _because it is virtuous_? _i.e._, because it conforms to those rules by which his chief end in creation is secured, and which rest on the eternal nature of things. The last is the principle here assumed. God’s great end is the highest happiness of his creatures. Obedience to his laws is the mode for securing this end; his own actions are right as they conform to this end; and the actions of all his creatures are right only in the same relation. So God’s “glory” consists in the highest happiness of his creatures, which can only be secured by their obedience to his laws. This makes it clear that choosing as our chief end to obey all the physical, social, and moral laws of God, as learned by experience, is the same as loving God with all the heart, and our neighbors as ourselves. It is also living for God’s glory as the chief end; and it is being a truly righteous, virtuous, and pious man.