The Value Principle in this form, as in the other, is therefore _felt_, without being distinctly understood, to be essentially diabolical, and hence it undergoes again a kind of sentimental modification wherever the _sentiment_ for honesty is most potent. This last and highest expression of the doctrine of honesty, as now known in the world, may be stated in the form of the hortatory precept, "Don't be _too_ bad," or, "Don't gouge _too_ deep." No Political Economist, Financier, Moralist, or Religionist, has any more definite standard of right in commercial transactions than that. It is not too much to affirm that neither Political Economist, Financier, Moralist, nor Religionist knows at this day, nor ever has known, what it is to be honest. The religious teacher, who exhorts his hearers from Sabbath to Sabbath to be _fair_ in their dealings with each other and with the outside world, does not know, and could not for his life tell, how much he is, in fair dealing or equity, bound to pay his washerwoman or his housekeeper for any service whatever which they may render. The _sentiment_ of honesty exists, but the _science_ of honesty is wanting. The sentiment is first in order. The science must be an outgrowth, a consequential development of the sentiment. The precepts of Christian Morality deal properly with that which is the soul of the other, leaving to intellectual investigation the discovery of its scientific complement. It follows from what has been said, that the Value Principle is the commercial embodiment of the essential element of conquest and war--war transferred from the battle-field to the counter--none the less opposed, however, to the spirit of Christian Morality, or the sentiment of human brotherhood. In bodily conflict, the physically strong conquer and subject the physically weak. In the conflict of trade, the intellectually astute and powerful conquer and subject those who are intellectually feeble, or whose intellectual development is not of the precise kind to fit them for the conflict of wits in the matter of trade. With the progress of civilization and development we have ceased to think that superior physical strength gives the _right_ of conquest and subjugation. We have graduated, in idea, out of the period of physical dominion. We remain, however, as yet in the period of intellectual conquest or plunder. It has not been questioned hitherto, as a general proposition, that the man who has superior intellectual endowments to others, has a right resulting therefrom to profit thereby at the cost of others. In the extreme applications of the admission only is the conclusion ever denied. In the whole field of what are denominated the legitimate operations of trade, there is no other law recognized than the relative "smartness" or shrewdness of the parties, modified at most by the sentimental precept stated above.