For Dr. Rashdall the distinction between how I know my action to be right or virtuous, and how it is virtuous, does not exist. Both imply recognition or statement of indisputable fact; for him there can be no ultimate doubt as to the character of moral "good," which can in no way be a matter of opinion, for good is _sui generis_: it is good and nothing else; happiness may be good, honesty may be good, but good is good for no other reason than because such an abstraction is supposed to exist as a transcendental fact. "Therefore good can be recognized just as any axiomatic truth can be recognized; as, for instance, the fact that 2 + 2 = 4, or two straight lines cannot enclose a space." How is it then that people even of the highest intelligence do not invariably agree about what _is_ good or morally right? There are no two opinions about whether 2 + 2 does, or does not, equal 4, yet there is no such general agreement about what is right. If asked why a thing is right or good most people would reply either by giving a reason to show that it is _desirable_ or else by quoting the authority of some one else's _ipse dixit_ (in which case it is inferred that the authority quoted had some reason for supposing it desirable). The reason that 2 + 2 = 4 is, on the other hand, that there can be _no_ possible alternative. Yet is it true to say that there can be no possible alternative to what the consensus of opinion in any one country considers morally right? Some things that are considered immoral in England are considered moral in Japan, and _vice versa_. Dr. Rashdall, however, conceives of but two alternatives in estimating moral values, the first of which he dismisses, because on this view "our moral judgments could possess no objective validity." He says: "... I examined the question whether our moral judgments are in ultimate analysis merely statements asserting the existence of a particular kind of feeling in particular minds, or whether they are intellectual judgments of universal validity--judgments, of course, of a very peculiar and distinctive kind, but just as much intellectual and universal judgments about the nature of Reality as the judgments 2 + 2 = 4, or 'this is a good inference and that is a bad one'."[24] It is difficult to know whether this arbitrary elimination of the subjective element from ethical judgments, and the attempt to translate moral values into terms of mathematical formulæ, is intended to denote the infusion of a mystic factor into the "exact sciences," or an attempt to reduce metaphysics and morality to rule of thumb! The following thesis, however, which will be elaborated in the course of this discussion, is based on a synchronous realization of rational principles and psychological processes. Thus, what an individual conceives to be morally right and good, when he is conscious of having acted so according to his own standard, may be either: