SOPHEREUS. Precisely; and, when the conclusion is reached, it is to be carried out in legislation and government, or else the conduct of men toward one another in society is not to be regulated by public authority at all, but is to be left to each man's perception of what will produce the greatest amount of pleasure and happiness, or the least amount of pain and misery. Now, it is pretty important to settle at the outset whether those who defend the current creed are right or wrong when they say that nothing which will answer the same purpose can be found to take its place. They constitute one of the classes who will be responsible for the supposed vacuum; and their share in that vacuum, their contribution to it, if I may use such an expression, consists in their assertion that nothing of any value can take the place of the sacred origin of moral injunctions. The practical test of whether they are right or wrong is to be found in legislation. Let us suppose, then, a legislative assembly in which there is a proposal to change the law of murder, or to do away with it altogether. A member who does not believe in any sacred origin of the command "Thou shalt do no murder," moves not only to abolish the death-penalty, but to abolish all legal definition of the crime, and leave every man to be restrained by the consciousness that, if he takes the life of another, he will cause a great deal of pain and misery to the relations and friends of that person. The mover argues that "the current creed" of morality is worn out; is "no longer fit," as a regulator; and that the safest and best regulator is the perception of the beneficial effects of actions of kindness and good-will, and of the disastrous effects of cruelty and malice. He is answered by one who defends the current creed, and who maintains that, as human nature is constituted, the utilitarian system of morals can not take the place of the sacred origin as the ultimate foundation of social relations. But the majority of the assembly think that the mover of the proposition has the best of the argument, and they proceed to "secularize" morals by passing his bill doing away with the law of murder altogether. I am not obliged to extend my travels anywhere, where I do not care to go, and I confess I should not like to visit that country after it had thus "secularized" morality.