However, though it may be true that for happiness nothing can take the place of practice, it does not follow that reflection and study may not very efficaciously contribute toward it, and for the following reasons: 1. It often happens that evil has its origin in the sophisms of the mind, sophisms ever at the service of the passions. It is therefore necessary to ward off or prevent these sophisms by a thorough discussion of principles. 2. A careful study of the principles of morality causes them to penetrate deeper into the soul and gives them there greater fixity. 3. Morality consists not only in the actions themselves, but especially in the motives of our actions. An outward morality, wholly of habit and imitation, is not yet the true morality. Morality must needs be accompanied by conscience and reflection. So viewed, moral science is a necessary element of a sound education, and the higher its principles the more the conscience is raised and refined. 4. Life often presents moral problems for our solution. If the mind is not prepared for them it will lack certainty of decision; what above all is to be feared is that it will mostly prefer the easier and the more convenient solution. It should be fortified in advance against its own weakness by acquiring the habit of judging of general questions before events put it to the proof. Such is the utility of morality. It is of the same service to man as geometry is to the workman; it does not take the place of tact and common sense, but it guides and perfects them. It is well understood, moreover, that such a study in nowise excludes, it even exacts, the co-operation of all the practical means we have indicated above, which constitute what is called _education_. Doctrinal teaching is but the complement and confirmation of teaching by practice and by example. =5. Short résumé of theoretical morality.=--_Theoretical_ morality should, in fact, precede practical morality, and that is what usually takes place; but as it presents more difficulties and less immediate applications than practical morality, we shall defer the developments it may give rise to, to a subsequent year.[2] The present will be a short résumé, purely elementary, containing only preliminary and strictly necessary notions. It will be an exposition of the common notions we have just enumerated above. =6. Pleasure and the good.=--Morality being, as we have said, the science of the _good_, the first question that presents itself is: What is _good_? If we are to believe the first impulses of nature, which instinctively urge us towards the agreeable and cause us to repel all that is painful, the answer to the preceding question would not be difficult; we should have but to reply: "Good is what makes us happy; good is _pleasure_."