But here a difficulty confronts us. So far we have followed an historical development. We have studied the actions of savages and the gestures of young children; we have enquired concerning the habits of sleepwalkers, and have drawn our conclusions from the attitudes adopted in special manias. So far, then, we have been on safe ground. We have proceeded from the known to the unknown, and we have correlated Psychology, Sociology, Anatomy, Morphology, Physiology, Geography, and Theology (_here Mr. Darkin of Vast, who had been ailing a long time, was carried out in a faint; Mr. Lambkin, being short-sighted, did not fully seize what had happened, and thinking that certain of his audience were leaving the Hall without permission, he became as nearly angry as was possible to such a man. He made a short speech on the decay of manners, and fell into several bitter epigrams. It is only just to say that, on learning the occasion of the interruption, he regretted the expression “strong meat for babes” which had escaped him at the time._) So far so good. But there is something more. No one can proceed indefinitely in the study of Ethics without coming, sooner or later, upon the Conventional conception of _Right_. I do not mean that this conception has any philosophic value. I should be the last to lay down for it those futile, empirical and dogmatic foundations which may satisfy narrow, deductive minds. But there it is, and as practical men with it we must deal. What is _Right_? Whence proceeds this curious conglomeration of idealism, mysticism, empiricism, and fanaticism to which the name has been given? It is impossible to say. It is the duty of the lecturer to set forth the scheme of truth: to make (as it were) a map or plan of Epistemology. He is not concerned to demonstrate a point; he is not bound to dispute the attitude of opponents. Let them fall of their own weight (_Ruant mole suâ_). It is mine to show that things _may_ be thus or thus, and I will most steadily refuse to be drawn into sterile argument and profitless discussion with mere affirmations.