when truth was not truth, or when truth did not exist? when _the good_ was not the _good_, or when the good did not exist? But does it not accord with the clearest teachings of reason, that the truth always was the truth, and ever will be the truth? that the good always will be the good? That two and two are equal to four; that to affirm a thing to be and not to be at the same time is an absurdity and a contradiction; and that things equal to one and the same thing are equal to one another, we say are all intuitive truths--we cannot be mistaken about them. So also in morals: that the truth is good; that virtue is good; that a good action is not an evil action; and that to affirm that a good action is not a good action is an absurdity, a contradiction, we say, _are all intuitions_--_we cannot be mistaken about them_. But is it not equally intuitive that these things were always so--that these truths were always truths--the good was always the good, just as certainly as that they are so now? Then the _eternity_ of these things is just as certainly an intuition, as that they exist now is an intuition. Hence the eternity of God, who is the great impersonation of this high quality, or whose attribute it is, is an intuitive truth. Hence his will did not make it, for it is absurd to say that he made himself. His will, therefore, which, in given cases, is his volition, is but the expression of this essential quality of his holy nature. Hence his will is a rule of right, because in all cases it conforms to the good, but it did not make the good. Therefore the RIGHT, as it conforms to the essential GOOD, is of the nature of the GOOD. It is properly a significate of the good, and not a significate of the _will of God_. Things agreeing with one and the same thing agree with each other. Hence it coincides with the will of God. But such coincidence does not constitute any thing _right_ in itself; but it is because, like the will of God, it conforms to, or is of the nature of, the ESSENTIAL GOOD, _that it is right_. The RIGHT then, in itself, is the GOOD. The GOOD is the true generic idea which classifies all the different applications of this term. So far as any thing is of the nature of the GOOD, it is in itself RIGHT. So far as any thing, to which the idea of the RIGHT applies, is negative of the _good_, i. e., is evil, it is WRONG.