He closes the review of the various moral facts by explaining in what sense the succession of the three states is to be understood. The state of Passion is historically first, but the Egoistic and the Moral states are not so sharply defined. As soon as reason dawns it introduces the moral motive as well as the egoistic, and to this extent the two states are contemporaneous. Only, so far is the moral law from being at this stage fully conceived, that, in the majority of men, it is never conceived in its full clearness at all. Their confused idea of moral law is the so-called moral _conscience_, which works more like a sense or an instinct, and is inferior to the clear rational conception in everything except that it conveys the full force of obligation. In its grades of guilt human justice rightly makes allowance for different degrees of intelligence. The Egoistic determination and the Moral state, such as it is, once developed, passion is not to be supposed abolished, but henceforth what really takes place in all is a perpetual alternation of the various states. Yet though no man is able exclusively to follow the moral determination, and no man will constantly be under the influence of any one of the motives, there is one motive commonly uppermost whereby each can be characterized. Thus men, according to their habitual conduct, are known as passionate, egoistic, or virtuous. We now summarize the opinions of Jouffroy:-- I.--The Standard is the Idea of Absolute Good or Universal Order in the sense explained by the author. Like Cousin, he identifies the 'good' with the 'true.' What, then, is the criterion that distinguishes moral from other truths? If _obligation_ be selected as the _differentia_, it is in effect to give up the attempt to determine what truths are obligatory. The idea of 'good' is obviously too vague to be a _differentia_. How far the idea of 'Universal Order' gets us out of the difficulty may be doubted, especially after the candid admission of the author, that it is an idea of which the majority of men have never any very clear notions. II.--The moral faculty is Reason; Conscience is hardly more than a confused feeling of obligatoriness. Sympathy is one of the primitive tendencies of our nature. Jouffroy's opinion on the subject is open to the objections urged against Butler's psychology. He upholds the freedom of the Will, but embarrasses his argument by admitting, like Reid, that there is a stage in our existence when we are ruled by the passions, and are destitute of liberty. III.--The Summum Bonum is the _end_ of every creature; the passions ought to be subordinated to self-interest, and self-interest to morality. In regard to the other points, it is unnecessary to continue the summary. NOTES [Footnote 1: Duties strictly so called, the department of obligatory morality, enforced by punishment, may be exemplified in the following classified summary:--