Not only possible, but inevitable, if a man accept his “own reason” as his lawgiver and judge. Take a test case, the case of the superlative crime that has been done upon the earth. There can be no doubt that the persons who caused the death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ acted under a mistaken sense of duty. “It is expedient that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not,” said, most reasonably, those patriotic leaders of the Jews; and they relentlessly hunted to death this Man whose ascendency over the common people and whose whispered claims to kingship were full of elements of danger to the subject race. “They know not what they do,” He said, Who is the Truth. All this may be of importance to philosophers; but what has it to do with the bringing up of children? It is time we reverted to the teaching of Socrates. “Know thyself,” exhorted the wise man, in season and out of season; and it will be well with us when we understand that to acquaint a child with himself--what he is as a human being--is a great part of education. It is difficult to see why; surely much harm comes of morbid introspection? Introspection is morbid or diseased when the person imagines that all which he finds within him is peculiar to him as an individual. To know what is common to all men is a sound cure for unhealthy self-contemplation. How does it work? To recognise the limitations of the reason is a safeguard in all the duties and relations of life. The man who knows that loyalty is his first duty in every relation, and that if he admit doubting, grudging, unlovely thoughts, he cannot possibly be loyal, because such thoughts once admitted will prove themselves to be right and fill the whole field of thought, why, he is on his guard, and writes up “no admittance” to every manner of mistrustful fancy. That rule of life should affect the Supreme relationship? Truly, yes; if a man will admit no beginning of mistrustful surmise concerning his father and mother, his child and his wife, shall he do so of Him who is more than they, and more than all, the “Lord of his heart”? “Loyalty forbids” is the answer to every questioning of His truth that would intrude. But when others, whom you must needs revere, question and tell you of their “honest doubt”? You know the history of their doubt, and can take it for what it is worth--its origin in the suggestion, which, once admitted, must needs reach a logical conclusion even to the bitter end. “Take heed that ye _enter_ not into temptation,” He said, Who needed not that any should tell Him, for He knew what was in men. If man is the creature of those habits he forms with care or allows in negligence, if his very thoughts are involuntary and his conclusions inevitable, he ceases to be a free agent. One might as well concede at once that “thought is a mode of motion,” and cease to regard man as a spiritual being capable of self-regulation!