these are therefore to be accepted as valid without proof. But such an assertion would be an extravagant paradox: and, if it be admitted that all beliefs are equally in the position of being effects of antecedent causes, it seems evident that this characteristic alone cannot serve to invalidate any of them. I hold, therefore, that the _onus probandi_ must be thrown the other way: those who dispute the validity of moral or other intuitions on the ground of their derivation must be required to show, not merely that they are the effects of certain causes, but that these causes are of a kind that tend to produce invalid beliefs. Now it is not, I conceive, possible to prove by any theory of the derivation of the moral faculty that the fundamental ethical conceptions ‘right’ or ‘what ought to be done,’ ‘good’ or ‘what it is reasonable to desire and seek,’ are invalid, and that consequently _all_ propositions of the form ‘_X_ is right’ or ‘good’ are untrustworthy: for such ethical propositions, relating as they do to matter fundamentally different from that with which physical science or psychology deals, cannot be inconsistent with any physical or psychological conclusions. They can only be shown to involve error by being shown to contradict each other: and such a demonstration cannot lead us cogently to the sweeping conclusion that all are false. It may, however, be possible to prove that some ethical beliefs have been caused in such a way as to make it probable that they are wholly or partially erroneous: and it will hereafter be important to consider how far any Ethical intuitions, which we find ourselves disposed to accept as valid, are open to attack on such psychogonical grounds. At present I am only concerned to maintain that no general demonstration of the derivedness or developedness of our moral faculty can supply an adequate reason for distrusting it. On the other hand, if we have been once led to distrust our moral faculty on other grounds--as (_e.g._) from the want of clearness and consistency in the moral judgments of the same individual, and the discrepancies between the judgments of different individuals--it seems to me equally clear that our confidence in such judgments cannot properly be re-established by a demonstration of their ‘originality.’ I see no reason to believe that the ‘original’ element of our moral cognition can be ascertained; but if it could, I see no reason to hold that it would be especially free from error.