He knew what's what, and that's as high As metaphysic wit can fly. I once conducted what I imagined to be an æsthetic investigation for the purpose of discovery, by the continual use of the word "Why?"[23] the grounds upon which certain people choose to put milk into a tea-cup before the tea. I was surprised to discover that it was an ethical, and not an æsthetic problem; for I soon elicited the fact that it was done because it was "right." A continuance of my patient questioning elicited further evidence of the fundamental character of the principle of identity in ethics; for it was right, I learned, because "right is right." It appears that some people unconsciously think that the principle of identity is the foundation, in certain religions, of the reasons which can be alleged for moral conduct, and are surprised when this fact is pointed out to them. The late Sir Leslie Stephen, when travelling by railway, fell into conversation with an officer of the Salvation Army, who tried hard to convert him. Failing in this laudable endeavour, the Salvationist at last remarked: "But if you aren't saved, you can't go to heaven!" "That, my friend," replied Stephen, "is an identical proposition." FOOTNOTES: [22] Cambridge, 1903. [23] Cf. _P. E._, p. 2. CHAPTER VI THE LAW OF CONTRADICTION IN MODERN LOGIC Considering the important place assigned by philosophers and logicians to the law of contradiction, the remark will naturally be resented by many of the older schools of philosophy, and especially by Kantians, that "in spite of its fame we have found few occasions for its use."[24] Also in modern times, Benedetto Croce, an opponent of both traditional logic and mathematical logic, began the preface of the book of 1908 on Logic[25] by saying that that volume "is and is not" a certain memoir of his which had been published in 1905. FOOTNOTES: [24] _Pa. Ma._, p. 116. [25] [English translation of the third Italian edition by Douglas Ainslie, under the title: _Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept_, London 1917.--ED.] CHAPTER VII SYMBOLISM AND MEANING