Let us now turn to the radical question of life,--the question whether this be at bottom a moral or an unmoral universe,--and see whether the method of faith may legitimately have a place there. It is really the question of materialism. Is the world a simple brute actuality, an existence _de facto_ about which the deepest thing that can be said is that it happens so to be; or is the judgment of _better_ or worse, of _ought_, as intimately pertinent to phenomena as the simple judgment _is_ or _is not_? The materialistic theorists say that judgments of worth are themselves mere matters of fact; that the words 'good' and 'bad' have no sense apart from subjective passions and interests which we may, if we please, play fast and loose with at will, so far as any duty of ours to the non-human universe is concerned. Thus, when a materialist says it is better for him to suffer great inconvenience than to break a promise, he only means that his social interests have become so knit up with {104} keeping faith that, those interests once being granted, it is better for him to keep the promise in spite of everything. But the interests themselves are neither right nor wrong, except possibly with reference to some ulterior order of interests which themselves again are mere subjective data without character, either good or bad. For the absolute moralists, on the contrary, the interests are not there merely to be felt,--they are to be believed in and obeyed. Not only is it best for my social interests to keep my promise, but best for me to have those interests, and best for the cosmos to have this me. Like the old woman in the story who described the world as resting on a rock, and then explained that rock to be supported by another rock, and finally when pushed with questions said it was rocks all the way down,--he who believes this to be a radically moral universe must hold the moral order to rest either on an absolute and ultimate _should_, or on a series of _shoulds_ all the way down.[5]