It is, perhaps, especially important in conducting the moral argument to ask ourselves distinctly, Whence ought we to begin? Is there any point, any fact or principle, which we are in reason bound to start from? Inattention to this preliminary inquiry has caused many to try to look at moral facts _en masse_, as it were, and to endeavour to draw an inference from them in virtue of something common to them all. This can only lead to confusion and error. Moral facts are of two radically distinct classes, and cannot be comprehended under any higher generalisation, which can be taken as the foundation of a theistic inference. The facts need to be distributed and interpreted--to have their characters discriminated; and we must begin with the principle by which this is done--that is, with conscience itself. We need no more attempt to judge of moral qualities without reference to our moral perceptions and feelings--to the information given us through conscience--than to pass a judgment on colours before seeing them, or irrespective of how they appeared to us when we saw them. If we look at the moral facts of the universe from any outside point of view--not from that of conscience--how can we escape ascribing the evil as well as the good to God, and trying His character either from both or from the preponderance of the one over the other? But if we do so,--if we seek to rise to God through an induction from all moral facts--we shall form a miserable notion of God, and we shall, besides, ride rough-shod, as it were, over conscience. For what is it that conscience declares most clearly about moral good and evil, right and wrong? Is it not that they are radically antagonistic--irreconcilable and contradictory,--that they cannot have the same ultimate author--that if the one be the expression of God's will, the other must be the expression of His aversion? If conscience have any testimony to give about God at all, it is that, as the author of good, He must be the enemy of evil. The contemplation of the moral world may perplex us, but conscience is an assurance that evil, however perplexing, is not to be referred to the same source as good.