(1) The primary element is a simple irreducible perception of the distinction between right and wrong. This is the first and fundamental ethical idea. In it we have the initial point in the moral action of the mind. "The universal ethical fact is the recognition of a distinction between right and wrong in conduct."[17] This distinction appears among the necessary ideas of the human mind. It is a phenomenon in the psychology of the race. It is developed, in the presence of the facts and relations of life, as something provided for in the normal and necessary action of the rational self-conscious _ego_. It must be viewed as an "intuition" of the reason. It can not otherwise be accounted for. In its nature it is not a feeling, though it gives rise to feeling. It is not a volition, for it comes irrespective of choice and asserts its own rights before the will. It is not a mere experience, though it arises on occasion of experience. The idea stands for something beyond experience--experience being limited to the profitable, the enjoyable or the painful. We experience the useful and the agreeable, but the right, the ethical idea, must be perceived or rationally seen, as a super-sensible reality in the ideal realm of the demands of duty. It is not a perception of relations themselves, but of a distinction as to something due in human relations and life. If we describe this primary and fundamental distinction, as it appears in the action of the conscience, it will be found marked by the following characteristics. First, the distinction is perceived--a datum of the cognitive intellect. As discerned by the knowing faculty, its object, viz.: the distinction, exists. For knowing always involves that the thing known is. The distinction between right and wrong is real in the sphere of moral relations. Second, it is universal, marking the human mind's action everywhere and in all ages. Third, it cannot be obliterated. Through all questions about it and objections to its validity, it remains undestroyed and seemingly indestructible. It disappears only with the wreck of rationality itself. Fourth, it is unique and simple, an original perception, incapable of being resolved into more elementary ideas or deduced from them. Fifth, it is the first of its kind of discernments, _i. e._ of ethical perceptions. ==Obligation Perceived.== (2) Along with, though dependent on, the perception of the moral distinction between right and wrong, there is also a perception of obligation with respect to right and wrong--to do or not to do. This is an essential part of the aggregate conscience-discernment. The perception of the right is thus the discovery also of law for conduct.