its methods to the fundamental principles of right. And not until we find the relations that require both benevolence and its utilities, do we reach the ground of right and obligation. ==Theory of Relations.== =11.= The Theory of _Relations_ is variously modified. As expressed by Dr. Samuel Clarke, right is based on "the fitness of things." Wollaston grounded it on "the truth of things," wrong action being in all cases out of harmony with the realities of existence. Jouffroy found it in the demands of "universal order," the particular good and duty of each man being elements or parts of an absolute good and universal order appearing to reason as obligatory. Dr. Wayland makes right rest upon "conformity of action to the relations which man sustains in life."[57] We shall come upon the essential features of this theory in our next chapter, in our positive account of the development and basis of right. ==Spiritual Excellence Theory.== =12.= As defined by Dr. Hickok: "The ground in which the ultimate rule of right is seen, is the intrinsic excellency of spiritual being."... "Every man has consciously the bond upon him to do that and that only which is due to his spiritual excellency."[57] But it is a plain matter of fact that men do not go through a process of correlating their proposed conduct with the spiritual excellency of their nature, before deciding on its moral character. And even if they did so, it would give them but a self-centred rule. Dr. Gregory well says of this attempt to put one's own spiritual excellency as the principle of right: "It is only by a self-deification, by making man a god to himself, that it can be made a supreme end."[58] ==Theory of Intuitions.== =13.= Some writers search for no ground beyond the immediate intuition. This view forbears to seek for any basis behind the immediate affirmation of the moral sense. Right is ultimate in its own intuition. "The intuition creates law." This seems to be the teaching of Cudworth, Kant, Coleridge, Calderwood, and others. CHAPTER IX. THE GROUND OF RIGHT--CONTINUED. The review of theories in the last chapter prepares us to apprehend the real ground of right. All the subjective theories fail, because the moral quality is objectively real to the percipient conscience. The endæmonistic and utilitarian explanations are at fault, because they attempt to deduce the moral from the unmoral and can give no account of the unique authority which is the characteristic mark of moral law. The full ground of right, as the essential elements of the problem have made clearly apparent, must be regarded as twofold, embracing, first, the proximate or immediate ground, and secondly, the ultimate ground. ==Proximate Ground Stated.==