These citations embody Mr. Laing's opinions on this point, and show very clearly his utter incapacity for elementary philosophic thought. Here, as elsewhere, as soon as he leaves the bare record of facts and embarks in any kind of speculation, he shows himself helpless; however, he tries to fortify his own courage and that of his readers, with "it is clear," "it is evident," "it is certain." To say that "right is right," sounds very oracular; but it either means that "right" is an ultimate spring of action, inexplicable on evolutionist principles, or that right is the will of the strongest, or an illusory inherited foreboding of pain, or a calculation of future pleasure and pain, or something which, in no sense, is a true account of what men _do_ mean by right. To say that moral principles "carry conviction with them, and prove themselves" _(i.e._, are self-evident), unless, as we suspect, it is mere verbiage conveying nothing particular to Mr. Laing's brain, is to deny that right has reference to the consequences of action as bearing on human progress and evolution, which is to deny the very theory he wishes to uphold. No intuitionist could have spoken more strongly. Then we are assured that we "feel" rightness, or that "right is right"--apparently as a simple irresoluble quality of certain actions--and with same breath, that "it is _better_ for ourselves and others to act on these rules," where he jumps off to utilitarianism again; and then we are forbidden to "obey the selfish impulses of our animal nature"--a strange prohibition for one who sees in us nothing but animal nature, who denies us any free power to withstand its impulses. Then it is "clearly our highest wisdom to follow right"--an appeal to prudential motives--"not from any selfish calculations"--a repudiation of prudential motives--"but because 'right is right'"--an appeal to a blind unreasoning instinct, and a prohibition to question its authority. We are told that for practical purposes it matters little whence this absolute imperative rule originates. Was there ever a more unpractical and short-sighted assertion! Convince men that the dictates of conscience are those of fear or selfishness, that they are all mere animal instincts, that they are anything less than divine, and who will care for Mr. Laing's appeal to blind faith in the "rightness of right"?