But there is evidence of another kind that Ethics can only be finally explained by Metaphysics. It is well known that, while the author of an intellectual performance,--even should it be a supreme masterpiece--is quite willing to take whatever remuneration he can get, those, on the other hand, who have done something morally excellent, almost without exception, refuse compensation for it. The latter fact is specially observable where conduct rises to the heroic. For instance, when a man at the risk of his life has saved another, or perhaps many, from destruction, as a rule, he simply declines all reward, poor though he may be; because he instinctively feels that the metaphysical value of his act would be thereby impaired. At the end of Bürger's song, "The Brave Man," we find a poetical presentment of this psychological process. Nor does the reality, for the most part, differ at all from the ideal, as I have frequently noticed in English papers. Conduct of this kind occurs in every part of the world, and independently of all religious differences. In human beings there is an undeniable ethical tendency, rooted (however unconsciously) in Metaphysics, and without an explanation of life on these lines, no religion could gain standing-ground; for it is by virtue of their ethical side that they all alike keep their hold on the mind. Every religion makes its body of dogmas the basis of the moral incentive which each man feels, but which he does not, on that account, understand; and it unites the two so closely, that they appear to be inseparable. Indeed the priests take special pains to proclaim unbelief and immorality as one and the same thing. The reason is thus apparent, why believers regard unbelievers as identical with the vicious, and why expressions such as "godless," "atheistic," "unchristian," "heretic," etc., are used as synonymes for moral depravity. The religions have, in fact, a sufficiently easy task. =Faith= is the principle they start from. Hence they are in a position to simply insist on its application to their dogmas, and this, even to the point of employing threats. But philosophy has no such convenient instrument ready to hand. If the different systems be examined, it will be found that the situation is beset with difficulties, both as regards the foundation to be provided for Ethics, and in relation to the point of connection discoverable in any such foundation with the given metaphysical theory. And yet,--as I have emphasised in the introduction, with an appeal to the authority of Wolff and Kant--we are under the stringent necessity of obtaining from Metaphysics a support for Moral Science.