And that system, as I have said before, professes to be essentially a
_moral_ one, in the old religious sense of the word. It retains the old
ethical vocabulary; and lays the same intense stress on the old ethical
distinctions. Nor is this a mere profession only. We shall see that the
system logically requires it. One of its chief virtues--indeed the only
virtue in it we have defined hitherto--is, as has been seen, an habitual
self-denial. But a denial of what? Of something, plainly, that if denied
to ourselves, can be conveyed as a negative or positive good to others.
But the good things that are thus transferable cannot plainly be the
'_highest good_,' or morality would consist largely of a surrender of
its own end. This end must evidently be something inward and
inalienable, just as the religious end was. It is a certain inward state
of the heart, and of the heart's affections. For this inward state to
be fully produced, and maintained generally, a certain sufficiency of
material well-being may be requisite; but without this inward state such
sufficiency will be morally valueless. Day by day we must of course have
our daily bread. But the positivists must maintain, just as the
Christians did, that man does not live by bread alone; and that his life
does not consist in the abundance of the things that he possesses. And
thus when they are brought face to face with the matter, we find them
all, with one consent, condemning as false the same allurements that
were condemned by Christianity; and pointing, as it did, to some other
treasure that will not wax old--some water, the man who drinks of which
will never thirst more.

Now what is this treasure--this inward state of the heart? What is its
analysis, and why is it so precious? As yet we are quite in the dark as
to this. No positive moralist has as yet shown us, in any satisfactory
way, either of these things. This statement, I know, will be