forthcoming, there is, at least, ground for rational discussion.

Not a few famous writers have treated moral truths as analogous to
mathematical. [Footnote: See the chapter on "Intuitionism," Sec 90, note.]
To take here a single instance. Sidgwick, in his truly admirable work on
"The Methods of Ethics," maintains [Footnote: Book III, chapter xiii, Sec
3.] that "the propositions, 'I ought not to prefer a present lesser good
to a future greater good,' and 'I ought not to prefer my own lesser good
to the greater good of another,' do present themselves as self-evident;
as much (_e.g._) as the mathematical axiom that 'if equals be added
to equals the wholes are equals.'"

But it is one thing to claim that we are in possession of a "given" with
ultimate and indisputable authority; it is another to convince men that
we really do possess it. Locke's efforts at deduction fall lamentably
short of the model set by Euclid. "Professor Sidgwick's well-known moral
axiom, 'I ought not to prefer my own lesser good to the greater good of
another,' would," writes Westermarck, [Footnote: _Op_. _cit.,_
Volume I, chapter i, p. 12.] "if explained to a Fuegian or a Hottentot,
be regarded by him, not as self-evident, but as simply absurd; nor can it
claim general acceptance even among ourselves. Who is that 'Another' to
whose greater good I ought not to prefer my own lesser good? A fellow-
countryman, a savage, a criminal, a bird, a fish--all without
distinction?" To Bentham's "everybody to count for one and nobody for
more than one" may be opposed Hartley's preference of benevolent and
religious persons to the rest of mankind. [Footnote: _Observations on
Man_, Part II, chapter iii, 6.]

The fact that men eminent for their intellectual ability and for the
breadth of their information are, in morals, inclined to accept, as