or the gentle motion of the island up-stream, keeping all its bulk,
represents a man acting for an end to which reason attaches no great
importance. He must then take a diligent review of all the
circumstances that have any close connection with his action, to see
if there is any that it would be wrong for him to will directly. And
if there is, he must abstain from willing it even indirectly: that is,
he must abstain from doing the action, which cannot be done without
that objectionable circumstance attending it. On the other hand, the
floating island being towed rapidly up-stream, with its loose sides
falling away, portrays the condition of one acting for a purpose of
imperative urgency: he considers the means to that end, and if they
are good, he concentrates his will upon them and uses them,
disregarding, or even deploring, but nowise willing or being
responsible for, the evil concomitants which go with those means, but
do not make for his end. Thus it is, that a circumstance which in
ordinary cases goes to make the adoption of certain means reasonable
or unreasonable, comes, in a case of great urgency, to weigh for
nothing in the balance of reason, owing to the extreme and crying
reasonableness of the end in view. Nor is this the end justifying the
means, for that unhappy circumstance is never a means to the end.
(_Ethics_, c. iii., s. ii., n. 8, p. 34.)

7. To illustrate by a diagram:

[Illustration:

C
( )
U
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