They are not seen when they are most
required. As to metaphysics, its propositions are too loose. They may
with equal ease be affirmed or denied. Conduct cannot be controlled by
what is shadowy and uncertain. We have been brought up on theology and
metaphysics for centuries, and we are still at daggers drawn upon
matters of life and death. We are as warlike as ever, and not a single
social problem has been settled by bishops or professors. I wish to try
a more direct and, as I believe, a more efficient method. I wish to see
what the effect will be of teaching children from their infancy the
lesson that morality and the enjoyment of life are identical; that if,
for example, they lie, they lose. I should urge this on them
perpetually, until at last, by association, lying would become
impossible. Restraint which is exercised in accordance with rational
principles, inasmuch as it proceeds from Nature, must be more
efficacious than an external prohibition. So with other virtues. I
should deduce most of them in the same way. If I could not, I should
let them go, assured that we could do without them.
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