ABSTRACT
Christianity affirms that it alone possesses a true standard of morality, and would have think that, without its assistance, the world would be a wild scene of disorder and wrong. Morality is a science, and as such must be studied. It is fortunately as independent of the flimsy protection of religion as the mountain of the fragment at its base. And not only is morality unassisted by religion, but it receives from it no light, no explanation, no enforcement. It stands or falls in its own strength. Conscience, so far from being its guide, is but its reflex. In the mirror of conscience, morality sees only the stature she has reached in any individual mind, differing in each; yet her resources for a universal empire are ample, as will be readily seen. The principles of morality, based on nature like other sciences, when read with candour will be found simple, universal and sufficient.
