have obviously not reached the moral law itself, but only a finger-post, or indication where it is to be looked for. The money, so to say, is not yet paid down, but we hold a safe draft for it. And who, then, is the cashier? To say the truth at once: a paymaster in this connection surely very unexpected, being neither more nor less than Egoism, as I shall now demonstrate.

The precept, it is said, which I can wish were the guide of all men's conduct, is itself the real moral principle. That which I can wish is the hinge on which the given direction turns.

But what can I truly wish, and what not? Clearly, in order to determine what I can wish in the matter under discussion, I require yet another criterion; for without such I could never find the key to the instruction which comes to me