speaking metaphorically and do not really hold any such belief. Thus a philosopher may often speak of an ethical truth as “a dictate of Reason,” without really meaning to imply that there is any faculty or part of our mind which invariably leads us right and never leads us wrong. But I think there is no doubt that such language is not always metaphorical. The view is held that whenever I judge truly or will rightly, there really is a something in me which does these things—the same something on every different occasion; and that this something never judges falsely or wills wrongly: so that, when I judge falsely and will wrongly, it is a different something in me which does so.
Now it may seem to many people that the most serious objection to views of this kind is that it is, to say the least, extremely doubtful whether there is any being, such as they suppose to exist—any being, who never wills what is wrong but always only what is right; and I think myself that, in all probability, there is no such being—neither a God, nor any being such as philosophers have called by the names I have mentioned.
