which we are considering in this chapter. They contradict this principle, because they imply that there is absolutely no class of actions of which we can say that it always would, in any conceivable Universe, be right or wrong. They imply this because they imply that if the non-human being, whom they suppose to exist, did not exist, nothing would be right or wrong. Thus, for instance, if it is held that to call an action wrong is the same thing as to say that it is forbidden by God, it will follow that, if God did not exist, nothing would be wrong; and hence that we cannot possibly hold that God forbids what is wrong, because it is wrong. We must hold, on the contrary, that the wrongness of what is wrong consists simply and solely in the fact that God does forbid it—a view to which many even of those, who believe that what is wrong is in fact forbidden by God, will justly feel an objection.
For these reasons, it seems to me, we may finally conclude that, when we assert any action to be right or wrong, we are not merely making an assertion about the attitude of mind towards it of any being or
