tate the causes in which this city poverty has its
birth, and the necessity of combating it, and the means of doing so which
I saw.

I began this essay at once, and it seemed to me that in it I was saying a
very great deal that was important. But toil as I would over it, and in
spite of the abundance of materials, in spite of the superfluity of them
even, I could not get though that essay; and so I did not finish it until
the present year, because of the irritation under the influence of which
I wrote, because I had not gone through all that was requisite in order
to bear myself properly in relation to this essay, because I did not
simply and clearly acknowledge the cause of all this,--a very simple
cause, which had its root in myself.

In the domain of morals, one very remarkable and too little noted
phenomenon presents itself.

If I tell a man who knows nothing about it, what I know about geology,
astronomy, history, physics, and mathematics, that man receives entirely
new information, and he never says to me: "Well, what is there new in
that? Everybody knows that, and I have known it this long while." But
tell that same man the most lofty truth, expressed in the clearest, most
concise manner, as it has never before been expressed, and every ordinary
individual, especially one who takes no particular interest in moral
questions, or, even more, one to whom the moral truth stated by you is
displeasing, will infallibly say to you: "Well, who does not know that?
That was known and said long ago." It really seems to him that this has
been said long ago and in just this way. Only those to whom moral truths
are dear and important know how important and precious they are, and with
what prolonged labor the elucidation, the simplification, of moral
truths, their transit from the state of a misty, indefinitely recognized
supposition, and desire, from indistinct, incoherent expressions, to a
firm and definite expression, unavoidably demanding corresponding
concessions, are attained.

We have all become accustomed to think that moral instruction is a most
absurd and tiresome thing, in which there can be nothing new or
interesting; and yet all human life, together with all the varied and
complicated activities, apparently independent, of morality, both
governmental and scientific, and artistic and commercial, has no other
aim than the greater and greater elucidation, confirmation,
simplification, and accessibility of moral