that virtuous conduct ignorant of its end is accidental. Man's
action, so far as it is good or evil, is shot through and through with
his intelligence. And once we clearly distinguish between belief and
profession, between the motives which really impel our actions and the
psychological account of them with which we may deceive ourselves and
others, we shall be obliged to confess that we always act our creed. A
man's conduct, just because he is man, is generated by his view of
himself and his world. He who cheats his neighbour believes in
tortuosity, and, as Carlyle says, has the Supreme Quack for his God. No
one ever acted without some dim, though perhaps foolish enough,
half-belief that the world was at his back; whether he plots good or
evil he always has God as an accomplice. And this is why character
cannot be really bettered by any peddling process. Moralists and
preachers are right in insisting on the need of a new life, that is, of
a new principle, as the basis of any real improvement; and such a
principle necessarily carries in it a new attitude towards men, and a
new interpretation of the moral agent himself and of his world.

Thus, wherever we touch the practical life of man, we are at once
referred to a metaphysic. His creed is the heart of his character, and
it beats as a pulse in every action. Hence, when we deal with moral
life, we _must_ start from the centre. In our intellectual life, it is
not obviously unreasonable to suppose that there is no need of
endeavouring to reach upward to a constructive idea, which makes the
universe one, but when we act, such self-deception is not possible. As a
moral agent, and a moral agent man always is, he not only may, but must
have his working hypothesis, and that hypothesis must be all-inclusive.
As there are natural laws which connect man's physical movements with
the whole system of nature, so there are spiritual relations which
connect him with the whole spiritual universe; and spiritual relations
are always direct.

Now it follows from this, that, whenever we consider man as a moral
agent, that is, as an agent who converts ideas into actual things, the
need of a philosophy becomes evident. Instead of condemning ideal
interpretations of the universe as useless dreams, the foolish products
of an ambition of thought which refuses to respect the limits of the
human intellect, we shall understand that philosophers and poets are
really striving with greater clearness