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thatit is three-fourths of life. We have seen how plain and simple a matter it is, so far as knowledge is concerned. We have seen how, moreover, philosophers are for referring all conduct to one or other of man's two elementary instincts,—the instinct of self-preservation and the reproductive instinct. It is the suggestions of one or other of these instincts, philosophers say, which call forth all cases in which there is scope for exercising morality, or conduct. And this does, we saw, cover the facts well enough. For we can run up nearly all faults of conduct into two classes,—faults of temper and faults of sensuality; to be referred, all of them, to one or other of these two instincts. Now, Jesus not only says that things coming from within a man's heart defile him, he adds expressly what these things that, coming from within a man, defile him, are. And what he enumerates are the following: 'Evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, stealings, greeds, viciousnesses, fraud, dissoluteness, envy, evil-speaking, pride, folly.'[1] These fall into two groups: one, of faults of self-assertion, graspingness and violence, all of which we may call faults of temper; and the other, of faults of sensuality. And the two groups, between them, do for practical purposes cover all the range of faults proceeding from these two sources, and therefore all the range of conduct. So the motions or impulses to faults of conduct were what Jesus said the real commandments of God are concerned with. And it was plain what such faults are; but, to make assurance more sure, he went farther and said what they are. But no outward observances were conduct, were that keeping of the commandments of God which was the keeping of a man's own soul and made him enter into life. To have the heart and thoughts in order as to certain matters, was conduct.

This was the 'method' of Jesus: the setting up a great

  1. Mark, vii, 21, 22.