lying, murder, cruelty, are wrong because they produce effects quite different from honesty, kindness, benevolence, etc. Moral rules, like all other rules, have a purpose in view; they command a certain act in order that an end may be reached. When the physician prescribes for you he lays down certain rules, the purpose or object of which is the restoration of your health. These prescriptions may be reduced to the hypothetical form, as follows: If you would get well, do thus or so. Though the physician's imperatives are peremptory or unconditional or categorical (as Kant would say) in form, though he may give no reason for them, they are virtually hypothetical in meaning. The same may be said of the moral imperatives. They are categorical in form: Thou shalt not steal; and hypothetical in meaning: If thou dost not desire certain consequences. The command, Do not steal, is not groundless or absolute or unconditional, as its form would indicate; its reason or ground, though not explicitly stated, is implied: because stealing tends to bring about certain effects.

3. Actual Effects and Natural Effects. Again, the objector declares, the moral worth of an act is not dependent upon its effects; nay, it is either good or bad utterly regardless of its results.1 Even though, owing to peculiar circumstances, the assassination of a tyrant may, all things considered, produce good effects, and the performance of a kind 1 See Kant and Martineau, chap. ii.

deed do the opposite, still murder is wrong and benevolence right.1

Very true, we should say. We do not maintain that an act is right or wrong because of the effects which it actually produces in a particular case, but because of the effects which it naturally tends to produce. Arsenic is a fatal poison because it naturally tends to cause death. Sometimes the usual effect fails to appear, but we say that this is exceptional, and still regard arsenic as a fatal poison. Falsehood, calumny, theft, treachery, and murder naturally tend to produce evil effects, and are therefore wrong. It lies in the very nature of these modes of conduct to do harm. The universe is so arranged that certain acts are bound to have certain effects, and human nature is so constituted that some effects are desired, others despised. Now whether we assume that God directly gave to man certain laws, the observance of which enables him to reach ends desired by him, or whether we assume that man discovered them himself, the fact remains, that morality realizes a purpose, and that this purpose is the ground for its existence.

1 Cardinal Newman says: "The Church holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from the heavens, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse." ̧” — Anglican Difficulties, p. 190. Compare with this Fichte's statement, "I would not break my word even to save humanity."

Besides, it would be very difficult to prove that the slaying of the tyrant had no evil effects, and the benevolent deeds no good ones. Human nature is so constituted that the commission of a crime like murder cannot fail to do harm. The experience of mankind shows that the results of such a deed are baneful, and you can hardly prove that they will be absent in a particular case. Who can say that the murder of Julius Cæsar, or of Alexander II of Russia, or even of Caligula, was a blessing? Who would be willing to live in a society in which even the killing of tyrannical governors became the rule?

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4. A Hypothetical Question Answered. But, the common-sense moralist insists, even though murder and theft naturally tended to produce effects opposite to those which they now produce, they would still be wrong. The teleologist would answer: I cannot imagine such a state of affairs in a world constituted like ours. As things go here, these forms of conduct cannot help producing effects which humanity condemns. Still, for the sake of argument, I will suppose your case. And let me first ask you a question. Would charity and honesty and loyalty and truthfulness still be virtues if they led to the overthrow of the world, if they caused sorrow and suffering, if they destroyed the life and progress and happiness of mankind? It does not seem plausible, does it? If murder and theft and falsehood really tended to produce opposite effects, mankind would not have condemned them. If murder were life

giving instead of death-dealing, it would no longer be murder, that is all. Moreover, were mankind so constituted as to prefer death to life, it would not insist upon acts which make life and happiness possible.

5. Morality and Prosperity. Yet if your view is correct, our opponents assert, then the most moral man and the most moral nation should live and thrive. But is this always the case? Nay, is not the reverse true?1 We can answer, that, generally speaking, obedience to the laws of morality insures life and happiness, and that "the wages of sin is death." But, just as a man who observes the rules of hygiene may become sick and die, so a moral individual and a moral nation may perish. Eating tends to preserve life, but yet eating men die. An earthquake may swallow the most moral community in existence, and still its morality was the condition of its peaceful and happy life.

6. Imperfect Moral Codes. If utility is the criterion of morality, why do we find so many harmful and indifferent acts enjoined in the moral codes of peoples? Why do men adhere with such tenacity to customs which, so far as we can see, have no raison d'être ?

We answer: (a) Certain acts were believed to have good effects, and so came to be invested with the authority of the law; others were believed to have bad effects, and were prohibited. As we said 1 Gallwitz, Problem der Ethik in der Gegenwart.

before, ignorance and superstition play an important part in the making of moral codes. If human beings were all-wise and unprejudiced, the code might perhaps be perfect; but as men are fallible, they cannot solve the problems of morality with absolute perfection. The belief in invisible powers led to many superstitious practices which we should call immoral, but which were imagined to be productive of good to the race. Many tribes offered human sacrifices to their gods, who reflected the moral nature of their chiefs, in order to satisfy the hunger of the deities, to appease their wrath, or to gain their good will.1 After such practices have once become customary, they are clothed with the authority of conscience, and felt to be right. The Hindoo mother who throws her children into the river or is buried alive in the grave of her husband obeys the law of her tribe, and believes that somehow some good is going to come of it.

(b) Where we have a low grade of intelligence in nations, we are apt to have what we of the present would call a low grade of morality. And similarly, where we have the feeling of sympathy undeveloped, we find modes of conduct which are abhorrent to a person of wider and deeper sympathies. Certain cruel practices are due to this fact. When the race grows more intelligent and its sym

1 See Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, p. 266; Spencer, Inductions of Ethics; Williams, Evolutional Ethics; Rée, Entstehung des Gewissens.