fies the means, and, the end justifies the means which you or I believe to be the means. In order to be strictly moral, an act must actually realize the highest end. Your believing or feeling certain that it does, does not make it so.

(d) It seems, then, you say, that both the race and the individual may be mistaken, that they may approve of laws which do not really promote the welfare of humanity, or whatever the end may be. Exactly, we answer, such is the case. To err is human, in morals as everywhere else. Many forms of conduct have in the course of history been felt as right, which subsequent generations acknowledged to be wrong. And men have died at the stake and on the cross for offering the world a moral code for which future ages blessed their names. The sinner of to-day often becomes the saint of to-morrow.

(e) And now let us ask some questions ourselves. The opponents of teleology usually regard conscience as the final arbiter of conduct. A man is asked to act according to the dictates of his conscience. Now suppose it tells him to steal and kill and lie in order to accomplish what he believes to be right. Then are not falsehood and murder and stealing right? And then, does not the good end justify the means? If you say that his conscience may be mistaken, and that he should therefore not obey his conscience, you have given up your position. Besides, how shall he correct his conscience? By reflecting? Reflecting upon what? Evidently upon some principle or

criterion which is to serve as a guide even to his so-called infallible conscience.1

11. Teleology and Atheism. The objection is also frequently raised that teleology is a godless doctrine. This is the usual stand taken by persons who can oppose no tenable arguments against a view, and yet desire in some way to confound it. By designating it as atheistic they hope to cast discredit upon it and its supporters, and to frighten others from subscribing to it. The theory, however, is no more godless than any other theory. There is nothing absurd in the thought that God established morality because of the effects which it tends to realize. It is not absurd to believe that He had a purpose in view in establishing it, and that this purpose is the reason for its existence. No one, it seems to me, can accuse men like Thomas Aquinas, William Paley,2 and Bishop Butler of godlessness; and yet they found it possible to believe in teleology. Let me quote from Butler's Sermons upon Human Nature: "It may be added that as persons without any conviction from reason of the desirableness of life would yet, of course, preserve it merely from the appetite of hunger, so, by acting merely from regard (suppose) to reputation, without any consideration of the good of others, men often contribute to public good. In both these instances they are plainly instruments in the hands of another, in

1 See Kant, Abbott's translation, p. 311.

2 See chap. vi, § 10.

the hands of Providence, to carry on ends - the preservation of the individual and good of society - which they themselves have not in their view or intention."1

12. Teleology and Intuitionism. In conclusion, I should like to emphasize the fact that there is no necessary contradiction between the theory we have advanced in the foregoing pages, and intuitionism.2

1 See Mill's Utilitarianism, chap. ii, pp. 31 f.: "We not uncommonly hear the doctrine of utility inveighed against as a godless doctrine. If it be necessary to say anything at all against so mere an assumption, we may say that the question depends upon what idea we have formed of the moral character of the Deity. If it be a true belief that God desires, above all things, the happiness of His creatures, and that this was His purpose in their creation, utility is not only not a godless doctrine, but more profoundly religious than any other. If it be meant that utilitarianism does not recognize the revealed will of God as the supreme law of morals, I answer that an utilitarian who believes in the perfect goodness and wisdom of God necessarily believes that whatever God has thought fit to reveal on the subject of morals must fulfil the requirements of utility in a supreme degree. But others besides utilitarians have been of opinion that the Christian revelation was intended, and is fitted, to inform the hearts and minds of mankind with a spirit which should enable them to find for themselves what is right, and incline them to do it when found, rather than to tell them, except in a very general way, what it is; and that we need a doctrine of ethics, carefully followed out, to interpret to us the will of God. Whether this opinion is correct or not, it is superfluous here to discuss, since whatever aid religion, either natural or revealed, can afford to ethical investigation, is as open to the utilitarian moralist as to any other. He can use it as the testimony of God to the usefulness or hurtfulness of any given course of action, by as good right as others can use it for the indication of a transcendental law, having no connection with usefulness or with happiness."

2 See chap. iv, § 7, note.

According to the teleological view, the ultimate ground of moral distinctions is to be sought in the effects which acts naturally tend to produce. That is, morality realizes a purpose, is a means to an end, and owes its existence to its utility. Intuitionism maintains that morality is intuitive, that the moral law is engraven on the heart of man, that it is not imposed upon him from without, but springs from his innermost essence.

Now these two views are by no means antithetical, as is so often declared, but may be easily harmonized. In the first place, the end realized by morality is one absolutely desired by human beings. An act is right because it produces a certain effect upon human nature, because, in the last analysis, humanity approves of that effect.1 We cannot ultimately justify it except on the ground of its effect upon man. It is good because man acknowledges it as a good, because he is by nature so constituted as to be compelled to acknowledge it as a good. In a certain sense, Kant is right in saying that nothing in this world is good except a good will, and that a good will is good simply by virtue of its volition. The highest good, or the end realized by the moral law, is an absolute good, a good unconditionally desired by the human will, one for which no other ground can be found, one whose goodness inheres in itself. A particular act is good because of the end which it tends to realize, but the end is good in itself, good 1 See chap. v, § 8, § 9 (c).

because man wills it. In this sense, there is a categorical imperative in the heart of man, an imperative that is no longer hypothetical, but unconditional.1 In this sense, too, morality is imposed upon man by himself: it is the expression of his own innermost

essence.

In the second place, we may say, as we have already said, that an act is good or bad because conscience declares it to be so.2 The agent evaluates as he does because the contemplation of the act produces a certain effect upon his consciousness, because it arouses certain emotions in him, because conscience pronounces judgment upon it. This statement by

no means contradicts the statement that the effect of the act is the final criterion of its moral worth. The intuitionist must grant that the acts approved by conscience produce good effects or realize the highest good for man, and that its function is to help man to attain his goal. The theological intuitionist must admit that conscience approves of forms of conduct enjoined by God on account of their consequences, that conscience is the representative of God in the human heart, placed there in order to serve the purpose of the Creator with reference to man. In every instance, conscience is supposed to serve a purpose, to accomplish something for man, to produce effects; otherwise, why should it exist? There is really no controversy between the intuition

1 See chap. v, § 2; also chap. ii, § 7 (1).

2 Chap. v, § 1.