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? 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. 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.

pathy widens, old forms of conduct are repudiated and new ones adopted.

(c) Conditions, inner and outer, change and make acts harmful or harmless, which were once not so. The race, however, is conservative, and clings to the old forms from force of habit and because the moral sentiments which cluster around them cannot be eradicated all at once. Just as there are laws on our statute books which once served a useful purpose, but are now ineffective and even harmful, so there are laws inscribed on the hearts of men which have lost their reason for existence. The orthodox Jew is taught to feel a certain moral reverence for customs which were rational for the time and place where they originated, but whose usefulness is gone. 7. Moral Reform. — But perhaps the end realized by the several moral codes of peoples is not a truly moral one, you say; perhaps their morality is not the true morality. Very true, we answer, but it is not our purpose to give to the world a brand new moral code, but to interpret the codes already existing. It is the business of a scientific ethics to study the morality that is, to investigate the rules of conduct which men feel as moral, and discover the principle which gave rise to them. If we find that there is such a principle and that men tacitly assent to it, we shall understand the genesis of morals. We shall be able to see where men have bungled in their blind attempts to apply the principle, and we shall be able to distinguish more intelligently between the right

and the wrong. After we have found the ideal which is vaguely guiding the destinies of mankind, we of the present time can ask ourselves whether we are really realizing it in our conduct. We cannot, however, lay down the law to the world, nor can we evaluate the existing codes of morality, without having a principle or criterion by which to test it. If we make conscience the criterion, that is, our own individual conscience, we are bound to speak dogmatically, and must concede the same right to other consciences. We can never obtain the consensus hominum for our rules unless we can justify them by means of a principle which everybody tacitly accepts.

But,

8. The Ultimate Sanction of the Moral Law. we are asked by another objector, what validity has this principle of yours? You say that an act is good or bad because it produces effects desired or not desired by men. Why do men desire these effects? Why do they prefer certain effects to others? And why do they feel bound to bring about certain ones and to refrain from causing others? You say that morality is a means to an end, that the moral laws are grounded on their utility. Suppose we grant it, suppose we justify the particular rules by the fact that they serve a purpose. But how are we to justify this end or purpose itself?

We cannot answer. We regard certain acts as good or bad because they tend to produce certain

effects or to realize a certain end or ideal. These effects, this end, this ideal, are desired by men absolutely. We can give no reason for the fact that man prefers life to death or happiness to unhappiness. We can understand why having certain impulses he should come to develop modes of conduct which tend to realize them. But why he should desire what he desires is a mystery which we cannot solve. Here we have reached the bed-rock of our science, here we have a true categorical imperative which commands absolutely and unconditionally.1

9. Motives and Effects. - The point is also raised that we call a man good in spite of the evil effects which his acts naturally tend to produce, when his motives are good. If the effects constituted the measure of worth, it is held, then the agent would be called bad regardless of his motives.

1 Hume, Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Appendix I, v: "It appears evident that the ultimate ends of human actions can never, in any case, be accounted for by reason, but recommend themselves entirely to the sentiments and affections of mankind, without any dependence on the intellectual faculties. Ask a man why he uses exercise; he will answer, because he desires to keep his health; if you then inquire why he desires health, he will readily reply, because sickness is painful. If you push your inquiries farther, and desire a reason why he hates pain, it is impossible he can ever give any. This is an ultimate end, and is never referred to any other object. Something must be desirable on its own account, and because of its immediate accord or agreement with human sentiment and affection." See Paulsen, Ethics, especially p. 249; Spencer, Data of Ethics, chap. iii, § 9; Sigwart, Vorfragen der Ethik, pp. 11 f.; Logic, II, pp. 529 ff. See also § 9 (c), § 12, and beginning of chap. vi.