10 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



diffused public sentiment was presently backed by the sanctions of 

 law and religion. But, later, another element little by little comes 

 into play. With intellectual progress men begin slowly to realize 

 that certain lines of action make for tribal welfare, and certain 

 other lines to tribal disadvantage ; that these observed bearings 

 and results are altogether independent of social custom, the com- 

 mands of the chief, the utterances of the gods or god ; and that 

 thus there is a sanction for conduct deeper and more stable than 

 those currently assigned. Throughout the further evolution of 

 humanity, and down even to our own time, these observed con- 

 nections between conduct and its consequences continue, it is true, 

 to be interpreted mainly through the medium of the earlier 

 codes that is to say, even where the natural criterion for con- 

 duct is dimly perceived, artificial restraints and incentives are 

 still to the fore. Yet a great gain is none the less achieved, since 

 if the evolving moral code does not replace the earlier codes, it 

 more and more comes to constitute a kind of iinal standard, by 

 correspondence with which the precepts of such earlier codes 

 may be tested. 



We are thus forced to the inference that in the continued evo- 

 lution of life and thought the ethical criterion of conduct will 

 detach itself more and more completely from the other criteria 

 of which we have spoken, and will be more habitually referred 

 to as the touchstone by which right and wrong in action alone 

 are to be decided. Especially in view of the rapid spread of sci- 

 entific habits of thought does it seem likely that such a result 

 will be brought about ; since the central principle of science the 

 principle of natural causation is precisely that which underlies 

 the moral code, with its interpretation of conduct and conse- 

 quence in terms of cause and effect. This does not, of course, 

 mean that guidance and inspiration from other quarters will not 

 constantly be sought, or that all impulses that we should here, 

 strictly speaking, call ultra-moral impulses, will be entirely dis- 

 regarded. But it does certainly mean that there will be an in- 

 crease of the already manifest tendency to hold in view the 

 ethical criterion as the ultimate test of conduct, to interpret 

 every side of life's activities more constantly in terms of this, 

 and to insist that in every case of discord between the criterion 

 of morality on the one side and any other lower criterion what- 

 soever upon the other, we shall revise our principles and our 

 practice without hesitation or demurrer, in such way as to bring 

 them into fundamental harmony with the dictates of the moral 

 law. 



And here a very serious question arises. In tracing back the 

 radical distinctions of right and wrong to purely naturalistic 

 sources, do we detract in any way from the authority, the im 



