7 34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



parts of the human constitution, and out of them spring all the 

 details of ethical life. Nor are we called on to discuss the origin 

 of the sentiment of obligation, since we are warranted in holding 

 that it also belongs to the essence of human nature. No man, so 

 far as our information goes, has ever been found to be destitute of 

 it, and, as far as concerns our world, it may be regarded as found- 

 ed in the nature of things. It is the basis of all moral develop- 

 ment. The only question that need be asked is whether it is at 

 all dependent on religion for its essential character that is to 

 say, at the moment when this sentiment was shaping itself in the 

 mind of man, was its genesis at all conditioned on the recognition 

 of the supernatural ? In the decision of such a question we can 

 be guided, of course, only by data of our own consciousness. But 

 the reference to the supernatural does not seem to help the matter 

 much, since we meet here at the outset this same sentiment of 

 obligation. What is the origin of the convictions of duty which 

 man feels toward the unseen powers around him ? Does it spring 

 from the recognition of their superiority of position ? But this 

 is nothing more than the recognition of a relation which involves 

 the power of harming or helping in the superior being, and, so 

 far as the same power is supposed to reside in men, the same 

 sentiment toward them will arise. Or does the feeling of duty 

 toward the gods come from the recognition of rights belonging 

 to them ? Then it does not appear why there should not be a 

 similar recognition of rights belonging to men, since in the ear- 

 liest conceptions there is no difference between man and the deity, 

 except in the point of power. It does not seem, therefore, that 

 religion has been effective in producing the feeling of obligation, 

 except so far as it has added to the objects toward which this feel- 

 ing was directed. There would be just as much ground for hold- 

 ing that the sentiment of religious obligation sprang from the 

 feeling of duty which arose between man and man. In point of 

 fact, no doubt, both were products of the same primitive elements 

 of man's constitution. The recognition of an object implies the 

 recognition both of its nature and of those powers in it by which 

 it affects us for good or for bad, and from the interplay of these 

 ideas comes finally the conviction that the object has certain 

 rights ; we first perceive and estimate the personality, and then, 

 through experience and reflection, come to the conclusion that it 

 is obligatory on us to allow it such freedom as is consistent with 

 the freedom of other personalities. The degree of liberty we 

 allow will be, in general, in proportion to the power of the per- 

 sonality : men can be controlled by equal powers ; the gods, 

 wielding irresistible power, will enjoy perfect liberty. The two 

 sorts of feeling of duty, toward man and toward the deity, grow 

 by mutual action and reaction ; each, as it becomes more refined 



