A MODERN "SYMPOSIUM." 



12; 



But next, what is meant by " morality ? " I 

 will explain, as clearly as brevity may permit, 

 what I should myself understand by the term ; 

 though I am, of course, well aware that this is 

 by no means the sense in which Sir J. Fitzjames 

 Stephen, or Mr. Harrison, or Prof. Clifford, un- 

 derstands it. 



I consider that there is a certain authoritative 

 rule of life, 1 necessarily not contingently existing, 

 which may be regarded under a twofold aspect. 

 It declares that certain acts (exterior or interior) 

 are intrinsically and necessarily evil ; it declares, 

 again, that some certain act (exterior or interior), 

 even where not actually evil, is by intrinsic neces- 

 sity, under the circumstances of some given mo- 

 ment, less morally excellent than some certain 

 other act. Any given man, therefore, more ef- 

 fectively practises " morality," in proportion as 

 he more energetically, predominantly, and suc- 

 cessfully aims at adjusting his whole conduct, 

 interior and exterior, by this authoritative rule. 

 Accordingly, when I am asked what is the bear- 

 ing of some particular influence on morality, I 

 understand myself to be asked how far such in- 

 fluence affects for good or evil the prevalence of 

 that practical habit which I have just described ; 

 how far such influence disposes men (or the con- 

 trary) to adjust their conduct by this authorita- 

 tive rule. 



These explanations having been premised, my 

 answer to the proposed question is this : The 

 absence of religious belief — of a belief in a per- 

 sonal God and personal immortality — does not 

 simply injure morality, but, if the disbelievers 

 carry their view out consistently, utterly destroys 

 it. I affirm — which, of course, requires proof, 

 though I have no space here to give it — that no 

 one except a theist can, in consistency, recognize 

 the necessarily existing authoritative rule of 

 which I have spoken. But for practical purposes 

 there is no need of this affirmation, because in 

 what follows I shall refer to no other opponents 

 of religion, except that antitheistic body — con- 

 sisting of agnostics, positivists, and the like — 

 which in England just now heads the speculative 

 irreligious movement. Now, it is manifest on the 

 very surface of philosophical literature that, as a 

 matter of fact, these men deny in theory the ex- 

 istence of any such necessary authoritative rule 

 as that on which I have dwelt. A large propor- 

 tion of theists accept it, and call it " the Natural 



1 To prevent misapprehension I may explain that, in 

 my view, those various necessary truths which collective- 

 ly constitute this rule are, like all other necessary truths, 

 founded on the essence of God : they are what they are 

 because he is what he is. 



Law ; " ' an agnostic or positivist denies its ex- 

 istence. It is very clear that he who denies that 

 there is such a thing as a necessarily existing 

 authoritative rule of life cannot consistently aim 

 at adjusting any, even the smallest, part of his 

 conduct by the intimations of that rule ; or, in 

 other words, cannot consistently do so much as 

 one act which (on the theory which I follow) 

 can be called morally good. 



Here, however, a most important explanation 

 must be made. It continually happens that some 

 given philosopher holds some given doctrine 

 speculatively and theoretically, while he holds 

 the precisely contradictory doctrine implicitly 

 and unconsciously ; insomuch that it is the lat- 

 ter, and not the former, which he applies to his 

 estimate of events as they successively arise. 

 Now the existence of the Natural Law — so I would 

 most confidently maintain — is a truth so firmly 

 rooted by God himself in the conviction of every 

 reasonable creature, that practically to leaven 

 the human mind with belief of its contradictory 

 is, even under the circumstances most favorable 

 to that purpose, a slow and up-hill process. In 

 the early stages, therefore, of antitheistic persua- 

 sion, there is a vast gulf between the autitheist's 

 speculative theory and his practical realization 

 of that theory. Mr. Mallock has set forth this 

 fact, I think, with admirable force, in an article 

 contributed by him to the Contemporary of last 

 January. When antitheists say — such is his ar- 

 gument — that the pursuit of truth is a " sacred," 

 " heroic," " noble " exercise— when they call one 

 way of living mean, and base, and hateful, and 

 another way of living great, and blessed, and ad- 

 mirable 2 — they are guilty of most flagrant incon- 

 sistency. They therein use language and con- 

 ceive thoughts which are utterly at variance with 

 their own speculative theory. If it be admitted 

 (1) that the idea expressed by the term " moral 

 goodness " is a simple idea, an idea incapable of 

 analysis; and (2) that to this idea there corre- 

 sponds a necessary objective reality in rerum 

 natura — if these two propositions be admitted, 

 the existence of the Natural Law is a truth 

 which irresistibly results from the admission. On 

 the other hand, if these two propositions be not 

 postulated, then to talk of one human act being 



1 The Natural Law more strictly includes only God's 

 prohibition of acts intrinsically evil, and his preception 

 of acts which cannot be omitted icithout doing what is in- 

 trinsically evil. But we may with obvious propriety so 

 extend the term as to include under it God's counseling 

 of those acts which, as clothed in their full circumstances, 

 are by intrinsic necessity the more morally excellent 



* Pp. 177, 178. 



