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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



adopted by mutual consent to facilitate the dis- 

 tribution of pigswash. When we have come to 

 an understanding, we shall be able to simplify 

 our code. Even the lower animals learn to be- 

 have peaceably when the conditions of life force 

 them into quasi-societies ; and man can make 

 rules better adapted for the purpose. The purest 

 selfishness will secure the obedience of the ma- 

 jority to an arrangement in which all find their 

 account. And as, on this showing, nothing but 

 selfishness has ever really existed, we need not 

 doubt its efficiency when it acts with less dis- 

 guise. But the doctrine — as everybody will re- 

 ply — is false. The disgust produced by a frank 

 cynicism proves the existence of qualities invisi- 

 ble to the cynic. Virtue, it is said with unan- 

 swerable force, could not be invented unless it 

 existed. The hypothetical pig (for I hold the 

 actual pig to possess some rudiments of higher 

 instincts) could not conceive of the existence of 

 any appetite but hunger for pigswash. The ar- 

 gument is conclusive, but proves the futility of 

 the doubt. If the higher instincts undeniably 

 exist, can experience fail to prove their existence ? 

 Why shrink from accepting a test which, by its 

 very nature, cannot contradict the testimony of 

 consciousness? This appeal to experience is 

 simply an appeal to that testimony by a definite 

 method. I am conscious of some infusion of 

 pure and lofty instinct in myself, and of sym- 

 pathy with higher manifestations of them in 

 others. Why should I fear that by any possible 

 mode of interrogation my consciousness will be 

 puzzled into a false answer ? No scientific teach- 

 ing can prove that my senses don't exist, and 

 just as little can it prove that my moral ordinary 

 sense does not exist. 



.It is, indeed, true that a scientific investigator 

 may, or rather must, deprive this moral sense of 

 its supernatural character. He must endeavor to 

 trace it backward to more rudimentary forms, to 

 determine the conditions of its development, and 

 possibly to show that what we take for a simple 

 is really a complex instinct. But to assume that 

 something has been developed, cannot by any 

 dexterity be twisted into a proof that it does not 

 exist. The belief that the moral sense is the 

 normal product of certain existing forces, in- 

 stead of being an instinct mysteriously dropped 

 into us from without, strengthens, instead of 

 weakening, our belief in its importance ; for such 

 a belief alone can enable us to define the true 

 functions displayed by it, and thereby lead to an 

 external estimate of their vast importance. The 

 conscience is no longer an inexplicable power, 



giving arbitrary directions upon inscrutable au- 

 thority; but it is the name of a feeling, or a set 

 of feelings, developed in all social progress, and 

 seen to be essential to the vitality of the race. 

 Nor can any analysis tend to throw a doubt upon 

 the very facts which it begins by assuming, that 

 men are capable of regulating their conduct from 

 lofty and unselfish motives, and that conduct, so 

 regulated, drives the most important wheels in 

 the social mechanism. 



The essence, then, of the unbeliever's conten- 

 tion is that the conscience or moral sense is a 

 faculty to be explained (so far as we can " ex- 

 plain" anything) by the ordinary methods, be- 

 cause it is part of the normal process of human 

 development. So far as the believer traverses 

 that contention, he is a skeptic in his theory of 

 human nature. He denies the possibility of vir- 

 tue except under some external compulsion. He 

 denies the reality of virtue except as conduct 

 regulated by reference to a supernatural world. 

 With him, if it is not disguised vanity, it is dis- 

 guised fear. Man is a pig, though deterred by 

 the rod of everlasting fire from unlimited devo- 

 tion to his trough. This doctrine, indeed, is re- 

 pudiated or masked by the higher theology. By 

 using the same word alternately to describe Na- 

 ture or a force which opposes and controls Na- 

 ture — for a whole, that is, or a part — room is 

 secured for any quantity of evasion. It need 

 only be said that, so far as the believer admits 

 virtue to be natural, he is at one with the unbe- 

 liever. So far as he asserts it to be supernatural, 

 he illustrates once more the skepticism implied in 

 the argument from the moral character of Chris- 

 tianity; he disbelieves, that is, that any good 

 impulses can arise spontaneously from the cor- 

 rupt race of man. The tendency comes out more 

 clearly when we turn from the questions about 

 the reality to questions about the sanctions of 

 morality. The believer cannot bring himself to 

 admit that motives drawn from the world around 

 us can be adequate supports of virtue. If he 

 does not hold by hell-fire — a subject which in all 

 seriousness we have ceased to mention to ears 

 polite — he still maintains that man must have a 

 lamer stake in the universe than that of his 

 ephemeral existence in the visible world ; unless 

 he can look forward to an indefinite vista of fu- 

 turity, his virtuous instincts will be asphyxiated. ' 

 They will dwindle when the imagination is con- 

 fined within the narrow limits of space and time. 

 Our loftiest aspirations are but "^survivals" from 

 the time when they could be nourished by hopes 

 and fears of wider date. The unbeliever, it is 



