\ CIVILIZATION AND MORALS. 555 



ing trader of old, who fetched and carried between Babylon and Tyre ? 

 Such questions as these are not easy to answer, and very few persons 

 will be willing to meet them with affirmations, in any jjositive and 

 unqualified way. 



We are brought, then, face to face with the fact that there are cer- 

 tain directions in which the process of civilization appears to be much 

 more certainly a process of moral development, as evinced in human 

 conduct and character, than it does in others ; certain particulars of 

 conduct, that is, in which the fact of moral progress is nindeniable, 

 and certain others in which, at least, it is open to doubt. Now, this 

 is assuredly a fact of great significance. For the inference is plain 

 that, if the progress of the race in intellectual culture and in social 

 organization is attended with a certain moral development in some 

 particulars of conduct more distinctly than in others, there must be 

 reasons for this difierence, and most likely they will be found in some 

 bearing which the one process of culture has upon the other. It is to 

 pursue this suggestion a little that I have taken the subject up. 



The moment we pause to reflect upon the diflference in question, 

 one fact concerning it arrests attention. It is this : that the particu- 

 lars of conduct in which the moral advancement of the human race is 

 most obvious and indisputable are exactly and entirely those which 

 we have seen to be incident to the direct relations of human fellow- 

 ship, and that the qualities developed are entirely those which apper- 

 tain to that relationship, having their root in benevolence and justice 

 alone. On the one hand, charities, friendships, institutions of kindly 

 helpfulness, and all generous, gentle amenities of social intercourse ; 

 on the other hand, charters, ordinances, constitutions defined equi- 

 ties and broad determinations of personal rights : these are plainly 

 the greater moral fruits of civilization which show signs of approach 

 to ripening, as yet, and they all lie within the domain of those direct 

 relationships which exist between man and man as human fellows, and 

 which connect themselves with nothing else. 



This fact leads us quickly to the recognition of a second one, which 

 becomes just as plain on examination namely, that the particulars 

 of conduct in which the moral advancement of mankind appears most 

 questionable are exactly and entirely those which we have seen to be 

 incident to the indirect relations of human fellowship ; to the relations, 

 that is, which involve some intermediate thing, through which the 

 line of relationship to our fellow is drawn. These take in, as has been 

 said, all the relationships in which "property" is concerned, era- 

 bracins: the whole organization of trade and of labor under hire : and 

 they also take in a great part of the political relationships that arise 

 out of the institutions of government. Now, it is undeniably in these 

 spheres of conduct that the moral effects of civilization present the 

 most discouraging appearance. Are men as honest in work and trade 

 as they were in more primitive times? Is there not more trickish- 



