662 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



To understand clearly the definition of the science, it is necessary 

 to ascertain what the well-being of humanity is. This can be done 

 only by tracing all motives and feelings to their ultimate cause. This 

 ultimate cause is the most powerful instinct implanted in human na- 

 ture the preservation of life, which includes our own life and that of 

 our offspring. We live and we want to live. Unconsciously we will 

 flee from danger. We will fight frantically against death. In the 

 presence of great danger we lose our reason, and yet, though volition 

 is powerless, reflex action makes us struggle for safety. Why we 

 want to live, why we were ever endowed with life, is more than man 

 can know ; but of this he is certain, that he does not want to die. 

 The fact that a mother will sacrifice herself for her child ; that the 

 man who suffers the tortures of the rack, or of incurable disease, or of 

 great mental affliction, will prefer oblivion to existence, does not alter 

 the truth that the love of life is the most powerful instinct implanted 

 in animals and in man. These exceptions, like many apparent ex- 

 ceptions to the law of gravitation, can be satisfactorily explained 

 away. 



By the phrase " conducive to the well-being of humanity " is meant 

 not merely the bare preservation of life, but includes all that which 

 makes life itself more pleasant and happy, which will insure a more 

 complete and rounded existence. 



All those actions which are conducive to the well-being of humani- 

 ty, we call good or right ; all those actions which are not so conducive, 

 we call bad or wrong. Thus there is an absolute standard of right 

 and wrong. 



Already, long, ages ago, it was discovered by experience that a tribe 

 or nation, and every member thereof, would better serve his own pros- 

 perity and success by generally telling the truth than by telling false- 

 hoods ; so nine times out of ten he would tell the truth. The confu- 

 sion that would arise were every one to tell nine falsehoods to one 

 truth is inconceivable. The man who had been placed on sentinel 

 duty, when asked whether he had seen the enemy, would answer no, 

 although he knew the enemy to be within the hearing of his voice. 

 The mother would tell her child that certain herbs, which she knew to 

 be poisonous, were good to eat ; the child would eat, and die. The 

 father would deny his ability to provide food for his family, although 

 but an hour before he had slain a buffalo or a deer. Telling the truth 

 sometimes, and most of the time, is an absolute necessity, depending 

 not on theological injunctions, but on the very existence of life. Our 

 rude forefathers of the prehistoric age were aware of this fact, and 

 they enunciated the general principle that it is wrong to lie. This is 

 a scientific generalization. It is a law deduced by experience and ob- 

 servation from a great number of facts, and it is as justly entitled to 

 be considered a generalization as Newton's law of gravitation or Pas- 

 cal's principle of hydrostatics. The experience of nations and of ages 



