Sheldon — The Literature of Ethical Science. 133 



" To make my position fully understood, it seems needful to add that, 

 corresponding to the fundamental propositions of a developed Moral 

 Science, there have been, and still are, dtvelupiug in the race, certain fun- 

 damental intuitions; and that, though these moral intuitions are the re- 

 sults of accumulated experiences of Utility, gradually orijanized and 

 inherited, they have come to be quite independent of conscious experience. 

 Just in the snme way that I believe the intuition of space, possessed by any 

 living individual, to have arisen from organized and consolidated experi- 

 ences of all antecedent individuals who bequeathed to him their slowly de- 

 veloped nervous organizations — just as 1 believe that this intuition, 

 requiring only to be made definite and complete by personal experiences, 

 has practically become a form of thought, apparently quite independent of 

 experience; so do I believe that the experiences of utility organized and 

 consolidated through all past generations of the human race, have been pro- 

 ducing corresponding nervous modifications, which, by continued trans- 

 mission and accumulation, have become in us certain faculties of moral 

 intuition — certain emotions responding to right and wrong conduct, which 

 have no apparent basis in the individual experiences of utility. I also hold 

 that just as the space-intuition responds to the exact demonstrations of 

 Geometry, and has its rough couclu.-?ions interpreted and verified by them; 

 so will moral intuitions respond to the demonstrations of Moral Science, 

 and will have their rough conclusions interpreted and verified by them." — 

 '• The Data of Ethics," by Herbert Spencer. 



'' I am very far from denying that the materials of the human constitution 

 existed in lower orders. But in man the materials are differently com- 

 pounded. As the combination of the same chemical elements at different 

 potencies gives essentially differeni products, so the combination of the 

 same materials gave different creatures. Inquiry concerning the origin of 

 the sense of obligation is simply inquiry concerning the origin of man. 

 Duty was not merely an advantage, a utility which man adopted after he had 

 been man for a longer or shorter time. Without it man would not be man. 

 It is his nature." — " Moral Evolution," by George Harris. 



•' Es bedarf dazu vielmehr der Mitwirkuug einer seelischen Einheit, fiir 

 welche die Vorstellung nur die Veranlassung ist, in einer bestimmten 

 Weise, namlich durch Erzeuguug eines sittlichen Drteils, besser des 

 sittlichen Gefuhls, zu reagiren. Dass es aber gerade Immer diese Form der 

 Reaction ist, kanu nur aus einer urspriinglichen Aniage der Seele erklS,rt 

 werden. So weuig das Fallgesetz des Steins, der aus der Ruhelage in die 

 Fallbewegung vibergeht, eine von der nahen Erdmasse unabhangige Formel 

 des Geschehens ausdriickt, so wenig kdnnen sich seelische VorgSnge nach 

 Gesetzen aneinander kniipfen, die nicht durch eine entsprechende der Seele 

 eigene Aniage bestimmt wiiren." — " Wesen and Entstehung des Ge- 

 wissens," by Theodor Elsenhans. 



"What we term immorality, sin, crime, wickedness, etc., may be scien- 

 tiflcally regarded as moral pathology or functional mental disease in social 

 subjects; and we may view moral diseases as being merely cerebral and 



