170 MR. DARWIN’S CRITICS vi 
by doing it, or because he gratifies his affections? 
by doing it. 
Assuming the position of the absolute moralists, 
let it be granted that there isa perception of right 
and wrong innate in every man. This means, 
simply, that when certain ideas are presented to 
his mind, the feeling of approbation arises; and 
when certain others, the feeling of disapprobation. 
To do your duty is to earn the approbation of your 
conscience, or moral sense ; to fail in your duty is 
to feel its disapprobation, as we all say. Now, is 
approbation a pleasure or a pain? Surely a 
pleasure. And is disapprobation a pleasure or a 
pain? Surely a pain. Consequently, all that is 
really meant by the absolute moralists is that there 
is, in the very nature of man, something which 
enables him to be conscious of these particular 
pleasuresand pains. And when they talk of immut-_ 
able and eternal principles of morality,the only in- 
telligible sense which I can put upon the words, is 
that the nature of man being what it is, he always 
has been, and always will be, capable of feeling these 
particular pleasures and pains. A priori, I have 
nothing to say against this proposition. Admitting 
its truth, I do not see how the moral faculty is on 
a different footing from any of the other faculties — 
of man. If I choose to say that it isan immutable | 
1 In separating pleasure and the gratification of affection, I | 
simply follow Mr, Mivart without admitting the justice of the 
separation. 
