1-02 ESSAYS SCIENTIFIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL. 



naked pleasure and utility, but " no foresight, with 

 largest command of psychologic clothes, would 

 enable us to invert the experiment, and dress up 

 these nudities into the august form of duty." 



The whole chapter is well worth study, and is 

 certainly the best in the critical part of Dr. Mar- 

 tineau's book, at any rate " for the present neces- 

 sity." For the supposed destruction of the validity 

 of conscience by the discovery of its origin is that 

 which troubles men, and Dr. Martineau is not 

 afraid to claim that discovery, if it be a discovery, 

 as a new proof of the validity of conscience. " It 

 introduces," he says in his preface, " no disturbing 

 problem ; it supplies new chapters of natural 

 history, but changes not a word in the eternal law 

 of right." Such a view of conscience, as fearless 

 as it is true, instead of excluding, presupposes 

 historical development and growth, and leaves 

 opponents like Mr. Leslie Stephens valiantly 

 slaying the dead or beating the air. 



We have reserved to the last Dr. Martineau's 

 own view, which has already shown itself in his 

 criticisms, but is explicitly stated under the head 

 of " idiopsychological " ethics. Standing midway 

 between the " unpsychological " ethics of Vol. I., 

 and the " heteropsychological " ethics of the 

 Hedonist, Dianoetic, and ^Esthetic moralists, it 

 simply asks, What has the moral sentiment to say 

 of its own experience ? 



