102 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. V. 



unfitness of the nervous organisation, which Mr. Huxley calls 

 the thoughtless brains, of a savage, to act as a storehouse for such 

 experiences when obtained. For, firstly, the wicked often remain in 

 u state of great prosperity for periods commensurate with the lifetime 

 of an entire population of civilised, not to speak of the notoriously 

 shorter-lived savage, men; and a life-long experience would neutralise 

 the results, not merely of tradition, but of hereditary transmission. 

 And secondly, as Sir John Lubbock himself tells us (p. 70), with 

 reference to the practice of infanticide, the distinction between the 

 sexes implies an amount of forethought and prudence which the lower 

 races of men do not possess. We commend this estimate of the 

 faculties and capacities of our ancestors to the careful consideration 

 of those philosophers who suppose them to have been capable of pro 

 cesses of stock-taking, which must, ex hypothesi, have enabled them to 

 anticipate the epigram, Honesty is the best policy. &quot; The Academy, 

 Nov. 15, 1870. 



I have thus Professor Eolleston on my side when I assert 

 that it is impossible to account for the natural development 

 of a moral power of judgment, without, in fact, presupposing 

 its actual existence since such judgment cannot exist with 

 out an ethical standard, and such standard cannot exist 

 without an ethical judgment. 



The third question, then, now alone remains: namely, 

 DO moral whether the moral perceptions of any people are 

 rontrodtet so perverted as to directly contradict our own 

 one another? a ^ stract moral judgments. In the words of Mr. 

 Lecky :* &quot; It is not to be expected, it is not to. be main 

 tained, that men in all ages should have agreed about the 

 application of their moral principles. All that is contended 

 for is that these principles are themselves the same .... 

 in fact, that, however these principles might be applied, 

 &quot; still humanity was recognised as a virtue, and cruelty as 

 a vice.&quot;! But if opponents have been unable to bring 

 instances to show the existence of a non-moral race, still less 

 can they prove that of one the moral principles of which are 



* Morals, vol. i. p. 104. 



t Mr. Lecky (op. cit. p. 105) gives some interesting quotations from Hel- 

 vetius, -De 1 Esprit, vol. ii. p. 13, to show how practices which are at first 

 glaringly immoral come, when fully understood, to appear relatively moral, 

 and a positive improvement upon other customs they have displaced. 



