148 Wreck against Right and Duty. 



of preserving society, how could intelligence ever 

 take it for more than that ? But in the moral 

 consciousness of mankind there is clear recogni 

 tion of an absolutely worthf ul. And, in the next 

 place, if this be denied, there remains one ele 

 ment in the moral consciousness that forever dis 

 tinguishes it from a mere intelligence -illumi 

 nated social instinct, namely, the sense of duty. 

 Even if moral law be supposed nothing more than 

 the expression of devices wrought out uncon 

 sciously in the course of aeons, for securing the 

 vitality and well-being of society, why do I recog-- 

 nize myself under obligation to observe the law ? 

 This consciousness of duty, the most certain and 

 most imperious fact in our experience, whence does 

 it come if man have no moral fibre in his prim 

 itive constitution? On this rock the ethics of 

 Kant, giving scientific shape to human morality, 

 is firmly intrenched. And no better testimony 

 to its security could be found than the shifts to 

 which evolutionists are put when they attempt to 

 resolve this element of the moral consciousness 

 into race-accumulated experiences of utility. Mr. 

 Spencer, indeed, supposes men to have been scared 

 into moral obligation by the baton of the primi 

 tive policeman, the ostracism of primitive society, 

 and the hell of the primitive priest. How a 



