256 History as Arbiter. 



binding. But though it is not yet discovered 

 what morality is primordial and universal, it has 

 been settled beyond doubt that the so-called in- 

 tuitionist school, or certain members of it, have 

 erred in supposing all the virtues to be of that 

 description. History and observation have alike 

 demonstrated the absence of the ideas of chastity 

 and fidelity in the moral furnishing of the minds 

 of many savage and barbarous tribes. By follow 

 ing the same method, similar inductions might be 

 established, until ethical science had completely 

 made out the number and the nature of the prim 

 itive and universal moral intuitions. 



But though domestic morality is certainly a 

 derivative and occasional growth, I do not hold 

 that other important virtues have had a like 

 historical origin. On a field in which there has 

 been so little investigation, opinion, it must be 

 borne in mind, cannot pretend to finality, or 

 even to much solidity. But some gropings amid 

 the general darkness incline me, at least tenta 

 tively, to the belief that, apart from the domestic 

 virtues, there is no such great difference between 

 the morals of Christians and the morals of sav 

 ages. Observers are naturally struck with what 

 is new and unlike their own modes of thought 

 and conduct; and so it often happens that the 



