PKIMAKY BASIS OF MOKALS. 11 



The title which Mr. Hutton lias chosen for his 

 criticism is, &quot;A Questionable Parentage for Morals.&quot; 

 Now, he has ample means of knowing that I allege a pri 

 mary basis of Morals, quite independent of that which he 

 describes and rejects. I do not refer merely to the fact 

 that, having, when he reviewed &quot; Social Statics,&quot; 1 ex 

 pressed his very decided dissent from this primary basis, 

 lie must have been aware that I allege it ; for he may say 

 that in the long interval which has elapsed he had for 

 gotten all about it. But I refer to the distinct enuncia 

 tion of this primary basis in that letter to Mr. Mill from 

 which he quotes. In a preceding paragraph of the letter, 

 I have explained that, while I accept utilitarianism in the 

 abstract, I do not accept that current utilitarianism which 

 recognizes for the guidance of conduct nothing beyond 

 empirical generalizations; and I have contended that 



&quot;Morality, properly so called the science of right conduct has 

 for its object to determine how and why certain modes of conduct 

 are detrimental, and certain other modes beneficial. These good and 

 bad results cannot be accidental, but must be necessary consequences 

 of the constitution of things ; and I conceive it to be the business of 

 Moral Science to deduce, from the laws of life and the conditions of 

 existence, what kinds of action necessarily tend to produce happi 

 ness, and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having done this, its 

 deductions are to be recognized as laws of conduct ; and are to be 

 conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of happiness or 

 misery.&quot; 



ISTor is this the only enunciation of what I conceive to 

 be the primary basis of morals, contained in this same 

 letter. A subsequent paragraph, separated by four lines 

 only from that which Mr. Hutton extracts, commences 

 thus : 



&quot; Progressing civilization, which is of necessity a succession of 

 compromises between old and new, requires a perpetual rcacljust- 



1 Sec Prospective Review for January, 1852. 



