CONDUCT AND DUTY. 237 



* we must admit that the ends which men pursue vary 

 indefinitely, and that some men, possibly the mass of 

 men, are fitted for those positions in the social organism 

 which do not demand any great activity of the higher 

 faculties, or make any strain upon a man's devotion to 

 the race or to truth. . . . When we speak of the 

 morality of the lower type, we must mean that the 

 habit of obedience to the moral law may be impressed 

 upon it, although the moral instincts which make such 

 obedience the spontaneous fruit of his character may 

 be very imperfectly developed ; and therefore, as a 

 general rule, that to some extent other instincts, such 

 as the fear of punishment (the hope of reward), the 

 contempt (or the praise) of his fellows, have to be 

 called into play, so as to make, as it were, a substitute 

 for genuine morality.' 



The wise moralist, on Mr. Stephen's theory, * assigns 

 no new motives ; he accepts human nature as it is, and 

 he tries to show how it may maintain and improve the 

 advantages already acquired. His influence is little 

 enough, but, such as it is, it depends upon the fact 

 that a certain harmony has already come into existence, 

 and that men are therefore so constituted that they 

 desire a more thorough solution of existing discords. 

 A sound moral system is desirable in order to give 

 greater definiteness to aims and methods ; and it is 

 doubtless important to obtain one in a period of rapid 

 decay of old systems. But it is happy for the world 

 that moral progress has not to wait till an unimpeach- 

 able system of ethics has been elaborated.' 



