170 MR DARWIN'S CRITICS v 



by doing it, or because he gratifies his affections 1 

 by doing it. 



Assuming the position of the absolute moralists, 

 let it be granted that there is a perception of right 

 and wrong innate in every man. This means, 

 simply, that when certain ideas are presented to 

 his mind, the feeling of approbation arises ; and 

 when certain others, the feeling of disapprobation. 

 To do your duty is to earn the approbation of your 

 conscience, or moral sense ; to fail in your duty is 

 to feel its disapprobation, as we all say. Now, is 

 approbation a pleasure or a pain? Surely a 

 pleasure. And is disapprobation a pleasure or a 

 pain ? Surely a pain. Consequently, all that is 

 really meant by the absolute moralists is that there 

 is, in the very nature of man, something which 

 enables him to be conscious of these particular 

 pleasures and pains. And when they talk of immut- 

 able and eternal principles of morality, the only in- 

 telligible sense which I can put upon the words, is 

 that the nature of man being what it is, he always 

 has been, and always will be, capable of feeling these 

 particular pleasures and pains. A priori, I have 

 nothing to say against this proposition. Admitting 

 its truth, I do not see how the moral faculty is on 

 a different footing from any of the other faculties 

 of man. If I choose to say that it is an immutable 



1 In separating pleasure and the gratification of affection, I 

 simply follow Mr. Mivart without admitting the justice of the 

 separation. 



