728 Dynamic Theory. 



from others who have experienced the sensations, or who, if they have 

 not experienced them, have imagined or reasoned them to be possible, 

 and cerebral standards thus erected by precept may be as firm as any. 

 The general idea of " good " and " bad " is supposed to have been orig- 

 inally based on the sense of taste. The standard thus obtained gives 

 the basis of comparisons which have been extended into other fields. 

 We speak of various actions as being in good or bad taste, as we also 

 speak of persons with delicate perception and execution of the propri- 

 eties, as possessed of "tact" (touch). We speak of sweet and sour 

 dispositions, bitter resentments, disappointments, &c. However, the 

 majority of our characterizations of the sensations of the internal 

 senses are necessarily drawn from those of the direct senses. Thus, the 

 internal senses consider and ponder a thing ; that is, sit down beside it, 

 and weigh it. 



The moral sense of any person is therefore chiefly the result of pre- 

 cept and instruction enforced by society upon him and upon his ances- 

 tors from time immemorial. Instruction and precept presuppose cere- 

 bral organs capable of being instructed. The expansion and develop- 

 ment of the moral sentiments depend upon a corresponding expansion 

 of intellectual force. We must be made to see something of the rela- 

 tionships between ourselves and other men before we can feel any senti- 

 ment of duty regarding such relationships. There can be no moral 

 feeling where there is no intellectual perception of social relations. In 

 the order of time the development of our moral feelings is the latest and 

 newest, and consequently in diseases of the brain, which, like alcohol- 

 ism, the opium habit, &c. , let down the general vigor of cerebral ac- 

 tion, the moral sense is the first of the faculties to suffer decay. An 

 uncontrollable appetite by habitually superseding considerations of duty, 

 finally sweeps them away. 



When the individual suffers a loss of the wider social sympathies, he 

 likewise suffers a contraction of moral feeling. He seeks the society of 

 the criminal classes, and he comes to regard the limit of such society 

 as the limit of his moral obligations. A further disintegration of the 

 moral structure of the man, makes him deceitful and untrustworthy to- 

 ward his new companions. He no longer possesses the honor that is es- 

 sential to the association of even thieves. He is too narrow, suspicious 

 and immoral to associate with criminals. But when the superstructure 

 of morality is worn down to this extent, the intellectual foundation 

 upon which it stands is necessarily more or less involved. Moral feel- 

 ing depends upon a true perception of right social relations, and when 

 the moral feeling has permanently vanished, it is an indication that its 

 intellectual underpinning has become shaky, too. In other words, a 

 low moral condition is related to, and indicative of, a low cerebral state, 



