1 26 Methods of Science are applicable to Morality. 



which will probably prove a still greater degree of 

 dependence of those actions upon purely physicial 

 / and chemical conditions. 



The " order of facts" in the subject of morality 

 requires precisely similar mental treatment to those 

 to which scientific investigation has been already 

 applied with such great success, and which include all 

 phenomena admitting of observation, comparison, 

 analysis and inference ; and not only those in which 

 we are able, but also those in which we are not able 

 to produce by means of experiment, the phenomena 

 to be observed, such as those of astronomy and geol- 

 ogy. Different subjects also are experimental in dif- 

 ferent degrees, physical science is more experimental, 

 physiology is more observational ; morality is partly 

 experimental, and therefore capable of reduction to 

 scientific system by means of our intellectual powers. 

 In consequence of the essential nature of truth 

 being the same in all subjects, and of the fundamental 

 processes of mental action in the determination of 

 truth being also alike in all, the essential modes of 

 arriving at and detecting moral truth are the same as 

 those employed in research in the physical sciences. 

 We possess therefore no special faculty, call it 

 44 conscience," or what we may, by which we are 

 enabled to infallibly arrive at truth in moral ques- 

 tions. What is right and good, and what is wrong 

 and evil, are determined by precisely the same general 

 means as what is true ; our much vaunted conscious- 

 ness alone does not infallibly tell us ; reason alone, 



