354 Pleredity. 



might we say that an acephalous or hydrocephalous monster can 

 live and breed which would be a physiological absurdity. It is 

 inevitable that every monster and every organism outside of the 

 normal conditions of existence shall perish ; and this is true also 

 of the body social. But morality reduced to its essentials that 

 is, to those natural laws which excite Montaigne's merriment 

 consists in those essential conditions without which man dis- 

 appears. Thus, to sum up, without morality no society, and 

 without society no human race. Therefore we have here no con- 

 vention, and we may truly say morality is natural, since it is a 

 necessary consequence of the very nature of things. Further, 

 we may say that it is immutable, necessary, imperative ; not 

 employing these terms in the vague, transcendental and incom- 

 prehensible sense usually given to them, but in a precise, positive, 

 and unambiguous sense; for they signify that morality is as stable 

 as nature, and its necessity is that of logic. 



Thus the idea of evolution, though it looks like empiricism, 

 leads to unexpected results. If we could dwell upon the point, 

 it would also, doubtless, give us a little better understanding of 

 what is meant by progress in morals. Usually, in treating this 

 subject, it is deemed sufficient to state that morality is immutable 

 in substance, but variable in accidents; which is true, but vague. 

 To hold, on the one hand, that it is wholly subject to change is 

 to deprive it of all stability, of all authority, and to deny what is 

 unquestionable that morality is inherent in the nature of things. 

 On the other hand, to assert that it is subject to no change is to 

 give the lie to history, to mutilate facts, to give a partial expla- 

 nation for a complete one, to juggle with difficulties instead of 

 resolving them. It is very evident that the moral ideas of the 

 France of to-day do not resemble those of the Franks in the time 

 of the long-haired kings ; and that no bishop of our day would 

 judge the crimes of Clovis as did Gregory of Tours, though he 

 sprang from a saintly family and was himself almost canonized. 



Unfortunately for us, this investigation has never been made. 

 If the invariable in morals had been clearly discriminated from 

 the variable, the primitive from the acquired, it would be easier to 

 ascertain the influence of heredity, for it can act only on the 

 variable element, which is subject to the law of evolution. Much 



