COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



prove of certain actions, we do so because we con- 

 sciously and deliberately reason out, in each par- 

 ticular case, the conclusion that these actions are 

 beneficial to mankind ? By no means. Not only 

 is it that the highest science cannot always enable 

 us to say surely of a given action that it is use- 

 ful to mankind, but it is also that we do not 

 stop to apply science to the matter at all. We 

 approve of certain actions and disapprove of cer- 

 tain actions quite instinctively. We shrink from 

 stealing or lying as we shrink from burning our 

 fingers ; and we no more stop to frame the 

 theorem that stealing and lying, if universally 

 practised, must entail social dissolution and a 

 reversion to primeval barbarism, than we stop 

 to frame the theorem that frequent burning of 

 the fingers must entail an incapacity for efii- 

 cient manual operations. In short, there is in 

 our psychical structure a moral sense which is 

 as quickly and directly hurt by wrong-doing or 

 the idea of wrong-doing as our tactile sense is 

 hurt by stinging. 



Shall we then maintain, as a corollary from 

 the Doctrine of Evolution, that our moral sense 

 is due to the organic registration, through count- 

 less ages, of deliberate inferences that some ac- 

 tions benefit Humanity, while others injure it ? 

 Shall we say that the primeval savage began by 

 reasoning his way to the conclusion that if 

 treachery were to be generally allowed within 

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