APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 167 



by which this end is to be attained are discoverable 

 —like the other so-called laws of Nature— by ob- 

 servation and experiment, and only in that way. 



Some thousands of years of such experience have 

 led to the generalisations, that stealing and murder, 

 for example, are inconsistent with the ends of society. 

 There is no more doubt that they are so than that 

 unsupported stones tend to fall. The man who 

 steals or murders, breaks his implied contract with 

 society, and forfeits all protection. He becomes an 

 outlaw, to be dealt with as any other feral creature. 

 Criminal law indicates the ways which have proved 

 most convenient for dealing with him. 



All this would be true if men had no " moral sense " 

 at all, just as there are rules of perspective which 

 must be strictly observed by a draughtsman, and are 

 quite independent of his having any artistic sense. 



CCCLXIX 



The moral sense is a very complex affair— de- 

 pendent in part upon associations of pleasure and 

 pain, approbation and disapprobation formed by 

 education in early youth, but in part also on an 

 innate sense of moral beauty and ugliness (how 

 originated need not be discussed), which is possessed 

 by some people in great strength, while some are 

 totally devoid of it— just as some children draw, or 

 are enchanted by music while mere infants, while 

 others do not know "Cherry Ripe" from "Rule 

 Britannia," nor can represent the form of the simplest 

 thing to the end of their lives. 



Now for this last sort of people there is no reason 

 why they should discharge any moral duty, except 

 from fear of punishment m all its grades, from mere 

 disapprobation to hanging, and the duty of society is 

 to see that they live under wholesome fear of such 

 punishment short, sharp, and decisive. 



For the people with a keen innate sense of moral 



