230 



HUXLEY 



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. 



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 in- 

 nate sense of moral beauty and ugliness (how origi- 

 nated 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 en- 

 chanted 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. 1 



Now for this sort of people there is no reason why 

 they should discharge any sort of moral duty, ex- 

 cept from fear of punishment in 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 

 beauty there is no need of any other motive. What 

 they want is knowledge of the things they may do 

 and must leave undone, if the welfare of society is 



1 Cf. Coll. Essays, \i. p. 239. 



