Sheldon — The Literature of Ethical Science. 107 



Spencer, who teaches that the acquired experience of the 

 human soul has become hereditary in certain ethical maxims 

 or intuitions, just as it has in the axioms of mathematics. 

 But this latter standpoint is tied up with the unsettled problem 

 as to the possibility of the inheritance of acquired character- 

 istics. 



Yet in spite of the seeming contradictions in the codes or 

 utterances of the moral sense, there are still a number of 

 eminent scholars who believe that conscience is irreducible or 

 underived, and therefore is an original endowment of the 

 human soul. To quote from some of them: *' There is 

 a principle of self -development in man," in virtue of 

 which, "he anticipates experience," Thomas Hill Green; 

 *< the feeling of the ought is primary, essential, unique; the 

 judgments as to what one ought are the results of environ- 

 ment, education and reflection," George Trumbull Ladd; 

 "A unique and irresoluble kind of knowledge, — " Marti- 

 neau; " Eeason discovering universal truth," Calderwood; 

 * ' The consciousness of right and wrong is underived and wit- 

 nesses to a supra-sensible principle in man," Pres. Schurman, 

 of Cornell. 



The standpoint here will depend a good deal on whether the 

 writer accepts a certain spiritual element in the human being 

 which is not in the animal consciousness, and therefore a 

 certain intellectual element in conscience. The Idealists, as I 

 have called them, will be inclined to defend an original ele- 

 ment here. But those who regard the moral sense as having 

 its basis only in feeling, may make a strong effort to reduce it 

 to simpler elements. The favorite doctrine among this group 

 of minds is that conscience is a feeling of self -approbation or 

 self-disapprobation in connection with certain classes of con- 

 duct. We have, therefore, a long list of able scholars who 

 have been working faithfully and persistently to trace the 

 genesis of the moral sense simply as a feeling and to describe 

 the steps of its evolution. The point with them is chiefly to 

 account for the existence of Altruism, — how is it that 

 instinctively we feel ashamed of selfishness? 



The two big volumes by Sutherland are written for the 



