REV. PREBENDARY WACE, D.D., ON ETHICS AND RELIGION. 145 
appears to me to make an over-statement in the following passage : 
“Some of the most vital principles of the moral law—such 
as the golden rule of doing as you would be done by—are so 
deeply embedded in human nature as to be universally acknow- 
ledged as a general rule of action.” 
Is this principle acknowledged by savage nations in warfare, 
which forms so large an element in their national or tribal life ? 
Or was it generally acted upon in ancient warfare even among 
so-called civilized nations? In fact, morality seems to me very 
much a matter of education. While I fully and freely admit 
that all mankind has a conscience, I must at the same time hold 
that this conscience requires to be enlightened, among heathens 
and non-Christians by reason, and among Christians by the 
teachings of revelation. No doubt heathens and others have 
arrived in many respects at a knowledge of ‘the absolutely 
right.” But this result is the product of reason acting on 
knowledge and experience. Granted that every man has a 
conscience or standard to which he submits actions for approval 
or disapproval, will he everywhere pass the same judgment on 
those actions? Surely not. It therefore appears to me that 
moral ideas cannot be regarded as innate. 
