SCIENCE OF RECTITUDE AS DISTINCT FROM EXPEDIENCE, 137 
of a new table of degrees of kindred and affinity, and could 
not be expected to point out under what circumstances one 
nation may legitimately take up arms against another, and 
whether or not judicial oaths should be deemed unlawful, 
they are therefore merely distinguishing the expedient from 
the inexpedient when they seem to show themselves sensible 
of an essential difference between right and wrong. What 
if “the Turkish woman exposing her face is no less con- 
science-smitten than if she had murdered her child?”’* Such 
facts as this illustrate the influence which prevalent opinion, 
especially in the absence of large and liberal culture, com- 
monly exercises in determining the formation of individual 
minds, and the extent to which the moral sentiment may 
become distorted in its growth under the unhealthy pressure 
of a social tyranny. But, if adduced by way of proof that 
no determinate criteria of right and wrong actions are to be 
found in the voices of individual consciences, they are beside 
the purpose; for the Science of Rectitude presupposes that 
the moral sense is not an originative, but a receptive 
faculty, and can attain no healthy and robust development 
apart from the vigorous exercise of the intellectual powers, 
and from habits of mind acquired by resolute suppression 
of sensual and selfish impulses in conformity with the re- 
quirements of the highest reason. The education which 
has for its end and aim the regeneration of the human race, 
brings more and more distinctly into view the principles 
and applications of the science which teaches man his Duty ; 
but whatever further development they are destined to 
receive in ages to come in the operation of reforming laws, 
customs, sentiments, and modes of thought, and through the 
revolutions wherein the survivals of all barbarism will at 
length become wholly extinct, they will still be, as now, the 
exposition of those Two Commandments on which hang all 
the Law and the Prophets. 
The President (Sir G. Gasriet Stoxes, Bart., P.R.S.).—I willask 
you to return your thanks to the author of this paper, who has 
travelled from a distant part of the country in the present some- 
what inclement weather to lay it before us. He has treated his 
subject very fully and exhaustively, and I may say for myself that 
I haye listened to him with great pleasure, and think that the 
sentiments he has given utterance to will find wide acceptance. 
* Mental and Moral Science, by A. Bain, “ Ethics,” Part 1, ch. iii, § 11, 
