156 Mr. Buckle's Fallacies. [ix. 



murder of Gentiles was considered rather a meritori- 

 ous act than otherwise. And in general, where the 

 same " moral truths " have been received, it has been 

 in as many different ways as there were dififerent 

 kinds of people to receive them. This fact, that the 

 way in which generally-received truths are understood 

 varies as the complexity of the sciences to which 

 they belong, results from the obvious circumstance 

 that the more complex a science is, the less we know 

 about it. As we know less about moral science than 

 about any other, our opinions, even about those 

 "moral truths" which are universally admitted, are 

 more liable to change than our opinions about 

 similarly-received truths in other matters. Mr. 

 Buckle could have, therefore, no ground for asserting 

 that the interpretation put upon " moral truths " is 

 unchanging as compared with that put upon " intel- 

 lectual truths." 



Our author says, somewhat inconsistently, that 

 " moral truths " receive no additions, and again that 

 they receive /^zf^r additions than "intellectual truths." 

 We shall speedily show that the first of these state- 

 ments is at variance with fact, and that the second 

 has no logical value, and will not help his argument 

 in the least. 



It is not true that " moral truths " have received no 



