Moral Responsibility. 31 



rently taught for acting well, and naturally accept them as 

 valid and true. But though the conduct of a few may give 

 some plausibility to the notion that their theoretical princi- 

 ples cause their pure practice, the indisputable facts — that 

 religions are as antagonistic as they are various ; that men 

 are good or bad, though of any or no religion ; that large 

 numbers are, equally with the best, exposed to religious influ- 

 ences without becoming moral ; and that the most pious 

 men have been betrayed into vindictive and cruel intoler- 

 ance by their religious principles and feelings, — prove that 

 virtue is caused not by religion, but rather by individual 

 intelligence and temperament, developed by cultivation and 

 modified by those natural conditions of climate, diet, and 

 scenery, or what Mr. Buckle calls "aspects of nature," 

 which determine the general characteristics of nations and 

 their local moral customs. These, again, are of course 

 affected by changes in their social relations and their 

 advances towards civilization. And it seems to me a griev- 

 ous libel upon those whom we instinctively revere and love for 

 their inherent virtues (aswell as an outrage up on commonsense) 

 to say that they are by nature and inclination abominably 

 sinful ; and that their good qualities are not really theirs, 

 but are wholly attributable either to a theoretical system 

 current where they happened to be born, or to the overrul- 

 ing influence of a capricious Deity, impiously asserted to 

 soften or harden whom he will. 



Moral rules have sometimes been advantageously formu- 

 lated by teachers of religion, who were compelled to adopt 

 and incorporate them with their dogmas, to which they could 

 otherwise never have hoped to secure a listener. For no 

 theory of immorality would be tolerated among men. Every 

 religionist devoutly fancies that it is his religion which 

 makes him good, and is surprised that others can be good on 

 any other principles ; indeed, he is often inclined to deny the 

 fact, and to regard their virtue as mainly spurious ; whereas, 

 in truth, his own virtue is owing to his superior organisation 

 and to the natural morality with which he has associated his 

 religion, and which alone renders it acceptable. As a proof 

 of this we find that whenever the religion has been pushed 

 into predominance, morality has been to the same extent 

 sacrificed ; real moral ties have been subordinated to sup- 

 posed supernatural duty, and violated to such an extent as 

 to produce among rude nations, even the immolation, not 

 only of enemies by their conquerors, but of children by their 



