3 2 4 



LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY chap, xviii 



A letter to Mr. W. P. Clayton also discusses the basis 

 of morality. 



Hodeslea, Eastbourne, Xov. 5, 1S92. 



Dear Sir — I well remember the interview to which you 

 refer, and I should have replied to your letter sooner, but during 

 the last few weeks I have been very busy. 



' Moral duty consists in the observance of those rules of con- 

 duct which contribute to the welfare of society, and by implica- 

 tion, of the individuals who compose it. 



The end of society is peace and mutual protection, so that 

 the individual may reach the fullest and highest life attainable 

 by man. The rules of conduct by which this end is to be attained 

 are discoverable — like the other so-called laws of Nature — by 

 observation and experiment, and only in that way. 



Some thousands of years of such experience have led to the 

 generalisations, that stealing and murder, for example, are in- 

 consistent with the ends of society. There is no more doubt 

 that they are so than that unsupported stones tend to fall. The 

 man who steals or murders, breaks his implied contract with 

 society, and forfeits all protection. He becomes an outlaw, 

 to be dealt with as any other feral creature. Criminal law indi- 

 cates the ways which have proved most convenient for dealing 

 with him. 



All this would be true if men had no " moral sense " at all, 

 just as there are rules of perspective which must be strictly 

 observed by a draughtsman, and are quite independent of his 

 having any artistic sense. 



The moral sense is a very complex affair — dependent in part 

 upon associations of pleasure and pain, approbation and disap- 

 probation formed by education in early youth, but in part also 

 on an innate sense of moral beauty and ugliness (how origi- 

 nated need not be discussed), which is possessed by some people 

 in great strength, while some are totally devoid of it — just as 

 some children draw, or are enchanted by music while mere 

 infants, while others do not know " Cherry Ripe " from " Rule 

 Britannia," nor can represent the form of the simplest thing to 

 the end of their lives. 



Now for this last sort of people there is no reason why they 

 should discharge any moral duty, except from fear of punish- 

 ment in all its grades, from mere disapprobation to hanging, 

 and the duty of society is to see that they live under wholesome 

 fear of such punishment short, sharp, and decisive. 



For the people with a keen innate sense of moral beauty 



