1877.] ORIGIN OF THE WILL. 453 
Each man must learn the merits of different courses of action in 
regard to morals for himself; his intelligence places before him the 
facts, and shows him how to execute his wishes, but the state of 
his affections determines the direction of his acts. Moral ameliora- 
tion has attended the progress of intelligence on the one hand, and 
moral abasement on the other. Intelligence is the condition of the 
_ perception of moral truth ; in other words, intelligence, as applied 
to moral questions, is the conscience. Consequences of acts are 
understood, and their relations to the pleasures and pains of men 
are weighed. Thus, no doubt, the world has advanced in the 
knowledge of good and evil, and of right and wrong. That it has 
improved in the practice of right has not been due to the inheri- 
tance of respect for law, but to the self-destructive nature of wrong. 
That continued wrong sooner or later ends in the destruction of 
the wrong-doer, either from within or without, must be generally 
admitted. Thusis the truth of the doctrine: of “the survival of the 
fittest” vindicated in moral as in natural law. But it is also true 
that this law is restrictive only, and that the school of Hume and 
_ Bentham has overlooked the deeper oviginative law in moral phil- 
osophy, as the school of Darwin has done in biological philosophy. 
It may still be urged that, if it be granted that experience of the 
pains of evil-doing be not transmitted as an intellectual acquisition 
from generation to generation, nevertheless such experience is 
sufficient to educate each separate generation as it passes, without 
any other than automatic action on their part. It may be replied 
to this that the results thus obtained are not due to will, but simply 
follow compulsion, the motive thus created only varying in strength 
with the characters of the individuals. Its success is restricted to 
circumstances where the penalties are sufficiently certain to consti- 
tute counter-inducements to effect the necessary restraint. This 
can only be the case with the weaker members of society. Wher- 
ever there is sufficient power to escape penalties, wrong-doing has 
no restraint. Under such a system might and right are identical; 
for the strongest needs no protection of law. It is true that 
society can combine against a single malefactor, but it is also true 
that malefactors can combine. In fact, it is one of the usual phe- 
nomena of human society, to find men becoming malefactors as 
soon as they attain to power; or to find society governed by a few 
malefactors who have an army to enforce their pleasure. 
