258 The Ethics of Opvnion. 
judgments. When “ A.K.H.B.” says, “ There are some views 
“which show not merely a wrong head, but some moral per- 
“version, *—whois responsible for the wrong head and moral 
perversion, if not the maker of the one and governing cause 
of the other? When he says, “There was a man, a year or 
“two ago, who maintained by argument that he had a per- 
“fect right to murder his wife and children, and who acted 
“on that BELIEF. Society said to him, ‘WE SHALL NOT 
“*DISCUSS THE QUESTION WITH YOU; only your ways of 
“<thinking and ours are so opposed, that it is plain we can- 
““not both go on together ; and as you are in the minority, 
““you must give way, so we shall hang you.’ Thus society 
“hanged him, and it unquestionably SERVED HIM RIGHT.” + 
To this I also say, yes, quite right; BECAUSE that was the 
only way to convince him, and others like or unlike him, 
thatthe right which he claimed (and which neither“ A.K.H.B.” 
nor society appear to have been able to dispute), included that 
evil consequence to himself. This he appears to have been so 
stupid as to fail to understand : That in the last resort, power 
constitutes right, cannot be consistently denied. Nature 
confers upon every man a right to do whatever she gives him 
power to do ; BUT, she annexes appropriate and inevitable con- 
sequences to every act, and gives man generally, also, reason 
and capacity to judge from experience of them, what is best, 
or wisest, or right to be done, and what is worst, or foolish, 
or wrong; according as those consequences may be probably 
good or.evil to himself. To consequences then, and to conse- 
quences only, can man be properly said to be responsible. 
Self-interest is the only natural, valid, efficient basis of morals. 
Even in those systems with which man, presumptuously dis- 
satisfied with nature’s administration, has endeavoured to 
supersede natural morality by imagining supernatural and 
unnatural rewards and punishments, the same principle is still 
in fact invariably adopted, but wholly stultified and rendered 
abortive by the distance and uncertainty of the motives pro- 
posed. Asa general rule, to which there are now I believe 
but a few doubtful exceptions, all physical force acts inversely 
as the square of the distance, whether in time or space ; and 
moral power is simply the indirect operation of physical 
force. Also, though it may appear precipitate to assert or 
assume that the same absolute proportion subsists between 
moral, as between physical causes and effects, experience 
* Longmans, p. 39. + Lbid, p. 319. 
