214 



show themselves. Who does not know that such never is the 

 case ? Inherited moral intuitions are only figments of the 

 wildest fancy;, whether we understand the phrase to mean 

 moral ideas as thoughts, or states of nerve, as Mr. Spencer 

 seems to understand it. The moral intuitions/^ in either 

 sense, instead of descending from sire to son, are, in innu- 

 merable instances, found to be just the reverse in the one 

 from that vs^hich they are in the other. Hereditary morality, 

 like hereditary wisdom, has not hitherto evolved itself to the 

 satisfaction of mankind. Neither in the keenness of the 

 moral sense, nor in the clearness of the moral idea, can men 

 rationally trust to inheritance. If anything be evident, 

 that is. 



To what, then, shall we trace this moral sense as to its 

 origin ? We are looking to an individual man — one of our- 

 selves — what efficient cause produced in that man the capacity 

 of feeling to which our thoughts have been directed ? Who 

 gave the talent upon the good use of which so much in the 

 present and future is depending ? I feel shut up to reply that 

 He who gave that soul being gave it the capacities which are 

 its modes of being. He who gave the talent, and He alone, 

 can require his own with usury. This is the result of the 

 purest reason, and scorns the aid which is supposed to come 

 from a merely credulous faith. It is of the nature of that 

 faith which is the conclusion reached by the most severe logic 

 of which the human soul is capable. Begin with two of the 

 most undecomposable states in which that soul can be 

 conscious, these two states differing from each other. There 

 will be a thought of the difference. Let there be another 

 state differing again, and another thought will be the issue. 

 Sensations will be compared with sensations, thoughts with 

 thoughts, volitions with volitions, and all among each other — ■ 

 results will follow such as reach the highest truth. Let this 

 process but go on honestly and fairly, and the Great Author 

 of all being, and of all its essential modes, will stand in His 

 divine majesty and goodness before the soul as the true 

 origin of every capacity of both the lower and the higher 

 creations. 



If this grand result is to be reached, however, there must 

 be no wilful halting at points in the progress of reason, such 

 as are some of those I have indicated — no saying that you 

 Icnow the sequence of moral affections to be always certain 

 and invariable, when you know only a fraction of even your 

 own experience of these sequences, and yet saying that 

 whether these sequences are necessary or not, on that point 

 you can offer no opinion. There must be no bewilderment 



