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has endeavoured to preclude it, “ if not wholly, still partially.” 
Though this division of the work cannot, of course, contain 
the specific conclusions to be set forth in the entire work, 
“yet it implies them in such wise that definitely to formulate 
them requires nothing beyond logical deduction.” He adds 
that he was the more anxious to provide this outline of his 
final work because he considers that “ the establishment of 
rules of right conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need. 
Now that moral injunctions are losing the authority given by 
their supposed sacred origin, the secularization of morals is 
becoming imperative. Few things can happen more disastrous 
than the decay and death of a regulative system no longer fit,, 
before another and fitter regulative system has grown up to 
replace it.” There is a “ vacuum ” left by “ disappearance of 
the code of supernatural ethics,” and in his opinion, “ those 
who believe that it can be filled, and that it must be filled, are 
called on to do something in pursuance of their belief.” 
3. These, it may justly be said, are the highest pretensions 
which a philosopher could well put forward. The “ code of 
supernatural ethics ” which Mr. Spencer deems obsolete has 
been for many centuries the predominant force in the life of 
the most civilized portions of mankind. It has laid a strong 
grasp upon the whole of human conduct ; it has inspired men 
in life and has supported them in death. To propose to fill 
“the vacuum” which would be occasioned by the disappear- 
ance of this creed is much more than to offer a new theory on 
the subject of moral philosophy. It involves little less than 
founding a new religion. It is an attempt, in Mr. SpenceFs 
own words, to provide for “right and wrong,” and therefore 
for all moral conduct, a new “ basis,” and that a scientific 
one. Nor is this his only reason. He is persuaded that the 
prevalent system of morality is false in tone and injurious in 
its influence. “ Great mischief has been done by the repellent 
aspect habitually given to moral rule by its expositors; and 
immense benefits are to be anticipated from presenting moral 
rule under that attractive aspect which it has when undistorted 
by superstition and asceticism.” “Nor does mischief result 
only from this undue severity of the ethical doctrine be- 
queathed ns by the harsh past. Further mischief results 
from the impracticability of its ideal.” It upholds a standard 
of abnegation beyond human achievement, and “ the effect is 
to produce a despairing abandonment of all attempts at a 
higher life.” These observations will seem to many persons 
to offer a strangely perverted account of a Gospel which pro- 
mises blessings to all who accept it, and to betray a singular 
blindness to those “ attempts at a higher life ” which that 
