460 
Natural Science and Morality . 
[July, 
Necessity suggested in that letter, was very analogous to a 
means proposed by the late Prof. Clifford in an oral ledture. 
This independent deduction of the same result by different 
minds may perhaps be regarded rather as a confirmation of 
its truth than not. Mr. Romanes, who apparently accepts 
the reasoning given in the fetter (on Brain ynam ) 
“as far as it goes,” nevertheless remarks that both there 
and in Prof. Clifford’s ledture, “The Prince of Denmark 
responsibility had been omitted; and he seems to hold the 
view that the feelings of responsibility, praise, and blame, 
cannot be reconciled with the doftrine of stndt physical 
causation, and suggests at the end of his letter that t ese 
feelings may be destitute of any rational basis. The follow 
ine is the passage by Mr. Romanes:— , . , 
“What then, it cannot but be asked, is the psychological 
explanation of these deeply-rooted feelings of responsibility, 
praise, and blame, which can never be eradicated by any 
evidence of their irrationality? To me it appears the only 
answer is that these feelings have been gradually formed as 
instinas, which, while undoubtedly of much benefit to the 
race, are destitute of any rationaljustification. — ( Nature, 
^ This is the only point where we would venture to differ 
with Mr. Romanes (while otherwise fully endorsing his 
letter) Possibly the above carefully considered conclusions 
may serve as some help out of this difficulty, which has 
always been regarded as a formidable one. It would at all 
events seem to us a priori more probable that the function 
of science should rather be to explain the “instinas de- 
veloped in man, than to show them to be devoid of rational 
foundation. Precisely on account of the beneficial light 
that science may be expeaed to shed on matters of this 
kind does it become all the more difficult to understand the 
half-expressed repugnance of some to scientific inquiry on 
subieas of this class — almost as if it were imagined that 
the discovery of truth was a thing more to be dreaded than 
the persistence of error. 
Conclusion . — Since life is valuable only in proportion to 
its happiness, or happiness is the object of existence, the 
struggle for life therefore becomes synonymous with the 
struggle for happiness, and the practice of conduct favour- 
able to happiness constitutes morality. Just as the life 01 
the individual receives important aid from the community 
(to whom the individual owes some of the essential condi- 
tions for his continued existence ) ; so in the same way the 
