6 
falsehood, however little we might be able to trace the pro- 
cess by which all our conclusions are arrived at. And yet 
Consdenti this sense of responsibility, felt to be so vital to all 
outness in opi- virtue, is almost quiescent in a majority of men, in 
nion is vital : -i T , 1 • i * T j. x* • i , • • 
every class. Responsibility tor right opinion on 
some subjects is, indeed, distinctly questioned by many 
persons, and openly denied by not a few. People, no doubt, 
were startled in the last generation by the avowal of a cele- 
brated statesman, te that a man is no more responsible for 
his creed than for the colour of his skin.-” The public were 
not then prepared openly to adopt that view. But men have 
now come much nearer to it. Thus, in theory, the limits of 
what are thought “justifiable differences,” have been inde- 
finitely enlarged; and in practice the doctrine of “ extenuating 
circumstances” has been pushed to a hazardous extent. The 
pursuit of truth itself is often deemed to be quixotic, and the 
practice of virtue to lie beyond rigorous demand. The 
position supposed in the Duke of Argyll's 
perii. m mueh thoughtful and popular book, The Reign of Law , — 
viz., “ that all human actions are calculable before- 
hand,” may indicate a point now reached in England by the 
prevailing ethics ; and it may well arouse our attention ; though 
it would be wrong to conclude at once that the calculable may 
not be contingent, a priori , as the doctrine of chances may 
show. 
5. The moral import of this doctrine seems to some of us to 
be self evident ; but its ideal inconsistency with religion, and 
deontology in general, is sheltered by the familiar predes- 
tinarianism of our Puritan fellow countrymen, whose religious 
instincts happily have yet been strong enough to check, very 
greatly, certain logical results of their philosophy. But this 
cannot last. The pitiless self-assertion of logic must here, 
as elsewhere, be felt at last. 
That this doctrine of the “ Reign of Law ” is by no means 
peculiar to a Scottish philosophy, will be felt indeed by all 
who mark the ethical assumptions of our best-known litera- 
ture. The writings of Mr. Buckle, Mr. Lewes, Mr. Tyndall, 
Mr. Mill, and others, are pervaded by a kind of fatalistic 
tone, which society inclines to accept as te scientific ; ” though 
it is popu- an °P en denial of responsibility is of course 
la et y e d ven e m 7 rare ty ventured on. Wbat is absolutely needed 
Mill makes now is that men should be compelled to say care- 
some protest: f u qy and distinctly that which they have been 
assuming vaguely, so that their principles may be known and 
judged. 
6. For it is not in the higher literature alone that personal 
