30 
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 which 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. J 
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 
ltnow 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 
