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faculty by means of which we immediately discover useful acts.1 We, however, prefer to say, as we said before, that conscience is a development, and grows with its environment. The race learns by experience that certain acts make happy and peaceful living together impossible, while others tend to create relations of harmony and good will, and gradually evolves a code of morals which, in a measure at least, tends to preservation or happiness, or whatever the end may be. These modes of conduct, which must be strictly enforced, become habitual or customary, and are surrounded with the feelings—all the way from fear of retaliation to pure obligation—which we noticed before. By the side of these feelings, which are more or less intense and easily hold the attention, the real purpose of the rules is lost sight of. Of course, it is not to be supposed that primitive societies carefully reasoned out the possible effects of certain conduct and then adopted a particular end or purpose by an act of parliament. But we may imagine, I believe, that the primitive man had sense enough to find out when he was hurt, and when he hurt some one else, and that in order to live at all every one had to have some regard for every one else. Humanity did not solve the problem of adapt

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1 Thus, Hutcheson says: "Certain feelings and acts are intuitively recognized as good; we have a natural sense of immediate excellence, and this is a supernaturally derived guide. All these feelings and acts agree in one general character, — of tending to happiness." See also Paley, Moral Philosophy.

2 See chap. iii.

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ing itself to its surroundings in a day; indeed, it is far from having mastered the subject even in the enlightened present.

The objection, then, that individuals are not always conscious of the ultimate ground of moral distinctions1 does not affect our theory at all. We can without difficulty explain both the immediacy with which moral judgments are uttered, and the ignorance of the agent with reference to the end or purpose upon which the law is based.

2. Categorical and Hypothetical Imperatives. Closely connected with this objection is the one that the teleological theory cannot explain the absoluteness of the moral law. The law, it is asserted, commands categorically or unconditionally, Thou shalt, Thou shalt not; and is apparently utterly regardless of ends or effects or experience. We answer, in the first place, that the so-called categorical imperative is the expression in language of the feeling of obligation within us, which speaks peremptorily, and that when we have explained this feeling we have explained the categorical imperative. Secondly, the teleological view will have to regard this imperative in the same light in which it views all imperatives or rules or commands or prescriptions. The claim of the teleological school is that acts are good or bad, right or wrong, according to the effects which they tend to produce.2 Stealing

1 See first edition of Spencer's Social Statics.
2 See, for example, Mill's Utilitarianism, p. 9.

lying, murder, cruelty, are wrong because they pro duce effects quite different from honesty, kindness, benevolence, etc. Moral rules, like all other rules, have a purpose in view; they command a certain act in order that an end may be reached. When the physician prescribes for you he lays down certain rules, the purpose or object of which is the restoration of your health. These prescriptions may be reduced to the hypothetical form, as follows: If you would get well, do thus or so. Though the physician's imperatives are peremptory or unconditional or categorical (as Kant would say) in form, though he may give no reason for them, they are virtually hypothetical in meaning. The same may be said of the moral imperatives. They are categorical in form: Thou shalt not steal; and hypothetical in meaning: If thou dost not desire certain consequences. The command, Do not steal, is not groundless or absolute or unconditional, as its form would indicate; its reason or ground, though not explicitly stated, is implied: because stealing tends to bring about certain effects.

3. Actual Effects and Natural Effects. Again, the objector declares, the moral worth of an act is not dependent upon its effects; nay, it is either good or bad utterly regardless of its results.1 Even though, owing to peculiar circumstances, the assassination of a tyrant may, all things considered, produce good effects, and the performance of a kind 1 See Kant and Martineau, chap. ii.

deed do the opposite, still murder is wrong and benevolence right.1

Very true, we should say. We do not maintain that an act is right or wrong because of the effects which it actually produces in a particular case, but because of the effects which it naturally tends to produce. Arsenic is a fatal poison because it naturally tends to cause death. Sometimes the usual effect fails to appear, but we say that this is exceptional, and still regard arsenic as a fatal poison. Falsehood, calumny, theft, treachery, and murder naturally tend to produce evil effects, and are therefore wrong. It lies in the very nature of these modes of conduct to do harm. The universe is so arranged that certain acts are bound to have certain effects, and human nature is so constituted that some effects are desired, others despised. Now whether we assume that God directly gave to man certain laws, the observance of which enables him to reach ends desired by him, or whether we assume that man discovered them himself, the fact remains, that morality realizes a purpose, and that this purpose is the ground for its existence.

1 Cardinal Newman says: "The Church holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from the heavens, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, so far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, will not say should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin, should tell one wilful untruth, though it harmed no one, or steal one poor farthing without excuse."- Anglican Difficulties, p. 190. Compare with this Fichte's statement, "I would not break my word even to save humanity."

Besides, it would be very difficult to prove that the slaying of the tyrant had no evil effects, and the benevolent deeds no good ones. Human nature is so constituted that the commission of a crime like murder cannot fail to do harm. The experience of mankind shows that the results of such a deed are baneful, and you can hardly prove that they will be absent in a particular case. Who can say that the murder of Julius Cæsar, or of Alexander II of Russia, or even of Caligula, was a blessing? Who would be willing to live in a society in which even the killing of tyrannical governors became the rule?

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4. A Hypothetical Question Answered. But, the common-sense moralist insists, even though murder and theft naturally tended to produce effects opposite to those which they now produce, they would still be wrong. The teleologist would answer: I cannot imagine such a state of affairs in a world constituted like ours. As things go here, these forms of conduct cannot help producing effects which humanity condemns. Still, for the sake of argument, I will suppose your case. And let me first ask you a question. Would charity and honesty and loyalty and truthfulness still be virtues if they led to the overthrow of the world, if they caused sorrow and suffering, if they destroyed the life and progress and happiness of mankind? It does not seem plausible, does it? If murder and theft and falsehood really tended to produce opposite effects, mankind would not have condemned them. If murder were life

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