least intelligent nor the least respectable members of the community, there is an irresistible temptation to look for some scientific morality, founded on what is permanent and unquestionable, that is, on what are called the laws of Nature. Morality would then become a positive science. There is, however, already a positive science of morality which is entirely different from this. It states what the various moralities have been in the past, and what the surviving moralities are in the present; but it supplies no rule for a fixed morality in the future. It says simply that at such a time, in such a country, certain actions were approved as right and others considered wrong. It studies and describes the difference between the notion of patriotism in the time of the great Condé, and the notion of patriotism in the time of Thiers and Gambetta. It observes that the notion of honor for gentlemen and officers was quite different when "Manon Lescaut'' was written from the same notion when Octave Feuillet composed his novels, and, again, that Feuillet's notion of an artist's honor differed widely from any English conception of the same. This is the scientific study of morality; but when you appeal to Science for any permanent and universal rule that is to settle all moral questions whatever, her only answer can be that Nature does not supply the rule, and that morality belongs to human experience. This is the weak point of Natural Religion, which might otherwise have had a considerable success, especially in the present day, when the study of Nature has become general. The Universe is, no doubt, of inexhaustible interest as a study in mechanics, in chemistry, and in biology; but if we want to study morality we find it only in the imperfect experiments of Man. It may exist elsewhere, beyond our world, among superior races of whom nothing is known to us. The disappointment caused by the absence of morality in Nature has led some writers, especially M. Renan, to speak of her "transcendent immorality. it seems that the word "immorality" conveys also an erroneous impression in its application to Nature. The action of the natural forces is neither moral nor immoral; it is perfectly neutral in this respect. When the sea dashes a vessel on the rocks it does not commit murder; the wind raises the waves, the rocks are strong

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enough to resist the shock, the vessel is crushed between rock and wave, the men are drowned, the causes and effects are all physical, there is really no moral aspect of the matter. It would be easy to hold up Nature as an example of everything that human beings ought to avoid. It has been said that she sets an example of incalculable waste joined to what, in human beings, would be criminal neglect. Millions of animals and thousands of poor or delicate people perish every year from cold, while at the same time there is a prodigious dissipation of solar heat, lost in infinite space, a very minute fraction of which would suffice to keep all shivering creatures in comfort. Some philosophers have written prettily about the beautiful economy of Nature, the anxious care with which everything is utilized, the merciful provision for all creatures, and other such poetical imaginings. The only rational course is simply to abstain from attributing either virtue or vice to the processes of the natural universe, as they have no connection with either. We, being human, ought not to follow Nature as a model. She has her own work to do as we have We may at least admire her great forces and her regularity; but we are not called upon to imitate her indifference. It is only too much imitated already by the indifference of the conqueror, the trapper, and the vivisector. When Napoleon said to Metternich, "What do I care for the lives of a million of men?" he was going further in the imitation of Nature than any human being has a right to go. Nature never disputes the right of the cleverest and the strongest to torture and oppress the weak; but it is not a moral right. Slave-hunting in Africa is a convenient because persistent example. I need not describe the horrors of it, and indeed know them only by the reports of others; but if these reports are even partially true, slave-hunting must be a diabolical combination of many cruelties, and it has been going on from time immemorial. During all that time what has Nature done, what part has she had in the matter? The an swer could be little more than an account of physical processes. After the infliction of wounds the natural processes have in some cases been followed by death, and in others by tedious sufferings and partial or complete recovery. When the slaves were put into ships some were asphyxiated by

want of oxygen in the hold, others were drowned after being flung into the sea. As for the slave-hunters they underwent fatigue; they bore hot and toilsome marches, and consequently they perspired. These bare physical facts constitute Nature's share in the matter. An idealist anxious to prove some theory of retribution would tell us that the slave-hunters were punished by becoming coarse and brutalized as a consequence of their way of life; but men never feel it to be an inferiority in themselves to be coarse and brutal; on the contrary, they pride themselves on it as evidence of manliness, and they look down with unfeigned contempt on the gentle, the tender, and the merciful.*

The absence of a moral sanction in what we call Nature" may be a reason for the frequently narrow and partial acknowledgment of moral obligation by mankind. It is, I believe, authoritatively taught by the Church of Rome that we have no moral obligation toward the lower animals; this is, at least, a doctrine generally accepted by Roman Catholic populations both in France and Italy, and it leads to horrible. cruelty, especially in Sicily. When remonstrated with for his barbarity, the

* An accident that happened to an acquaint. ance of one of my friends presents the subject of natural and human action in a concentrated form. This gentleman was crossing a railway at a place where there were points. His boot slipped into the angle of the rails, so that it was held by the sole, and he could not extricate it on the instant. A train was approaching, and before coming to a standstill the engine knocked the unfortunate gentleman down and killed him. The incident was witnessed with extreme horror by many spectators on the platform. A rational account of it is simply that a heavy body, set in motion by the expansion of steam, had acquired too much momentum for an instantaneous stoppage, and that it passed over a living obstacle too weak to offer an effectual resistance. This is a sufficient explanation, without having recourse to an imaginary justice, according to which the victim would have rightly incurred capital punishment as a suitable penalty for his carelessness in letting his boot slip between the rails. The incident was neither just nor unjust, but simply natural; nor was there any supernatural intervention to save the victim from his fate. There was ample time for a miracle, but it did not occur. We have no evidence of either cruelty or pity, except that the human spectators were shocked; [the human beings behave in their own emotional way, and the natural forces with their exact regularity and their absolute indifference.

Sicilian settles the question in his own opinion by the answer, "The beast has not been baptized, it is not a Christian.” If the Church does not teach him consideration for animals (and she does not) there is nothing in Nature to remind him of any duty toward "the inferior kinds." They suffer, perish, and are replaced; these are the simple facts, and Nature has never inculcated anything beyond them.*

If it is objected that this view of Nature as morally a neutral power is degrading and discouraging, it may be answered, firstly, that it corresponds with all the facts that come within the range of observation, and, secondly, that so far as human life is concerned it is not more discouraging than the ideas about Nature that have been prevalent in the past. Ever since men have been able to perceive that natural operations are wanting in moral perfection, they have attributed many of them to maleficent powers, dangerous not only to the body but to the soul of man, and the world has seemed to them like a bewildering forest set with traps and pitfalls by the agency of evil spirits. Since man began to be intelligent and to develop his own moral sense, he has never really and heartily approved of Nature, and the small respect he has paid her is shown by his constant disregard of what seem to be her plainest intentions, as, for example, by

* I once knew a French veterinary surgeon who described to me the education given at Alfort which had been his own. Considered as training only, it is excellent. The pupils perform all sorts of terrible operations on liv. ing animals, the same horse undergoing as many operations as it can recover from, till at last it dies. I protested against this on behalf of the poor brutes, but my acquaintance answered, "You are quite mistaken, there is no reason for regret whatever, the animals are of very little value-fifty or sixty francs, perhaps." And I found it absolutely impossible to make him understand that my protest had no reference to money. Compassion for animals was a sentiment of which he had no knowledge or experience, yet he was accurately acquainted with the physical processes of Nature which it was his business to observe, and he found nothing in these processes to suggest compassion for the brute. My own feelings of pity would have seemed childish or womanish if he could have understood them at all, but they were completely unintelligible to him. Now, I cannot conceal from myself that he was much nearer to Nature than I was. He took no pleasure in the torture of animals, but he had no objection to it, and in both he resembled Nature.

his mutilation of animals in every civilized country. It may seem ridiculous to mention shaving, but if the intentions of Nature were regarded as sacred, people would no more venture to set up their own judg. ment against hers, even in minor matters, than they would alter the syllables of scriptures held to be inspired. It would be a sin to destroy the germs of life; no truly pious person would venture to boil an egg.

It does not appear, therefore, that modern opinions about Nature mark any novel opposition between what is natural and what is human; on the contrary, it might be argued that the modern acceptation of Nature's moral indifference, combined with her absolute regularity in her own order, is more favorable to a certain respect for Nature than all previous human ideas about her. The ways of the universe are not our ways, but they can be absolutely relied upon. The new element in our beliefs is not the non-human character of Nature, but the perfect trust that can be placed in her infallible regularity. If she is neither tender, nor merciful, nor just, she is never capricious.

Again, our most recent ideas about human morality are not so new as they appear. The severance of it from nonhuman nature is as ancient as the notion of controlling a natural instinct or denying it a satisfaction, and if we are trying now to form a morality, the main difference between us and our ancestors is that some of us are fully conscious of the process, and they were unconscious. They did, in reality, form and modify the moralities that were practically their rules of life. Religious and philosophical teachers provided them with ideal precepts, for which they professed admiration, but they themselves made and modified, from age to age, their binding codes of duty and honor. If it seems to us that those codes were imperfect, we are as free to improve upon them as they were to ameliorate those of their forefathers. And if it is asked what sanction we have to enforce our decisions, the answer is that the old sanction exists still, and that there bas never been any other. The only efficacious sanction is public opinion; even the most powerful of all Churches could only punish heresy when public opinion looked upon the heretic as a criminal. After public opinion decided that the heretic ought not to be

burnt or tortured, he was burnt and tortured no longer. Then came a tedious interval, during which public opinion refused to apply physical torture to heretics, while it approved of moral inflictions in the shape of social and political disabilities; heretics were relieved from all apprehension of the rack and the stake, but they were subjected to a kind of social paralysis. They were not allowed to occupy any position of importance in the State; it was practically difficult for them even to marry and to exercise paternal authority. In our time religious disabilities are rapidly disappearing in England, while they have entirely disappeared in France, except as a matter of caste. The change has been brought about by a more enlightened public opinion, which does not approve of forcing people into falsehood. It may possibly go a step beyond that, and decide that nobody ought even to be tempted, though force is no longer exercised. It is immoral to make a will by which a large sum of money is bequeathed to some one on condition that he professes certain religious opinions. The English law of succession is immoral, because in possible cases it offers a temptation to untruth, which hardly any human being would have strength to resist. An heir to the throne has access, by his education, to books in several languages; as a private reader he may be familiar with the most advanced philosophical speculations, or the bent of his nature may lead him away from these to the poetry of a ceremonial religion. Mentally he might agree with Renan or with Cardinal Newman, but to reveal his opinions, in either case, would be to forfeit the crown of England. In other words the law, as it at present stands, would in certain cases convert the crown of England into a reward for persistent dissimulation. Men pray not to be led into temptation, yet they tempt others into certain forms of dishonesty. They would think it wrong to tempt a servant to steal, but they spread snares of temptation against the private honor and the moral dignity of the poor. So with children, if we want to educate them into habits of truthfulness, we ought not to tempt them into falsehood, merely because the truth would be unpleasant to their elders. The experiment of allowing young people to say what they really think has sometimes been tried, and it is found

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to offer certain advantages, particularly this one, that as the parents do not wish to be deceived, they are not deceived, their children are really known to them. Why force upon them what Mr. James Payn calls sham admiration in literature"? A boy dislikes the Latin poets, but enjoys Shakespeare. If we know his taste, we perceive that he does not yet appreciate the labored finish of classical workmanship, but enjoys exuberance of invention, and where is the harm of knowing so much about the boy?

The history of public opinion is briefly this. In simple conditions of society it is unconscious, and takes the form of obedience to a military chief and a sacerdotal authority. In a later stage public opinion is that of a majority powerful enough to reduce minorities to silence. In the England of Prince Albert's time public opinion was that of the partially educated middle class. It was then held to be the duty of cultivated thinkers to accept the decisions of that class on all questions of politics, theology, and morals. The complete emancipation of culture from the incubus of middle-class opinion belongs to the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The consequence is that public opinion has gained by having an element of intelligence in addition to its ancient elements of experience and common-sense. So strengthened, will it be able to form a perfect morality? That is not probable; indeed, there are good reasons for believing that a perfect morality is useful only as an ideal, that its reduction to practice can never become possible, and would never be entirely desirable; but it is likely that public opinion, with the help of outspoken and honest intellectual leaders, will improve popular morality. There are two faults in the present condition of society for which it is not unreasonable to expect a continuous amendment. People may become more truthful when there are no longer any social or legal penalties against honesty, and they may live more austerely when they find that simplicity of life is not attended by any loss of consideration. Many and very various moral benefits would result from these two improvements alone. The habit of truthfulness will be found, on considering its wide-reaching effects on conduct, to ensure much, though not all, of sexual morality also, for cases of seduction are almost invariably accomNEW SERIES-VOL. LIV., No. 1.

panied by false promises, and there is no accompaniment of adultery more constant, and, as it seems, more inevitable, than persistent acting and lying. If, then, it were possible to make men honest, we should, with very rare exceptions, get rid of these two forms of sexual error. As to simplicity of life, there would be good hopes for this virtue if the penalties against it were removed. The desire for luxury is not by any means universal, perhaps it is not even very common, though it certainly seems to be common. That which men do universally desire is human consideration, at least enough of it to avoid contempt, and a multitude of people are living in far more comfort and luxury than they really care about in order not to be despised. Now, it is entirely within the power of public opinion to relieve the world from the weariness of this burden. It has actually been done to a great extent with regard to the costliness of funerals, a matter in which public opinion has always been very authoritative. If it will now permit a man to be buried simply when he is dead, why cannot it allow him to exist simply while he is alive? Much progress has, in fact, already been made in this direction. A gentleman in the eighteenth century was obliged to dress in a showy and expensive manner, and to drink wine; now he may dress with extreme simplicity, and drink water if reasons of health and economy make him prefer it. Present social exigencies do not weigh heavily on a gentleman so long as he is a bachelor; they fall upon him after marriage. In England people incur ridicule and contempt if they marry upon such an income as young professional men can usually earn; even the newspapers sneer at them in articles by writers who themselves exist precariously by journalism. There is perhaps more absolute liberty to live rationally in Paris than anywhere else, but unfortunately the place itself has become expensive. The temper of public opinion that would be desirable is that of the old French aristocracy toward the poorer members of the same caste, who were allowed to live with extreme frugality without being punished for it by contempt. This, it is true, was a caste feeling, yet it is conceivable that it might be extended so as to include all men and women who are truly civilized, and whose conduct is above reproach. There ought to be liberty to

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spend, and also liberty not to spend. The frugality that the vulgar sneer at may be dictated by the noblest motives. A lady may keep few servants that she may reserve a margin for her charities; a man may travel in the third-class to help a poor relation. For an artist or a writer the liberty to live simply may mean leisure to do good work; for a tradesman, it is the liberty to be honest; for a work woman, it is permission to be chaste.

My belief is that the moralities of past ages, which were really accepted and acted upon (not those which were professed) were the changing products of a public opinion unconscious of its own force, and that we ourselves are living in a time when public opinion is passing from the unconscious state to one of lucid consciousness through the influence of its intellectual leaders. We are beginning to know that we can make our own morality, for which, of course, we shall have to take the natural consequences, whatever they may be. There are conflicts, as when the House of Commons says that a man ought to be allowed to marry his deceased wife's sister, and the House of Lords refuses him that liberty, or in France between the secular and religious spirits when one party accepts civil marriage as moral while the other describes it as concubinage, but in spite of these conflicts, or perhaps even with the help of the discussions to which they give rise, we are all working together to form the morality of the coming age. For those of us whose term of life is not likely to extend beyond the opening years of the next century, the most interesting of all subjects of observation is the germ of that morality which will govern Europe toward its close. For example, we see already a desire among a few of the best minds for honesty and integrity in dealings between nations, as in Mr. Frederic Harrison's proposal to send the Elgin marbles back to Greece, a proposal to do what would be plainly and indisputably right. The return of these treasures by a strong nation to a weak one and by an intelligent nation, fully aware of the inestimable value of what she was surrendering, would be an action as beautiful in morals as the works themselves are beautiful in art, and morally it would be as precious to the world as the marbles themselves are artistically precious. While we are still dreaming we may imagine a time when nations

will value a reputation for honesty in all their transactions as much as they now value the soundness of their credit in money matters, a time when they will no more wish to steal things or to receive stolen goods, than they now desire to withhold the interest of their borrowings. A complete international morality would also fulfil all national promises and engagements.

This is dreaming, and as the dream is pleasant we may go on with it and imagine what the world would be if men who equally believe that honesty is right could work together as heartily as those who agree about some religious dogma, such as that of transubstantiation. There are already some faint signs of concord on moral grounds in the future. On these grounds all honest and pure-minded men could meet. We have sometimes, even now, the delicate pleasure of seeing the representatives of different religions forgetting the acrimony of ancient controversies and working together for a common moral end. There are even signs and symptoms of a truce between the clergy and the philosophers. The situation is briefly this. The clergy have an influence over many men, and over a multitude of women and children, whom the philosophers cannot reach; but the philosophers have an influence over many men and a small yet increasing number of women who never hear a sermon and also over many who listen to sermons like the rest. I know that the ultimate purpose of the two classes of teachers is not the same, but the immediate purpose is very nearly identical. The clergy promise and prepare for another life, the philosophers speak exclusively of this. Nevertheless, both clergymen and philosophers do, in fact, at present live in the world together, and equally desire that present human society should be governed by righteous principles. The two are like Americans and Frenchmen travelling together from Paris to Havre, the Americans intending to go to a distant hemisphere, the Frenchmen intending to stop at the sea-side. Their ultimate hopes are different, but while they travel in the same train, it is their common interest and desire that the railway servants should do their duty, and that the passengers, during the journey, should refrain from robbery and assassination.

Since the preceding lines were written,