f being applied to particular cases
by the ordinary processes of reasoning, then we may fairly expect that,
as the opportunities of observation and experience increase, the test
will be applied more widely and more accurately, and that the science of
conduct will grow, like all other sciences, with the advance of
knowledge and of general civilisation. Now, what, as a mutter of fact,
has been the case? Can anyone affect to doubt that the morality of
civilized countries is far higher and purer, and far better adapted to
secure the preservation and progress of society, than the customs of
savage or barbaric tribes? Or, however enamoured a man may be of
classical antiquity, is there any one who would be prepared to change
the ethical code and the prevailing ethical sentiment of modern times
for those of the Greeks or Romans? Or, again, should we be willing, in
this respect, to go back three hundred, or two hundred, or even one
hundred years in our own history? Are not the abolition of slavery, the
improved and improving treatment of captives taken in war, of women and
children, of the distressed and unfortunate, and even of the lower
animals, alone sufficient to mark the difference between the morality of
earlier and of later times? I shall assume, then, that there is a test
of conduct, and that this test is of such a character that its continued
application, by individual thinkers or by mankind at large, consciously
or semi-consciously, is sufficient to account for the existence of a
progressive morality. But, if so, it must be a test which experience
enables us to apply with increasing accuracy, and which is derived from
external considerations, or, in other words, from the observation of the
effects and tendencies of actions. And here I may observe,
parenthetically, that to make 'conscience' or 'moral reason' or 'moral
sense' the test of action, as, for instance, Bishop Butler appears to do
in the case of conscience, is, even on the supposition of the
independent existence of these so-called 'faculties,' to confound the
judge with the law which governs his decisions, the 'faculty' with the
rules in accordance with which it operates. Limiting ourselves,
therefore, to a test which is derived from a consideration of the
results, direct and indirect, immediate and remote, of our actions, we
simply have to enquire what is the characteristic in these results which
men have in view when they try to act rightly, and which they mis