assailed, just as were and are the reformers of the
sciences; first by angry epithets, then by bad arguments as to
'evidence,' then by cooler attempts to demonstrate that his method will
lead to moral harm, whether or not to present or future punishment at
the hands of an angry God. In particular he is assured that on his
principles there can be no restraint upon men's evil proclivities; and
that even the most thoughtful man runs endless dangers of wrong-doing
when he substitutes his private judgment for the 'categorical
imperative' embodied either in religious codes or in the current body of
morality.[4] To such representations the critical answer is that
undoubtedly the application of reason to moral issues incurs the risks
of fallacy which beset all reasoning in science so-called; but that, on
the other hand, every one of those risks attaches at least equally to
all acceptance of 'authoritative' teaching. Galileo could not well err
worse than ancient Semites or Christian priests in matters scientific;
and Clifford could not conceivably div agate more dangerously in morals
than did the plotters and agents of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
Even if we put out of the account the overwhelming record of undenied
wickedness wrought in the name of God and faith, there never has been,
and there is no prospect of our ever seeing, unanimity of moral opinion
among even the most disciplined types of religious believers in
'authority.' Even in the Catholic Church it would be difficult to find
any two men of judicial habit of mind who agree in all points as to what
is 'right.'

Nor is the rationalist's position a whit more open to utilitarian
criticism (for his religious opponents, it will be observed, are
narrowly utilitarian even in professing to combat _his_ utilitarianism)
when he is challenged upon his acceptance of 'the voice of conscience,'
otherwise the 'categorical imperative.' The Kantian argument on that
head is a fallacy of shifting terms. Mental hesitation as to obeying the
sense of 'ought' is the proof of the vacillation of the perception of
'oughtness.' When I feel, first, that I 'ought' to forgive a peculator,
and then that I 'ought' to give him up to 'justice'; or, alternatively,
that I ought to rise earlier, and, again, that I may as well enjoy more
sleep, I have reduced the 'categorical imperative' to the last term in a
calculation. And exactly the same thing is done by the believer who is
perplexed as to the