failed to inculcate "intellectual
scrupulousness and honesty"; that we cannot go to Him for "political
conceptions" and "industrial ethics," and so forth--strike one as
palpably trivial, irrelevant, and made to order;[4] and leaving these
not very imposing criticisms on one side, it is simply a fact that the
highest laws of life were declared by Jesus Christ, and have never been
superseded. And since ethicists have nothing better to propose in the
domain of conduct than what we find in the Gospel--since the "higher
law," as formulated by Mr. Salter, reduces itself to altruism versus
living for self--there is nothing harsh in saying that the ethical
movement proposes merely to take over Christian morality minus its
Christian setting. If a simile may be allowed, we should say that this
new firm has no goods of its own manufacture; it intends to trade with
the stock, and hopes to take over the goodwill, of the old. {176}
Whether that is a feasible _modus operandi_ is another question, at
which we shall glance presently; for the moment we would simply insist
upon the fact that hitherto at any rate the ultimate sanction of
morality has always been the _religious_ sanction. The Churches, in
basing morality on religion, can at any rate point to some actual
achievements in the past; on the other hand those who maintain that
morality is independent of religious belief, and that human conduct
will actually rise to a higher level when this truth is recognised,
must pardon us if we tell them that they are merely issuing promissory
notes which may or may not be honoured when they fall due. A certain
extremely important thing has been done--we will not say perfectly, but
nevertheless done--in a certain way and by certain means for a very
long time; anyone who assures us that he will accomplish the same
important thing for us without the means which we have hitherto deemed
indispensable, can hardly be surprised if we reply that while we do not
doubt his entire good faith, we cannot possibly content ourselves with
his bare promises in so vital a matter.

But when we say this, we shall at once be met with the rejoinder that
it is manifestly unfair to argue as if Ethicism were all promise and no
performance. Are there not plenty of kindly, conscientious,
well-conducted agnostics who might serve as models to some of {177}
their Church-going neighbours? And have we not already referred to
some of the ethical teachers themselves as m