hers, we have abundant evidence that
moral ideas exist, at least in germ, in savage races of men, while they
sometimes attain even a highly developed state. No amount of evidence as to
acts of moral depravity is to the point, as the object here aimed at is to
establish that moral intuitions _exist_ in savages, not that their actions
are good.

Objections, however, are sometimes drawn from the different notions as to
the moral value of certain acts, entertained by men of various countries or
of different epochs; also from the difficulty of knowing what particular
actions in certain cases are the right ones, and from the effects which
prejudice, interest, passion, habit, or even, indirectly, physical
conditions, may have upon our moral perceptions. Thus Sir John Lubbock
speaks[213] of certain Feejeeans, who, according to the testimony of Mr.
Hunt,[214] have the custom of piously choking their parents under certain
circumstances, in order to insure their happiness in a future life. Should
any one take such facts as telling _against_ the belief in an absolute
morality, he would show a complete misapprehension of the point in dispute;
for such facts tell in _favour_ of it.

Were it asserted that man possesses a distinct innate power and faculty by
which he is made intuitively aware what acts considered in and by
themselves are right and what wrong,--an infallible and universal internal
code,--the illustration would be to the point. But all that need be
contended for is that the intellect perceives not only truth, but also a
quality of "higher" which ought to be followed, and of "lower" which ought
to be avoided; when two lines of conduct are presented to the will for
choice, the intellect so acting being the conscience.

{200}
This has been well put by Mr. James Martineau in his excellent essay on
Whewell's Morality. He says,[215] "If moral good were a quality resident in
each action, as whiteness in snow, or sweetness in fruits; and if the moral
faculty was our appointed instrument for detecting its presence; many
consequences would ensue which are at variance with fact. The wide range of
differences observable in the ethical judgments of men would not exist; and
even if they did, could no more be reduced and modified by discussion than
constitutional differences of hearing or of vision. And, as the quality of
moral good either must or must not exist in