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The Conscience: Its Nature and Origin Author(s): William W.

Carlile Reviewed work(s): Source: International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Oct., 1895), pp. 63-77 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2375622 . Accessed: 15/11/2012 16:24
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any one class becomes too powerful is doomed. Such a government certaineitherto be replaced by a despotismor is for to degenerate into anarchy,which means suffering every one, and above all for those whose daily bread depends on their daily toil. If this countryis to play a glorious part in the world,iffuture generationsare to point to it as one of the great forcesin the progress of mankind,it must make a success of democracy. Other nations may seek refuge under different formsof government. Germany can take shelter under her monarchs,France can return a Caesar,England to but, as faras human forecan, perhaps,restoreher aristocracy, sight can reach,America has no resourcebut democracy,and to make democracya success, the classes mustlearn to underand sympastand each otherand to have mutual forbearance will be thy. If we do not learn this lesson, our retribution decrepitude and ruin, and that retributionwill have been deserved. A. LAWRENCE LOWELL.
BOSTON, MASS.

THE CONSCIENCE: ITS NATURE AND ORIGIN.


it I. IN any matterof investigation, is a great point gained to have obtaineda clear idea as to what the preciseproblems to be investigatedare. Kant's most conspicuous service to ethical science consists in his havingsecured a practicallyuniversal recognitionforthe factthat one of the things that any theoryof the natureand originof the consciencemust account of foris the absence of all consideration personal consequences, in this world or the next,in action thatcan claim the sense of dutyas its motive. Cudworth,indeed, in his day had entered a protestno less emphaticthanKant's againstsuch conceptions set forth; but it is due to Kant of duty as Paley afterwards at that theycan neverin theirbald and undisguisedform, any rate, be set forthagain. While, however, the mercenarian life,is veryproptheory,as regardsits applicationto a future at erlyscouted by mostethicalwriters the presentday, another

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varietyof the same theory-Mr. Spencer's-which maintains that it is the experienceof rewardsand punishments accorded in this world during many generations to right and wrong action respectively that has evolved the conceptionof duty,is one that is very widely accepted. 2. Beforegoing into special questions affecting the Moral Faculty more in detail,it will be well to draw attention the to natureof the general psychological hypothesis that such a contentionpostulates. It postulates the possibility,in psychology, of transformations that followthe analogy of chemistry; metamorphoseswhich we can observe,but which we cannot so much as attemptto understand. The two Mills, in such a hypothesis, and thusarrived express terms, put forward at the conclusion that,in mentalscience, everymystery which could not otherwise be solved could be adequately explained by the formulathat it was the resultof " inseparableassociation." In chemical investigation, however, our situation as that we deal with is very different regards the subject-matters to fromthatwhich obtains in reference the matters psychoof We know that the mixtureof oxygen logical investigation. into water,because we and hydrogen has been transformed have the waterstill in the same jar in which the gases were, it and because we can transform back into the gases. In such connectinglinks between mentalchange,on the contrary, the phenomenon in its old formand in its new, supposing to transformations take place, are altogetherwanting. We are left thus without the means that we possess in chemistry of betweenthe transformations one thing into of discriminating various shapes, and the mere sequences of things that, in themselves,are entirelydifferent.Hence, to admit explanations of psychological problems based on the analogy of chemical change would be really to give up psychology,and of with it the scientific treatment politics,history, literature, or altogether. Such a concessionwould, at once, open the floodgates to a deluge of paradoxes and absurdities. There would then be no such thing in mental science as the reductio ad impossible. No conceivable statement could be so preposterous that it would be, at once, and of necessity,rejected. We

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should have to admit that it was quite possible that plurality and totalitywere the same thingas truthand goodness, that pleasures and pains mightbe nothingbut flexions and extensions of the muscles,that Mind and Will mightbe merelythe dummies of a conjurer,put forwardto attractour attention, while what we imagined them to be doing was really being done by other agencies altogether. Every assertion,indeed, would be, forus, alike possible and alike meaningless. 3. It will not, however,I imagine,be denied that there is such a thing as the reductioad impossible in mental science, in and it is worthwhileto examine,fora moment, what circumstances its application is possible. Though we thinkof it as a special formof argument,it enters, in physics, into every process of reasoningby which any general truthis established. What Mill lays down, in regard to Deduction, is true of all reasoning. It always comprisesan Induction,a Ratiocination, and a Verification. What we call the reduction impossible ad is simply the contraryof the Verification. It is the refutation of a false induction by direct comparison with fact. The inductionsof physics have, no doubt, an immense advantage over the inductionsof the subject sciences, in the tangibleand palpable nature of the facts,by comparisonwith which they can be tested. The lattermust,however,be capable of being, in some sense, tested by comparisonwith factalso, otherwise our best established psychological truthswould be no truer than the idlest fancies. At the same time,when we look into it the matter, is not altogetherobvious, on the surface, what it is, in mentalscience,thatcorrespondsto factin physics. If any one contends that the specific gravityof lead is not greater than that of water,I can drop a piece of lead into water and let him see for himselfthat it is so. Even here, of course, there is the all-importantpostulate that he and I mean the same thing by lead, by specific gravity,and by water. We cannot adequately define either lead or water, but we have another resource for making certain that there shall be no on mistake nor misunderstanding that point. We can point them out, and in pointingthem out and observingtheirinteraction,we can practicallypoint out what theirspecificgravity
VOL.

VI.-No. I

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means also. If any one should give vent to some psychologisuch as, forexample,thatHope is a disagreeable cal absurdity, emotion,we cannot deal withhim in the same simple fashion. I can appeal to my consciousness,and say that I do not find it so. If he appeals to his consciousness,and says that he sight that therethe mattermust does, it mightseem at first end. A recent school of psychologists,indeed, who profess to be more scientificthan the rest of us, do, as a matterof in contendthat further controversy such circumstancesis fact, impossible. If, however, the world generallyaccepted that in view in all parallel cases, then literature many of its forms -all newspaper literature,for instance-would come to a stand-still. All controversythat is not controversyabout about mental facts. We physical facts must be controversy cannot, indeed, indicate and exhibit examples of Hope and of the Disagreeable Emotion as we can examples of Lead in and Water. As, however,psychological controversy, one formor another,is one of the great facts of the world, it is quite certain that we can achieve, more or less perfectly, the same end in some othermanner. What we have to inquire we into therefore How is it that,in psychological inquiries, is, can make certainthat the thingswhich are the subject of our inquiriesare the same ? That we can do it somehow or other is quite beyond question. What is it that,for instance,fixes of the identity the concept " Hope," regarded as the concept minds? We know what fixes the identity a of of different leaden bullet as between the perceptions of one mind and those of another. It is the physical factthat I can lay my on finger it, and that you cannot lay yours there while mine remains there. As regards Hope, we have no resource analogous to this to fall back on. What resource have we ? When we are asked what lead is, as I remarked,we can point to a specimen. When we are asked what hope is, we can, of perhaps, answer: it is the sentiment the shipwreckedsailor when an approachingvessel appears in sight. That is to say, we can narratea series of eventswhich never fail to generate " hope," and can tell our interlocutor that he can know " hope" as being the sentimentthat such a series of events generates.

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It seems thus that the citationof the circumstanceson which some mental phenomenon is unfailingly consequent is that which,in psychology,stands in the place which actual indication occupies in physics. We learn the meaning of lead originally by having it pointed out to us. We learn the meaning of "hope" originallyby having the circumstances that generateit narratedto us, and by being told that it is the emotion that they generate. It is thus obvious that,in psychology,the oral sign has a doublefunction perform; it has to to performthe functionthat it performsin physics, and also that in physics is performedby indication. The the function appeal to fact,in psychology and the cognate sciences, can, therefore, really nothingelse but the appeal to the natural be unstrained meaning of the oral signs made use of. This appeal, though itsvalidityhas neverbeen formally recognized, is made on everypage in all metaphysical controversies. It is made whenevera general statementis tested by its application to an individual instance. The natural meaning of such words as " Causation," " Object," " Quality," " Identity,"is, in our datum and our starting-point;and is also, metaphysics, from another point of view, like the facts of physics, that whichwe have to explain and to account for. To assume the right,as Hume does, to call the same thing an " object" on one page and a "perception" on the next, is to assume the rightto disregardall that we can have in the shape of factto build upon, and means consequently to constructour philosophical systemsin mid-air. 4. These considerations, seems to me, put it beyond all it question that,in psychology,causation,in order to be perceptible to us at all, must be intelligible. It must follow the analogy of mechanism,not of chemistry. We must be able to see the cause in the effect, we see the pressures in the as directionof the sides of the parallelogram, the motionthat in takes the line of the resultant. If we do not see the cause in the effect, is hard to see how we can ever recognizeit to be it the cause at all. An explanationthat postulates a metamorphosis in which the new producthas nothingin common with the old, is, in psychology, simplyequivalentto no explanation

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at all. Who is therethatwill contendthat thehate of Achilles for the man "with one thingon his lips and another in his heart" had in it anythingin commonwith the desire of reward or the fearof punishment? If it had not,however,it is useless to tell us that the one was evolved fromthe other. Such an explanation is one thatwe could neverhave any reason for believingto be the true one. We mightas well say that his hatredof lying seemed to us to have been evolved fromthe sense of humor, or from the circulationof the blood. The is one descriptionof statement not a whit less verifiablethan the other. 5. Putting aside, then,the theorythat such a mental phenomenonas the conceptionand obligationofjustice is derived we fromthe fearof punishment, either directlyor indirectly have the problembeforeus-what is its natureand what is its as we origin? Even if, regardsthe latter, should agree that it is somethingultimate and unanalyzable,there would still be many questions left to answer. Are we to view it under the categoryof a sense perception-the Moral Sense, as it is often called-or, with Cudworth and with Kant, under the category of Reason ? The latterconceptionappears prinziafacie to be so farthe rightone that the alternativeview of it,as a sense, would leave us altogetherat a loss to account for the as fact that,in Jurisprudence, well as in the more special province of Ethics, questions as to the justice and injustice of individual actions are decided by processes of thinking, to all appearance, perfectlyanalogous to the processes by which we decide as to the truthor falsity individualasserof we view it as Reason pure and simple, tions. If, however, we are viewing it as a lever without a fulcrum. In speculative thought,the process of ratiocination has always something to work upon that is not the product of reason itself, and so it must surely be in ethical thought. Reason aids us to ascertainwhat is true and what is false, but it does not give truthor falsity their meaning. In the same way it aids us to ascertainwhat is just and what is unjust,but assuredly it does not give justice and injusticetheirmeaning. What is it,we may ask, that in each case does ?

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6. The difficulty understanding of what truth is, as contrasted with falsity-one of the long-standingproblems of Metaphysics-will perhaps be simplifiedfor us if we reflect that it is a wrong conceptionof words and theirmeaningsto imagine that they were made for us to think by. Their of primary object was the communication knowledge between man and man, and their primary meaning must therefore always imply the facts of intercourse. The child gets his firstconceptionof truthwhen he gets his first conceptionof falsehood. To begin with,he believes everystatementthat is he understands. Presently, however,some statement made to himwhich future with factfalsifies. He is told, comparison let us suppose, that on opening the door of a certainroom he will see a ghost. He opens it and sees none. This gives him his first conceptionof what is false,and with it his first conception of what is true as contrastedwith it. From this out, the notion of the true always emerges when an anticipation correspondswith fact,the notion of the false when it fails to do so. These conceptionsof truthand falsity thus originally derivedfromthe factsof intercourse soon extended to the are factsof inference. Tasting sugar,he infers thatwhitepowders are sweet; tastingsalt, he is pulled up by a contradiction, and has to correcthis over hastygeneralization. Thus we proceed fromthe firstrudimentary inferences infancy the latest of to discoveriesof science, framing our hypotheseson the analogy of observed facts,and either correcting confirming or them by comparisonwith otherfacts. The process is always from narrowertruthto wider truth. Hence it is possible for us to have a perfect and quite unhesitating assurance as to what is true and as to what is false in individual instances, while, at the same time,no one has succeeded in the task that many of have attempted, framinga universallyapplicable criterion of truth and falsehood generally. Kant's question, " What can I know?" seems to involve a contradiction terms. It in assumes the possibility deciding as to what we can know of to be true before we know what it is that is in question. Among the things, at any rate, which he decided that we could not know, was the law of the evolution of species,

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which it is the great triumph of biological science in our age to have established. Mill, too, who had his own criterion of what we can know, so applied it as to class the undulatory theoryof light, a theorynow as firmlyestablished as gravitationitself,among the matters which lie beyond or the scope of human inference. Thus the difficulty impossibilityof framingthese universal criteria is not confinedto Ethics. It is just as applicable to the case of truth and falsehood as it is to the case of rightand wrong; and thus the factof its existence need no more tend to invalidate,in particular cases, our judgments as to what is rightand what is wrong,than it tends in particular cases to invalidate our judgments as to what is true and what is false. 7. Returning,however, to the ethical question on which we are immediatelyengaged, we have seen what it is that gives truthand falsehood theirmeaning; what is it,we have to inquire, that similarlygives justice and injustice theirs? Unquestionably the man who, to his own detriment, avoids an action simplybecause it is unjust must,as Kant strongly puts it, be held to have avoided it altogether for its own sake, and not even in any remote or indirectfashion,from the thought of any " hypotheticalimperative." If it should appear even that he has avoided it from such a consideration as his fear of the disapproval of those whom he loves on earth,or of a God whom he reverences in heaven, his motive,no matter how creditableto him,is still a motive of widely removedfromthe pure sentiment duty. It is only when the inner law, "Thou shalt not," enforces its edict withoutany hintof consequences,that he is animated in the of true sense,by the sentiment moral obligation. That a law can enforce itselfwithout a hintof penalties in any shape, in was a phenomenon that justly excited case of disobedience, the awe-struckwonder of the philosopher; and the factwill still always remain a marvellous one, even if it admits of something furtherbeing said in the way of its explanation. 8. The analysis of the facts of volition, a subject which of has made has largely occupied the attention psychologists,

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the doctrinefamiliar us, that beforeany conscious act of a to human being can become a fact of the outward world, it must have existed as a representation the mind that conin templates its performance. It is furthera psychological doctrine thatmaybe regardedas well established, thattheconception of ourselves is primarily moulded on the conception of our fellows, and not conversely. The earliermentalfact is the recognition of the personality of others; the later, the recognition our own. There is a stage,indeed,in the develof opment of baby lifewhen the child naturallyspeaks of himself by his proper name. He will say, forexample,* " Charles is going out for a walk," instead of " I am going out for a walk." It is only later that he elaborates a signification for " Me and I." Plainly, then, we should naturally expect to findall the incidents of the conceptionof externalpersonality,in some way or other,applicable to our own; and we do thus findsuch mentalphenomenaas self-pity and self-distrust manifestly modelled on the pity or the distrust that is ordinarilydirected by us towards others. Bearing this in mind, let us glance at the phenomena of resentment and gratitude, and at the natureof theirpossible reflected application. Suppose the child receives an unprovoked or treacherous blow fromone of his fellows,a double reactionwill result,one or other aspect of which,according to the idiosyncrasiesof his nature,will predominate. On the one hand,therewill arise the dread of receiving another such blow, and the thought of how to escape it or to guard himselfagainst it. From this,no doubt, nothingbut hypotheticalimperatives can ever be evolved. On the other hand,however,therewill arise the impulse to punish the offender, withthis,I think,it will and be found that the case is otherwise. Our difficulty, indeed, in conceiving how it is possible that the innerlaw can enforce itself withoutthe threatof consequences is due, we may find, our leaving one whole side of our emotional nature to out of account. This impulse to punish an offender extends far beyond the limits of humanity. It characterizes, we as
* The illustration Mr. Sully's. is

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quadrupeds the of reactions mostof thehigher know, mental and birds,and it has its analogies far down in the lower act,let us suppose then, theconscious to world. Returning, for to thatwe are tempted obtainsomeadvantage ourselves the trustreposedin us by another. Necessaby betraying act as ourselves doing thecontemplated berilywe represent is made, also, fore do it; necessarily, ourself-representation we thereapiss. Does it notfollow, if I mayso put it,subspecie that the anger thatsuch an act would arouse if done fore, in by us to anotherwill,in some shape,emerge, respectof when contemplated about to do it to another? as ourselves the of In all this thereis no thought consequences;merely and act is presented, the sentiment indignaof contemplated of the of towards perpetrators such acts, tion, perhaps hatred, may,of whoevertheymay be, is aroused. The sentiment be and considerations, the act be by course, overborne other in still perpetrated spite of it. Mechanics,however,also us of familiarizes withthe conception a cause,notonlyexistis thoughto all appearanceitseffect effective, ent,but fully of some othercause. The transformation reoverborne by become impersonal, the sense of justice,the into sentment, is the voiceof conscience, pangsof remorse, no doubta transthat formation is not at thefirst glanceobvious. It is not, one but type, one ofthemechanical. however, ofthechemical that for We need postulate, it,no metamorphosis is involved is of in insoluble mystery.The verymeaning remorse selfsuch a meaning.We can implies hatred; itsveryetymology of The known facts anteat arrive ourconclusion deductively. withtheknown factof together volitional self-representation, of of form a theemergence anger at theexperience injuries, in it in We find plainly the Categorical Imperative, thesimple " Thou shalt not"thatmeetsus whenwe contemplate doing as if we thatwhich shouldresent detestable doneto ourselves us by others. lies pointsin the Kantiantheory in 9. One of theweakest thatit takesaccountof nothing but negative virtue. thefact who deliberates, eventuThe manor thewoman, but indeed,
we vera causa, a cause whose effect must seek forsomewhere.

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ally does right, appears, in his system,to be viewed as occupying a higherplane of morality than the simple noble nature thatneverentertains thoughtof baseness. His moral lawa a law pure and simple-may give us the line that must not be transgressed, but leaves the sentimentthat we entertain towards the conspicuously noble and heroic altogetherunaccounted for. As the explanation of the prohibitive aspect of the Conscience is to be foundin the transformation resentof ment,so, I think,the explanation of its positive aspect, of the approval, carried to any pitch of enthusiasm,that we accord is to virtue, to be foundin the transformation gratitude. If of anotherhelps us in our time of need, and if our natureis not altogether base, thehope of returning good offices the received, takes its place among the purposes of our lives. If we see a bystanderassisted, in his timeof need, by a third,a modified formof the same feelingemerges,whichwe call admirationor approval. If we ourselves perform good offices others, to our own approval is necessarily reflected ourselves. The same on principle, plainly,that makes us condemn the treacheryof a makes us admiretheself-devotion an Alcestis, Clytemnestra, of or the lofty" scorn of consequence" of an Antigone. IO. We have been led by one of the greatestof our poets, and perhaps the greatestof our criticsof the Victorian era, to adopt, as regards the historical aspect of morality, sharp a antithesis betweenHellenism and Hebraism. From the Greek, we are told, we have derived Esthetic refinement intellecand tual culture; from the Hebrew, truthand justice. Goethe's Iphigenia, it is oftensaid, is no echo of the thought of antiquity; she is a modern Jeanie Deans in classical costume. Such a conception does scantyjustice to our ancient cousins of the common Aryan stock. It suggests,too, the absence of that deep organic connectionwhich assuredly exists between the advance of intellectualculture and the advance of moral ideals, as well as betweennationalstrength and nationalvirtue. If the Greek character had really been what such a theory assumes, Greece would never have rolled back the tide of Asiatic invasion,nor,in a subsequent generation, have Grecianized Asia itself Where is it that we find this absence of

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the moral ideal in ancient Greece? Not surely in her Philosophy. The strong point both of Plato and of the Stoics, as well, indeed, as of Aristotle,was theirEthics. Not surely in her Drama. It would be hardlytoo much to say that the has Inner Law, the pure Categorical Imperative, neverbeen so as noblyset forth it was by the tragedianSophocles. " Nothing," says his Antigone,the maiden who was "to herself a law," " can be so dreadful as not to die with honor." How wide a gulfshe discernsbetweenthe edict of the Civil Magistrateand
"the unwritten laws divine." not "Immutable, eternal, like those but Of yesterday, made ere Time began."

The themeof the " Philoctetes"is the strugglebetweenhonor and policy in the mind of the son of Achilles, the hero who hated a lie more than the gates of Hell, and it is honor that,in the end, gains the day. In spite of the casuistryof Ulysses, the type of the Utilitarianstatesman,in spite of a case renstrong by the considerations dered almost overwhelmingly both of patriotismand of worldlywisdom,Neoptolemus finds in himself, the end, incapable of carryingout his half-perpetrated fraud,and gives back to the obstinate,unreasonable, hero, the arrows,which he had only to retain half-demented to insurevictoryfor his countryand unequalled prestige for to Sophocles makes the himself. With admirabletruth nature, at of of sentiment self-hate the perpetration a fraudonlyarise, in its full force,when the fraud is already half accomplished. In the modern self-consciousnature,such sentimentsarise earlier. Hence, other thingsbeing equal, the advance of culmust go together tivation, and, with it, of self-consciousness, of with the increased efficiency the moral ideal as a causal agency. The grandeurof the personages of Greek tragedyis, in the main,an ethical grandeur. The dominant fact is the absence,as a motiveof action,of the "hypotheticalimperative." Even the ill-fatedPolynices,his country'senemy,when he is told of the prophecy of Tiresias, never hesitates,but goes forward to his certain doom, simplybecause such honor as he has is bound up with his sacrilegious enterprise. Tennyson

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strikesa note that sounds in unison withthat of Sophocles in the words that he puts into the mouth of Pallas Athene.
"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control, power. These threealone lead lifeto sovereign Yet not forpower (power of herself Would come uncalled for),but to live by law, fear; Actingthe law we live by without is to And, because right right, followright Were wisdomin the scornof consequence." iI. It is hardlynecessaryto say that in a paper like the present,it is whollyimpossible to touch on manyof the vexed questions of Ethical theory. What has been said, so far,has leftalmost entirelyundealt with the great question of the criterionof rightand wrong,except in so faras it has been suggested that it is in the highestdegreenecessaryto discriminate otherwisewe what we thinkof as such a criterion, carefully may findthat we have set ourselves to the solutionof a problem that is in its very nature insoluble; that we are in search of a philosopher'sstone or a formulaforsquaring the circle. of If we ask what is the criterion truth and falsehood,the applicable. If we is none universally answer must be,-there betweenwhat is ask, however,how is it that we discriminate true and what is false in any of the innumerable cases in withouta moment's we which,as a matterof fact, discriminate we hesitation, findthat what we do, in the last resort,in such cases, is always to appeal to the concurrenceof others. What is visibleor even tangibleto us alone may be an illusion; what situatedis certainly is visible and tangibleto any one similarly real. When the matter, the realityof which is in question, is somethingthat is not visible and tangibleat all, the test is of a much more complicated character. Similarly,in morals,it or will be foundthatwhile what arouses the resentment evokes the gratitudeof ourselves alone need not necessarilybe identical with what we call " bad" or " good," that which would of arouse the gratitudeor evoke the resentment any one similarly situatedwill always be so. If we had to explain to any one who did not know it,* the meaning of the words " good" * Nor, of course,a synonym any language. in

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or "bad" as applied to any action,we could only do it by narratingto him circumstancesin which gratitudeor resentment would naturallyemerge in the mind of the individual who was the object of the action. We have thus,in such acts, the types of the " good" and of the " bad," as we have in that in the world of sense which exists alike forall, and in that which exists forourselves only,the types of the real and the illusory. In both cases, these types are the foundation on which Reason rearsherstructures. Her mode of operation, in each case, too, presents innumerableanalogies; or it would be more correctto say, it is the same process dealing with a different subject-matter. We thinkof the " Ought" feelingas something specially pertaining Ethics, but " Ought" is the to formulaof Deduction in speculativetruthalso. We speak as " naturallyof what the answer to a sum in arithmetic ought to be" as of what a man " ought to do" in given circumstances. The basis of all speculative reasoning is abstraction, sinthe gling out of the one salient aspect of the factthatwe are dealing with,and the exclusion of all others; similarlythe judge, perhaps a Brutussittingin judgmenton his son,must exclude every considerationapplicable to his son except such as he possesses in common with every other citizen. Hence the cultivation the habitof accuratereasoningcultivates, of beyond all question,a tendencyof thought conducive to just action also. If we inquire on what ground is it that we hold all the innumerablebeliefswhichwe do hold,butwhichyetcan never be verified us by comparisonwith fact,we find that,if we for hold them with good reason,theirground is this,-that the evidence which we have for them is identical in character withthe evidence which we have forthe beliefsthat are subject to verification. We have arrivedat both by methodsthat are the same. Our ground is the parityof reasoning; and, workingon the basis of this parity,we are continuallyable to widen the scope of the knowledgethatwe hold as valid. The same thingapplies in Ethics. Mill says, withtruth, that the possibility of extending knowledge beyond the bounds of observationrestson the factthat thereare such thingsas parallel cases in nature. It was also by means of a parallel case

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that Nathan was able to bring home to David the recognition of his guilt. Like speculative truth, Ethical truth,by the parity of reasoning, is ceaselessly widening out from its centre. It is the characteristic both, also, that every inof crease in the extentof the structureis necessarily accomof panied by a more secure establishment the foundations on which it all rests.
WOODVILLE, NEw ZEALAND.

WILLIAM W. CARLILE.

THE DIFFICULTY OF TAKING SIDES TIONS OF THE DAY.

ON QUES-

No writeron popular governmenthas been more suggestive to me than Sir Henry Maine. He had the peculiar gift of recognizing the significanceof those commonplace facts which are liable to be overlooked for the very reason that before us all the time. It would be imthey are constantly possible to forgetthe vivid impression made on my mind by his observation about the great influence exerted on the course of human affairs, fromthe mere " natural tendencyof men to take sides." The truthof the assertionwas at once apparent,and the evidences forit have been steadilycumulative through all my personal experience and study of men. But, on the otherhand, as I have gone on in life,I have been impressedwith the fact that there is a class of persons who show the contrary tendency and seldom take sides at all. They are reluctant commit themselveson the great questo tions of the day, and oftentimes could not do so even if they made the effort. The existence of this latter class is the anomaly which I shall endeavor to analyze and explain. An attitudeof " suspended judgment" is especially characteristicof the scholar or man of letters, the man who thinks of and reads a great deal or has a wide acquaintance with facts. It accounts forthe circumstancethat social reform measures do not more oftentake theirstartfromwhat we call the edu-

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