The great controversy may be said to lie between the adherents of the moral sense in some form or other, and those that deny both the existence of a separate faculty in the mind for perceiving moral distinctions, and the validity of the determinations of the individual conscience; maintaining that morality ought to be founded on a regard to the well-being of mankind, and that exclusively; and that rules of morality grounded on any other motives are indefensible. In short, the question is, Is morality an intuition of the mind, or is it, like the government of the state, a positive institution, on which different societies may differ, and which may be set up or abrogated at the pleasure of the society? The theory of intuitive morality was vigorously assailed by Locke in his Essay on the Understanding (book i. chap. 3); and we may venture to say that his objections to what be called " innate practical principles" have never been answered. These objections have been given in a condensed form by Paley (Moral Philosophy, book L). Locke urged that, in point of fact, there are no principles universally received among men; that moral rules require a reason to be given for them, which ought not to be necessary, if they are innate; that virtue is generally approved of, not because innate, but because profitable; that innumerable enormities have been practiced in various countries with out even causing remorse; that the moral rules of some nations are flatly contradicted by others; that no one has ever been able to tell what the innate rules are; that we do not find children possessed of any moral rules, etc. It has been attempted to reply to the objection, founded on the great variety and opposition of moral rules in differ ent places and times, by saying that although the substance of the moral codes differ— one part of the world being monogamous and chaste, while other nations allow pro miscuous intercourse of the sexes—all agree in enjoining some moral rules; nowhere is there an absence of social and moral obligations. But this is to depart from the original question, which was to assign the standard of morals, the criterion for deter mining which of two opposite courses—monogamy or polygamy—is the correct or moral course. The intuitive moralists say that human nature is endowed with an instinct which at once approves the right and disapproves of the wrong, and that we need go no further than our own conscience to settle the point. Now, when the exist ence of contradictory consciences is pointed out, it is not to the purpose to say that these are still consciences, and indicate something as obligatory; this all admit: what we desire is to determine which we are to follow.
Dr. Whewell, in his Elements of Morality, has proposed a way out of this serious difficulty by setting up a supreme or standard conscience, by which the individual con science may be squared and corrected ; but he has not told us who are the men whose i conscience is the standard; it being obvious that the human race, as a whole, do not recognize any such, although each separate community might consent to take some of its most estimable citizens, or the interpreters of its religious code, as models to con form to.
The following is one view of the nature and origin of our moral principles which would seem free from the grave objections above alluded to. If we set aside for the present the question as to the proper standard of morals, the criterion that we should consider the right criterion, if we had to enact a code of morals for the first time, and if we look at the moral principles that have prevailed in different nations and times, we shall find that they have been dictated from two distinct kinds of motives. The one is
utility, in the sense of the common safety of men living in society. The prohibitions against manslaying, theft, breach of bargain, rebellion, are necessary, wherever men have formed themselves into communities; and it is the agreement in such matters as these—although subject still to very great varieties—that makes up the amount of uniformity actually observed in the moral codes of nations. If the society did not agree to protect life and property, by punishing the murderer and the thief, nothing would be gained by coming under the sway of government, and human beings would not be got to associate themselves in tribes or nations. The common end gives a coin-. mon character to the means, without supposing a special instinct to suggest that stealing, is wrong. But, in the second place, there have been, in the moral codes of all countries, prohibitions not connected with any public utility, but prompted by strong sentimental likings or aversions, which have acquired the force of law, and are made the foundation of compulsory enactments. Of this kind is the antipathy of the Jew and the Mohammedan to the pig, the Hindoo repugnance to animal food generally, and the usages of a merely ceremonial kind prevailing among many nations, which are as strin gently enforced by law and public opinion as thesacredness of life and property. For a woman, among the Mussulmans, to expose her face in public, is as great an offense as going naked would be with us; while, among savage tribes, in warm climates, where, clothing is little required, it is no shame to expose the whole person. For these prac tices, no reason can be given; the public sentiment has determined some things to be right and others wrong, without reference to any public or private utility; and it is in these enactments, founded on liking or disliking, that nations have differed most widely, the difference often amounting to contrariety. The ancient Greeks held it as a sacred obligation to drink wine in honor of Dionysus (Bacchus); the Nazarenes among the Jews and the Mohammedans entertained an opposite view. A legislator for the North American Indians might prohibit alcoholic liquors on the ground of public utility, the natives not being able to control themselves under stimulants; but the prohibition of wine in those other instances is probably a species of asceticism, or an aversion to human pleasures as such, which belongs to the domain of sentiment, and not to the consideration of utility.
Looking at the many capricious injunctions that owe their origin to fancies such as these, it may be doubted whether the human race can ever gain anything by departing from the principle of utility as the sole criterion of good morality; and there is an increasing tendency to recognize the supremacy of this principle both in morals and in legislation. Justice, truth, purity, although sometimes viewed sentimentally, or as being ends themselves, are in men's practice looked upon more and more as of the nature of means, the promotion of human happiness being the end.