ascribe to their gods a mental constitution similar to their own they also eo ipso consider them to approve of virtue and disapprove of vice. But this conclusion is certainly not true in general.' On the contrary, the truth, according to Dr. Westermarck, is that the gods got their morality quite accidentally, and very imperfectly: they got it because they could be used as mere tools for the purpose of giving efficacy to swearing and oaths. Thus it was that truth and justice and various other departments of social morality eventually came to be placed under the supervision of the gods. 'The gods have thus experienced a gradual change for the better; until at last they are described as ideals of moral perfection, even though, when more closely scrutinised, their goodness and notions of justice are found to differ materially from what is deemed good and just in the case of men.' What, then, did the gods do before they took over the supervision of the various departments of morality, and administered them in so inferior a manner? The answer is that 'most religions contain an element which constitutes a real peril to the morality of their votaries. They have introduced a new kind of duties-duties towards gods; and even where religion has entered into close union with worldly morality, much greater importance has been attached to ceremonies or worship or the niceties of belief than to good behaviour towards fellow-men. People think that they may make up for lack of the latter by orthodoxy or pious performances.' Indeed the sentence with which Dr. Westermarck concludes his book and sums up the whole matter of 'The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas ' is ' that in its relation to morality religion will be increasingly restricted to emphasising ordinary moral rules, and less preoccupied with inculcating special duties to the deity.'

Special duties to the deity, then, are a survival from the time when man was a moral agent and the gods were imaginary beings, as yet non-moralized. In the course of their evolution the gods experienced a gradual change for the better and became partially moralized. But closer scrutiny reveals that this process of amelioration has never been thoroughly carried out, the reason being that orthodoxy

and pious performances-special duties to the deitycrowd out morality. Eventually, however, the process of amelioration will be carried through, and special duties to the deity will vanish before the emphasis given to ordinary moral rules. The highest stage of culture will then be reached, and religious influence, which ' reached its greatest extension' at an earlier stage, will have been left behind. As morality, then, stands independently of religion, and must always, in Dr. Westermarck's view, have stood upon an independent basis, we have to consider what, from his point of view, that basis is.

Dr. Westermarck's view is that moral concepts are essentially generalisations of tendencies in certain phenomena to call forth either indignation or approval.' Thus he tells us, moral approval and disapproval are at the bottom of the concepts, 'ought' and 'duty,' right and wrong. 'If these concepts were unanalysable, as they have often been represented to be, any attempt to explain the origin and development of the moral ideas would, in my opinion, be a hopeless failure.' But, it seems, if we recognize that moral approval or disapproval is at the bottom of the concepts, duty and ought, right and wrong, then eo ipso those concepts are, in Dr. Westermarck's opinion, analyzed, and we can go on to explain the origin and development of the moral ideas. What leads to moral disapproval or indignation is aversion: Aversion, as we have often noticed, leads to moral indignation, especially where the moral judgment is little influenced by reflection.' Indeed, 'the evolution of the moral consciousness partly consists in its development from the unreflecting to the reflecting stage, from the unenlightened to the enlightened.'

Certain phenomena then, we learn, call forth moral indignation or moral approval. From this fact man draws generalizations, which are made sometimes correctly and sometimes incorrectly. By thought and reflexion it is to some extent possible to correct the errors which may have been made in such generalizations. Progressive enlightenment consists in the advances made by means of generalizations which enlightened thought and reflexion shew to be

correctly made. In theory, indeed, such advances might be carried to the point of absolute agreement; for with the decisions of a perfect intellect every one, on thought and reflexion, would find himself in agreement: 'to the verdict of a perfect intelligence, that is, an intellect which knows everything existing, all would submit.' If the verdict were in favour of the generalizations, every one would have to admit that the generalizations were made correctly. The position would be that B, C, D, &c., are really like A, and are therefore proper objects of moral censure, since A is so. We have, then, next to consider on what grounds we can say that A is a proper object of moral censure,' i.e. ought to be morally condemned. We submit that we can only say so provided we assume the existence of a perfect moral consciousness, with which everyone would by experiment find that he felt that he could and did agree. The existence of a perfect moral consciousness, having authority, to which all moral agents would submit, is an assumption of the same kind as that of a perfect intelligence, having authority to which all intellects would submit. Both these assumptions are made by those who assert the existence of God, and who consistently maintain that morality is not, and cannot be, independent of religion.

But we may decline to assume the existence of a perfect moral consciousness, having authority. Dr. Westermarck would seem to consider the assumption an impossible one, if we understand him rightly, when he says, ' to the verdict of a perfect intellect, that is, an intellect which knows everything existing, all would submit; but we can form no idea of a moral consciousness which could lay claim to a similar authority.' If, then, the idea is an impossible one, it is impossible to say of any act that it ought or ought not to be done, or, to use Dr. Westermarck's words, that it is or is not a proper object of moral censure.' Yet Dr. Westermarck maintains that it is possible to say, and to say correctly, of an act done by another that it is, or is not, a proper object of moral censure. There is, therefore, after all, a moral consciousness which claims, or at any rate exercises, authority to judge what is and what is not a

But moral consciousness

proper object of moral censure. is, according to Dr. Westermarck, the consciousness of reflecting, enlightened minds. If then they are capable to some extent of moral judgement, it would seem not impossible to form an idea of a moral consciousness which is perfectly enlightened. If, on the other hand, neither their moral judgement nor that of the unenlightened has authority, nothing can be pronounced 'a proper object of moral All that we can say is, that one person censures a thing and another does not: we cannot even go so far as to say, with Dr. Westermarck, that the one is morally enlightened and the other not.

censure.'

To take a definite instance, an attitude of moral indifference' towards cannibalism has been advocated by persons who might claim to be morally enlightened, inasmuch as they are 'persons whose moral emotions are too much tempered by thought to allow them to pronounce an act as wrong simply because it creates in them disgust.' In this case, on the argument, all we can say is, that some persons pass moral censure on cannibalism and others do not. But this indisputable fact does not entitle either set of persons to be called more enlightened morally than the other. The fact that one set have thought a good deal does not prove that they have thought correctly, still less does it prove that they have attained to moral enlightenment. Each set considers itself morally enlightened, and Dr. Westermarck does not, so far as we can see, provide us with any satisfactory means of deciding between the two.

We may take another instance, a disgusting one, which Dr. Westermarck discusses at length, a crime' which,' he says, the English law in its very indictments treats as a crime not fit to be named.' Here, too, persons who might claim that they were morally enlightened seem, from Dr. Westermarck's words, to question whether this crime is a moral offence or whether it should be treated as a matter of moral indifference: though it is impossible to measure exactly the degree of moral condemnation, I suppose that few persons nowadays attach to it the same enormity of

guilt as did our forefathers. And the question has even been put whether morality has anything at all to do with,' an act which on the whole concerns the welfare of nobody but the parties themselves.' Here, again, are we to be content with saying that some persons pass moral censure on the act and others question whether morality has anything to do with it? Or are we going to say that the one set of persons is more enlightened morally than the other? and which? Once more, so far as we can see, Dr. Westermarck does not provide us with any satisfactory means of answering these questions. But he quite definitely says that 'the excessive sinfulness which was attached to "the offence" by Zoroastrianism, Hebrewism and Christianity,' was due to the fact that it was intimately associated with the gravest of all sins: unbelief, idolatry or heresy.' He also says, 'very naturally, therefore, it has come to be regarded with somewhat greater leniency by law and public opinion in proportion as they have emancipated themselves from theological doctrines.'

It may be that the moral enlightenment which would be claimed by those who have put the question, whether morality has anything at all to do with the offence, consists entirely in their emancipation from theological doctrines. But, in that case, Dr. Westermarck, not having put the question, has not fully established his claim to moral enlightenment-if he makes it.

If, as Dr. Westermarck says in a passage quoted at the beginning of this article, the contents of an emotion fall entirely outside of the category of truth,' then all we can truly say, whether of cannibalism or of any other act, is that the emotion of disapproval is felt by some people and is not felt by others. But, as to the contents of the emotion, they fall entirely outside the category of truth-that is to say, it is as unmeaning to inquire whether they are true or false as to ask whether virtue is triangular or polygonal. Dr. Westermarck's position is that the inquiry is unmeaning. His position is one to which it is impossible to adhere. He does not himself adhere to it. He abandons it when he declares that the moral emotions are tempered by thought,