our theory of the character of moral distinctions. Upon the one theory, sin or crime is something indefinitely terrible and tremendous, the nature of which can hardly be described or even conjectured. Upon the other theory, it is constantly tending to be viewed as a mistake or a disease.

Again, the theory of the true character of punishment, and therefore the limitations imposed upon its nature and extent, will differ according to these differences. The theory of propitiation, or expiation, is connected with the one principle, the theory of example, and reformatory discipline, with the other. The notion of propitiation, again, readily connects itself with asceticism. Suffering, upon this view, is a good thing in itself, because it has a remedial efficacy against evil. It is needless to dwell upon the practical results of this divergence, which goes down to the very roots of morality, and acts upon practice in every conceivable way. We can see the two modes of thought at work in all directions, bearing on all sorts of subjects, and affecting people's conduct and actions in all the most important affairs of life.

Moral controversies, however, differ not only in their general complexion, but in the ideal at which they aim. This difference works itself out in detail in reference to particular actions. People often suppose that morals are simple and uniform, because particular sweeping maxims are generally received. Honour thy father and thy mother, Thou shalt do no

murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet, are no doubt maxims of which the force is, and has been, recognised, all over Christendom at all events, for eighteen centuries.

This, however, when examined, proves only a very general resemblance in the morality of different ages and countries. It shows that the subject-matter of all morality is the same—namely, the regulation of human conduct in certain particulars; but it by no means proves that all human conduct has been regulated by the same rules. Indeed, in respect to every one of these maxims it might be shown that wide differences of opinion and practice differences which can be fully understood only by reference to principles lying at the root of the whole matter-have prevailed, and do still prevail, even in Christian countries.

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Honour thy father and thy mother' is a precept which in its obvious and primary sense has been interpreted in very different ways, as the varying extent of parental authority, both by law and by custom in different countries, fully proves. Take a single illustration. To what extent have parents a

right to forbid the marriage of their children? Both the practice and the law differ widely in England and France. Parental authority, however, is commonly taken by moralists as the type of all authority, and 'Honour thy father and thy mother' as an injunction to obey the civil government.

What are men's relations to civil governments? How, and by what principles, is the duty of obedience to them limited? Thou shalt do no murder.' Is war murder? Is capital punishment murder? Is duelling murder?. 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' Is divorce permissible? Within what limits of relationship is marriage forbidden, and on what principles are those limits fixed? Is polygamy wrong, and, if so, is it wrong because it is forbidden, or forbidden because it is wrong? 'Thou shalt not steal.' How far is a man's right to his property absolute? When and how may he be deprived of it for the public good? Is it theft to confiscate corporate property, as in the case of monasteries? Was it theft to disfranchise the rotten boroughs in 1832? Is conquest theft and robbery? Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' In what cases may we deviate from the truth? 'Thou shalt not covet.' Is all ambition and all desire of what we have not got sinful, and, if not, why not, and how otherwise?

Endless differences of opinion exist upon all these questions, and upon a thousand others into which they branch off, and each of the questions arising upon them is susceptible of as many different answers as there are views of the nature of good and evil in general, of the character of God, and of the ideal of human life.

It is worth while to observe, in passing, how strikingly these observations display the truth that

our knowledge rises from the particular to the general, and does not descend from the general to the particular. A number of ways of dealing with property are called theft; but when you come to consider whether a particular act is theft or not, the maxim 'Thou shalt not steal' is useless, for it forbids the act in question only if it is theft. Hence the general use of such words as theft, murder, adultery, and the rest, proves, not that there is a general consent as to right and wrong, but that in all times and countries some ways of destroying life or dealing with property, and some kinds of relations between the sexes, have been disapproved and stigmatised by a dyslogistic epithet.

Even these differences, wide as they undoubtedly are, form only a part of the controversies which exist on moral subjects. Moral theories, as we have observed, are enforced by different sanctions, and are framed for different purposes, and the degrees of influence of these different theories upon different persons at different times are indefinitely dissimilar.

Take, for instance, the casuistical view of morality, or, as it is more properly called, the view of writers on moral theology. It would require an acquaintance with writers on this subject to which we do not pretend, to give anything like a fair account of the way in which they deal with moral problems, and it would require knowledge which no one possesses, to give an account of the practical working of the system

founded on their theories, or to attempt to appreciate its value.

A few remarks, however, may be offered which we believe are not substantially incorrect, though they are of necessity very slight. Casuists regard morality as a vast system of criminal law administered by priests in confessionals, where the penitent is the accuser and the witness, and the priest the judge. From the casuist's point of view, every sin, even if it be only a sin of thought, is a crime for which the criminal is liable to temporal or eternal punishment as the case may be, unless he is relieved from it by repentance, penance, and absolution. It is obvious that this requires the most detailed analysis of human conduct, as being either sinful or not sinful; and, if sinful, as being either mortally or venially sinful.

To read a casuist is like walking, as Jeremy Taylor said, through a hospital. You see case after case detailed with all the precision and minuteness of a law report, and marked off from each other by circumstances which, in the writer's opinion, distinguish the mortal from the venial sin, or, as lawyers would say, the felony from the misdemeanour. As the Roman Catholic Church itself authorises the writings of casuists only in a negative way, i.e. as containing nothing worthy of condemnation, there is a great conflict of opinions as to the character of sins and as to the sinfulness of particular acts; and perhaps all the great moral controversies would be found to repeat themselves in the works of the casuists.

VOL. III

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