§ 1.

It seems at first sight a very rational way of testing any proposed rule of conduct to ask—How will it work? Taking men as we know them, and institutions as they are, what will result from carrying such a theory into practice? This very common-sense style of inquiry is that by which most opinions on morals and politics are formed. People consider of any system, whether it seems feasible, whether it will square with this or the other social arrangement, whether it fits what they see of human nature. They have got certain notions of what Edition: current; Page: [32] man is, and what society must be; and their verdict on any ethical doctrine depends upon its accordance or discordance with these.

Such a mode of settling moral questions, is clearly open to all the criticisms so fatal to the expediency-philosophy. Incapacity for guiding ourselves in detail by making estimates of consequences, implies incapacity for judging of first principles by that method. But passing over this, there is yet another reason for rejecting an inquiry so pursued as worthless; namely, that it assumes the character of mankind to be constant. If moral systems are adopted or condemned, because of their consistency or inconsistency, with what we know of men and things, then it is taken for granted that men and things will ever be as they are. It would be absurd to measure with a variable standard. If existing humanity is the gauge by which truth must be determined, then must that gauge—existing humanity—be fixed.

Now that it is not fixed, might have been thought sufficiently obvious without any proving—so obvious indeed as to make proof look ridiculous. But, unfortunately, those whose prejudices make them think otherwise are too numerous to be passed by. Their scepticism needs to be met by facts; and, wearisome though it may be to the philosophic reader, there is no alternative but to go into these.