§ 7.

But happily there is an alternative. The force of the objection above set forth may be fully admitted, without in any degree invalidating the theory. Notwithstanding appearances to the contrary, it is still possible to construct upon this basis, a purely synthetic morality proof against all such criticism.

The error pointed out is not one of doctrine, but of application. Those who committed it did not start from a wrong principle, but rather missed the right way from that principle to the sought-for conclusions. It was not in the oracle to which they appealed, but in their method of interpretation, that the writers of the Shaftesbury school erred. Confounding Edition: current; Page: [29] the functions of feeling and reason, they required a sentiment to do that, which should have been left to the intellect. They were right in believing that there exists some governing instinct generating in us an approval of certain actions we call good, and a repugnance to certain others we call bad. But they were not right in assuming such instinct to be capable of intuitively solving every ethical problem submitted to it. To suppose this, was to suppose that moral sense could supply the place of logic.

For the better explanation of this point, let us take an analogy from mathematics, or rather some branch of it, as geometry. The human mind possesses a faculty that takes cognizance of measurable quantity, which faculty, to carry out the analogy, let us term a geometric sense. By the help of this we estimate the linear dimensions, surfaces, and bulks of surrounding objects, and form ideas of their relationship to each other. But in the endeavour to reduce the knowledge thus obtained to a scientific form, we find that no reliance can be placed on the unaided decisions of this geometric sense, in consequence of the conflicting judgments it makes in different persons. On comparing notes, however, we discover that there are certain simple propositions upon which we all think alike, such as “Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another;” “The whole is greater than its part;” and agreeing upon these axioms as we call them—these fundamental truths recognised by our geometric sense, we find it becomes possible by successive deductions to settle all disputed points, and to solve with certainty, problems of the most complicated naturea. Now if, instead of adopting this method, geometricians had persisted in determining all questions concerning lines, angles, squares, circles, and the like, by the geometric sense—if they had tried to discover whether the three angles of Edition: current; Page: [30] a triangle were, or were not, equal to two right angles, and whether the areas of similar polygons were, or were not, in the duplicate ratio of their homologous sides, by an effort of simple perception, they would have made just the same mistake that moralists make, who try to solve all the problems of morality by the moral sense.

The reader will at once perceive the conclusion towards which this analogy points; namely, that the perception of the primary laws of quantity bears the same relationship to mathematics, that this instinct of right bears to a moral system; and that as it is the office of the geometric sense to originate a geometric axiom, from which reason may deduce a scientific geometry, so it is the office of the moral sense to originate a moral axiom, from which reason may develope a systematic morality.

And, varying the illustration, it may be further remarked that just as erroneous notions in mechanics,—for instance, that large bodies fall faster than small onesa; that water rises in a pump by suction; that perpetual motion is possible, together with the many other mistaken opinions, formed by unaided mechanical sense,—are set aside by the conclusions synthetically deduced from those primary laws of matter which the mechanical sense recognises; so may we expect the multitudes of conflicting beliefs about human duty dictated by unaided moral sense, to disappear before the deductions scientifically drawn from some primary law of man which the moral sense recognises.