for no other reason;” and the most beautiful character to which humanity can attain, that of the man who does good without thinking about it, because he loves justice and mercy and is repelled by evil, has no claim on our moral approbation.  The denial that a man acts morally because he does not think whether he does so or not, may be put upon the same footing as the denial of the title of an arithmetician to the calculating boy, because he did not know how he worked his sums.  If mankind ever generally accept and act upon Mr. Mivart’s axiom, they will simply become a set of most unendurable prigs; but they never have accepted it, and I venture to hope that evolution has nothing so terrible in store for the human race.

But, if an action, the motive of which is nothing out affection or sympathy, may be deserving of moral approbation and really good, who that has ever had a dog of his own will deny that animals are capable of such actions?  Mr. Mivart indeed says:—­“It may be safely affirmed, however, that there is no trace in brutes of any actions simulating morality which are not explicable by the fear of punishment, by the hope of pleasure, or by personal affection” (p. 221).  But it may be affirmed, with equal truth, that there is no trace in men of any actions which are not traceable to the same motives.  If a man does anything, he does it either because he fears to be punished if he does not do it, or because he hopes to obtain pleasure by doing it, or because he gratifies his affections[1] by doing it.

[Footnote 1:  In separating pleasure and the gratification of affection, I simply follow Mr. Mivart without admitting the justice of the separation.]

Assuming the position of the absolute moralists, let it be granted that there is a perception of right and wrong innate in every man.  This means, simply, that when certain ideas are presented to his mind, the feeling of approbation arises; and when certain others, the feeling of disapprobation.  To do your duty is to earn the approbation of your conscience, or moral sense; to fail in your duty is to feel its disapprobation, as we all say.  Now, is approbation a pleasure or a pain?  Surely a pleasure.  And is disapprobation a pleasure or a pain?  Surely a pain.  Consequently all that is really meant by the absolute moralists is that there is, in the very nature of man, something which enables him to be conscious of these particular pleasures and pains.  And when they talk of immutable and eternal principles of morality, the only intelligible sense which I can put upon the words, is that the nature of man being what it is, he always has been, and always will be, capable of feeling these particular pleasures and pains. A priori, I have nothing to say against this proposition.  Admitting its truth, I do not see how the moral faculty is on a different footing from any of the other faculties of man.  If I choose to say that it is an immutable and eternal law of