PSYCHICAL AXTECEDEXTS OF SCIENCE 165

it to be so by means of some more general and elementary

statement of the same nature. Therefore, the judgments

which lie at the root of any system of thought about ethics

(about right and wrong) must themselves be ethical.

This profound truth shows us that it is absolutely im-

possible that the power of ethical judgment could ever have

been gained through the experience of mere feelings of liking

or disliking, pleasure or pain, sympathy or aversion, goodwill

or hostility of other beings.

It is a distinct kind of intellectual perception, and, there-

fore, if animals are in the least moral, they must possess the

power of intellectual perception, and also be able to form and

comprehend highly abstract truths. For the purpose of this

work, as before said, it does not matter in the least whether a

snail or a starfish has or has not this intellectual faculty.

We confess, however, that we have been quite unable to

obtain evidence satisfactory to us that any mere animals are

endowed with intellect, though we are quite ready to consider

any better evidence which may be forthcoming. But if we

have been mistaken, and if our ethical judgments have been

mere congeries of animal feelings, and ultimately of physical

impulses, which impulses and feelings have lost their way

and come to mistake themselves for something else, then

doubts might well arise as the other declarations of our

intellect, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, and it would be

difficult for us thus to arrive at a satisfactory Epistemology.

On this account we deem it well to make a few more

remarks upon the essential distinction of the ethical idea,

a recognition of the validity of that perception being for our

purposes of such extreme importance.

In the first place, the assertion is sometimes made that

ethic is but coincidence with "social approbation." But no

stream can possibly rise higher than its source. " Social

approbation," then, could never have produced the concep-

it to be so by means of some more general and elementary

statement of the same nature. Therefore, the judgments

which lie at the root of any system of thought about ethics

(about right and wrong) must themselves be ethical.

This profound truth shows us that it is absolutely im-

possible that the power of ethical judgment could ever have

been gained through the experience of mere feelings of liking

or disliking, pleasure or pain, sympathy or aversion, goodwill

or hostility of other beings.

It is a distinct kind of intellectual perception, and, there-

fore, if animals are in the least moral, they must possess the

power of intellectual perception, and also be able to form and

comprehend highly abstract truths. For the purpose of this

work, as before said, it does not matter in the least whether a

snail or a starfish has or has not this intellectual faculty.

We confess, however, that we have been quite unable to

obtain evidence satisfactory to us that any mere animals are

endowed with intellect, though we are quite ready to consider

any better evidence which may be forthcoming. But if we

have been mistaken, and if our ethical judgments have been

mere congeries of animal feelings, and ultimately of physical

impulses, which impulses and feelings have lost their way

and come to mistake themselves for something else, then

doubts might well arise as the other declarations of our

intellect, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, and it would be

difficult for us thus to arrive at a satisfactory Epistemology.

On this account we deem it well to make a few more

remarks upon the essential distinction of the ethical idea,

a recognition of the validity of that perception being for our

purposes of such extreme importance.

In the first place, the assertion is sometimes made that

ethic is but coincidence with "social approbation." But no

stream can possibly rise higher than its source. " Social

approbation," then, could never have produced the concep-