From him, and others, we have abundant evidence that moral ideas exist, at least in germ, in savage races of men, while they sometimes attain even a highly developed state.

No amount of evidence as to acts of moral depravity is to the point, as the object here aimed at is to establish that moral intuitions _exist_ in savages, not that their actions are good.
Objections, however, are sometimes drawn from the different notions as to the moral value of certain acts, entertained by men of various countries or of different epochs; also from the difficulty of knowing what particular actions in certain cases are the right ones, and from the effects which prejudice, interest, passion, habit, or even, indirectly, physical conditions, may have upon our moral perceptions.

Thus Sir John Lubbock speaks[213] of certain Feejeeans, who, according to the testimony of Mr.
Hunt,[214] have the custom of piously choking their parents under certain circumstances, in order to insure their happiness in a future life.

Should any one take such facts as telling _against_ the belief in an absolute morality, he would show a complete misapprehension of the point in dispute; for such facts tell in _favour_ of it.
Were it asserted that man possesses a distinct innate power and faculty by which he is made intuitively aware what acts considered in and by themselves are right and what wrong,--an infallible and universal internal code,--the illustration would be to the point.

But all that need be contended for is that the intellect perceives not only truth, but also a quality of "higher" which ought to be followed, and of "lower" which ought to be avoided; when two lines of conduct are presented to the will for choice, the intellect so acting being the conscience.
{200} This has been well put by Mr.James Martineau in his excellent essay on Whewell's Morality.