We should be logically compelled to acquiesce in the vociferations of some continental utilitarians, who would banish altogether the senseless words "duty" and "merit;" and then, one important influence which has aided human progress being withdrawn, we should be reduced to hope that in this case the maxim _cessante causa cessat ipse effectus_ might through some incalculable accident fail to apply.
It is true that Mr.Spencer tries to erect a safeguard against such moral disruption, by asserting that for every immoral act, word, or thought, each man during this life receives minute and exact retribution, and that thus a regard for individual self-interest will effectually prevent any moral catastrophe.

But by what means will he enforce the acceptance of a dogma which is not only incapable of proof, but is opposed to the commonly received opinion of mankind in all ages?
Ancient literature, sacred and profane, teems with protests against the successful evil-doer, and certainly, as Mr.Hutton observes,[217] "Honesty must have been associated by our ancestors with many unhappy as well as many happy consequences, and we know that in ancient Greece dishonesty was openly and actually associated with happy consequences....

When the concentrated experience of previous generations was held, _not_ indeed to justify, but to excuse by utilitarian considerations, craft, dissimulation, sensuality, selfishness." This dogma is opposed to the moral consciousness of many as to the events of their own lives; and the Author, for one, believes that it is absolutely contrary to fact.
History affords multitudes of instances, but an example may be selected from one of the most critical periods of modern times.

Let it be {206} granted that Lewis the Sixteenth of France and his queen had all the defects attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians; let all the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Lewis the Fifteenth, and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pretended that there are grounds for affirming that the vices of the two former so far exceeded those of the latter, that their respective fates were plainly and evidently just?
that while the two former died in their beds, after a life of the most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth through coming time as examples of the most appalling and calamitous tragedy?
This theme, however, is too foreign to the immediate matter in hand to be further pursued, tempting as it is.

But a passing protest against a superstitious and deluding dogma may stand,--a dogma which may, like any other dogma, be vehemently asserted and maintained, but which is remarkable for being destitute, at one and the same time, of both authoritative sanction and the support of reason and observation.
To return to the bearing of moral conceptions on "Natural Selection," it seems that, from the reasons given in this chapter, we may safely affirm--1.