V

CONFUSED NOTIONS OF RIGHT AND WRONG, AND THEIR PRINCIPAL CAUSES

NOTHING is easier in most circumstances than to see what will be Right and what Wrong, in any choice we have to make between two courses of action; and yet most of the wrongdoing of the world is probably done with no clear understanding that it is Wrong. Not many people really mean to do Wrong. Not many, that is, know clearly that they are turning away from the Line of Right and going wrongly when they take that course. On the other hand, not many, perhaps, really

try to know what is Right, in order

ness on the

subject.

that they may do it with certainty and make no mistake. The greater number seem to give little thought to the matter, and their notions of Right are so vague as to be easily confused and misled. They prefer Right to Wrong, Thoughtless and a general intention to be guided by it is in their minds; but the intention is not earnest enough to make them careful and exact. They run no lines of moral survey for themselves, to lay out their courses in life, but carelessly follow beaten paths. They are satisfied, in other words, to be "as nearly Right as other people," - the "other people" being mostly as careless on the subject as themselves. Thus imperfect notions or standards of Right and Wrong get thoughtlessly

accepted, and become established in common practice so widely that more wrong-doing appears to result from them than from all the willful wickedness of the world.

For this reason, it seems to be more necessary to persuade people to give careful consideration to questions of Right and Wrong, and to frame distinct rules in their own minds for the guidance of their conduct, than it is to persuade them to prefer the Right. We have seen already how simple a subject it is, and how small a degree of intelligence is required for grasping every idea with which it has to do. The false notions that confuse it are just as plain, too, in their falsity, when examined, as the true notions are plainly true. Many

that were most misleading in former times have been practically cleared from men's minds by the mere changing of their habits of view, as their dealings with each other have widened out. In the early days of human society a man learned first to see that others in his own tribe were beings like himself, who could claim from him the same treatment which he claimed from them. These were his fellow men; all others seemed different to him. Men not of his own tribe were strangers, and to be a stranger was quite certainly to be an enemy. Hence,

Tribal notions.

most, if not all, of his first notions of Right and Wrong in dealing with other people extended only to the people of his own tribe. He could see it to be

Wrong to take their lives or their property, or to harm them otherwise, long before he could think it Wrong to kill or rob the strange people of other tribes. In time, this tribal notion of Right and Wrong got slowly enlarged in various directions and in various ways, by the union of kindred tribes into nations, or by the spreading of common religions, which multiplied the number of people whom each man could feel human fellowship with, and so recognize as having moral claims on himself.

That process has been going on through centuries, until now it can be said that nearly all the hedges which used to grow high between people of different nations, different races, different religions, to keep them from feel