Such is a sample, and I must repeat that it is intended only as a
sample, of the class of questions to which, as it seems to me, the moral
test still admits of further application. Morality, or the science and
art of conduct, had its small beginnings, I conceive, in the primeval
household and has only attained its present grand proportions by gradual
increments, derived partly from the semi-conscious operations of the
human intelligence adapting itself to the circumstances in which it is
placed, partly from the conscious meditations of reflective men. That it
is likely to advance in the future, as it has done in the past,
notwithstanding the many hindrances to its progress which confessedly
exist, is, I think, an obvious inference from experience. We may not
unreasonably hope that there will be a stricter sense of justice, a more
complete realisation of duty, more delicacy of feeling, a greater
refinement of manners, more kindliness, quicker and wider sympathies in
the coming generations than there are amongst ourselves. I have
attempted, in this Essay, briefly to delineate the nature of the
feelings on which this progress depends, and of the considerations by
which it is guided, as well as to indicate some few out of the many
directions which it is likely to take in the future. In the former part
of my task, I am aware that I have run counter to many prejudices of
long standing, and that the theories which I consider to be alone
consistent with the fact of the progress of morality, may by some be
thought to impair its authority.
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