It is a mistake to suppose that the foundations of morality are in any way weakened by thus tracing them up to their first origins. On the contrary, if we consider the matter rightly, they are placed on a much more solid and unassailable basis. If we say that moral laws depend on a universal instinct implanted in all mankind, faith in them is shaken whenever we read in history, or hear from the report of travellers, of whole nations, constituting from first to last the immense majority of the human race, who had none of those ideas which we now consider fundamental. If, again, we base them on divine precepts miraculously conveyed, every discovery of science and development of thought which weakens faith in miracles impairs the basis of morals. And on this theory, hopeless contradictions arise within the sphere of those very moral laws which we seek to establish; as in reconciling the justice and mercy of the Creator in revealing this inspired code only to limited portions of the human race, and under conditions which leave large scope for legitimate doubt, and which, in point of fact, failed to ensure recognition for its moral precepts among His own chosen people for a long period after its promulgation. But on the scientific theory of the evolution of morality by natural laws it stands on an impregnable footing. No one can deny that, as a matter of fact, such instincts do prevail, and have become part of the nature of all the best men and best races, and that each successive generation tends to fix them more firmly. Mathematical laws are not the less certain because they can be traced back to counting on the fingers, and moral laws will continue to have a certainty and cogency, scarcely inferior to the axioms of mathematics, although we can trace them back to origins as rude as the attempts of the Australian savage to extend his perceptions of number beyond ‘one, two, and a great many.’