This denomination, strange as it may seem, also urge upon mankind what, in their opinion, is the “true moral rule”--the correct standard of right. It is that which is established by authority, custom, or general consent. A variable and doubtful criterion, this, one would naturally suppose. How severely has it been treated by Spencer and Carpenter. Right and wrong are not _essentially_ different. All moral distinctions are a matter of arbitrary establishment by the “powers that be.” That which is statutory, customary, fashionable, or generally habitual, is fit and proper. Conduct is purely a question of majority and might. Place gambling in the ascendant to-morrow and it would be just; or, as the major part of humanity, gamesters would be respectable; for an opinion commonly accepted is the correct opinion. With this as a guide, can the state hold the gamester reprobate? Society keeps changing its sentiments with the centuries. Absolutely, we can never know when it is right or when it is wrong. The outlaw of one era is the idol of another. Servetus was immolated by the Calvinists, to-day he is a martyr to conscience. Bruno was burned as a heretic, now he is the hero of philosophy and science. Galileo and Roger Bacon were once execrated by the church--their bones lie in unknown and unhonored graves. We regard them as brave pioneers of human thought. The formerly despised and hunted Christians are become the greatest power on earth. The Jew money-lender of the “dark ages” (whom such as Front-de-Bœuf once tortured with impunity) is the Rothschild of our century--“the guest of princes and the instigator of commercial wars.” Shylock is now an influential and courted capitalist. “All the glories of Alexander do not condone, in our eyes, for his cruelty in crucifying the brave defenders of Tyre, by thousands, along the sea-shore; and if Solomon, with his thousand wives and concubines, were to appear in London or New York to-morrow, even the most frivolous circles would be shocked, and Brigham Young, by contrast, seem a domestic model.” From Cæsar we learn that the Suevi held their lands in common; that private property in the soil did not obtain with the Gauls and Germans. The same is true of the North American Indians and some of the Pacific Islanders. It is conceded, moreover, that communistic principles were generally prevalent in the earliest ages of the world. Then, any attempt at exclusive individual possession of land or chattel would have been deemed a theft.