It is easy to reason out from this principle what actions would be condemned and what actions would be praised in the various stages of human development. The strongest injunctions would correspond with the fundamental requirements of existence, and would enjoin the sacredness of life within the community. The family relationships would come next in order of authority. The safeguards of property of every description would early receive ethical recognition. Commendation would be accorded to men whose actions were properly limited in these respects. In early stages of development the coward would be condemned, while the warrior who did his share well in the protection of the community would be praised. And so in a variety of ways men's actions would receive praise or blame, according as they conduced to the welfare or to the suffering of the existing community. FOOTNOTES: [12] Data of Ethics, p. 133. [13] Data of Ethics, p. 139. [14] Ibid., p. 140. CHAPTER V. THE ETHICAL IMPERATIVE. We have thus seen that the origin and authority of Ethics are to be found in Sociology; but to allow the enquiry to rest here is only half to understand the nature and imperativeness of ethical obligations as to conduct. We consider that Mr. Spencer's ethical theory suffers from his mode of exposition. We should be disposed to approach the question in an inverse order, and instead of seeking for an ethical authority on individual or biological grounds, culminating in an ethical Sociology, to acknowledge at once the sociological origin and authority of the ethical obligation, and to endeavour to understand it in detail by a subordinate study of biological requirements and psychological growths.