(1) It need hardly be pointed out that the assertion of the existence of the Moral Consciousness is not in the slightest degree inconsistent with recognising its gradual growth and development. The {64} moral faculty, like every other faculty or aspect or activity of the human soul, has grown gradually. No rational man doubts the validity--no Idealist doubts the _a priori_ character--of our mathematical judgements because probably monkeys and possibly primitive men cannot count, and certainly cannot perform more than the very simplest arithmetical operations. Still less do we doubt the validity of mathematical reasoning because not only children and savages, but sometimes even distinguished classical scholars--a Macaulay, a Matthew Arnold, a T. S. Evans,--were wholly incapable of understanding very simple mathematical arguments. Equally little do we deny a real difference between harmony and discord because people may be found who see no difference between 'God save the King' and 'Pop goes the Weasel.' Self-evident truth does not mean truth which is evident to everybody. (2) It is not doubted that the gradual evolution of our actual moral ideas--our actual ideas about what is right or wrong in particular cases--has been largely influenced by education, environment, association, social pressure, superstition, perhaps natural selection--in short, all the agencies by which naturalistic Moralists try to account for the existence of Morality. Even Euclid, or whatever his modern substitute may be, has to be taught; but that does not show that Geometry is an arbitrary system {65} invented by the ingenious and interested devices of those who want to get money by teaching it. Arithmetic was invented largely as an instrument of commerce; but it could not have been invented if there were really no such things as number and quantity, or if the human mind had no original capacity for recognizing them. Our scientific ideas, our political ideas, our ideas upon a thousand subjects have been partly developed, partly thwarted and distorted in their growth, by similar influences. But, however great the difficulty of getting rid of these distorting influences and facing such questions in a perfectly dry light, nobody suggests that objective truth on such matters is non-existent or for ever unattainable. A claim for objective validity for the moral judgement does not mean a claim for infallibility on behalf of any individual Conscience. We may make mistakes in Morals just as we may make mistakes in Science, or even in pure Mathematics. If a class of forty small boys are asked to do a sum, they will probably not all bring out the same answer: but nobody doubts that one answer alone is right, though arithmetical capacity is a variable quantity. What is meant is merely that, if I am right in affirming that this is good, you cannot be likewise right in saying that it is bad: and that we have some