Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/354

342 their results the eyes are turned with a readiness to observe every thing that is good, and on those with a readiness to observe every thing that is bad. Let us glance at some of the consequent perversions of opinion.

Already we have seen by implication that the theological element of a creed, subordinating the ethical element as it does completely in early stages of civilization and very considerably in later stages, maintains a standard of right and wrong, relatively good perhaps, but perhaps absolutely bad—good, that is, as measured by the requirements of the place and time, bad as measured by the requirements of an ideal society. And, sanctifying, as an associated theology may thus do, false conceptions of right and wrong, it falsifies the measures by which the effects of institutions are to be estimated. Obviously the sociological conclusions must be vitiated if beneficial and detrimental effects are not respectively recognized as such. An illustration enforcing this is worth giving. Here is Mr. Palgrave's account of Wahabee morality, as disclosed in answers to his questions:

Clearly a creed which makes smoking one of the blackest crimes, and has only mild reprobation for the worst acts committed by man against man, negatives any thing like Social Science. Habits and institutions not being judged by the degrees in which they conduce to social welfare, the ideas of better and worse, as applying to social arrangements, cannot exist; and such notions as progress and retrogression are excluded. But that which holds so conspicuously in this case holds more or less in all cases. At the present time, as in past times, and in our own society as in other societies, public acts are judged by two tests—the test of supposed divine approbation, and the test of conduciveness to human welfare. Though, as civilization advances, there grows up the belief that the second test is equivalent to the first, though, consequently, conduciveness to human welfare comes to be more directly considered, yet the test of supposed divine approbation, as inferred from the particular creed believed, continues to be very generally used. The wrongness of conduct is conceived as