Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/14

2 and impressive character, as with the merging of many tribal deities into a national god, and of various national gods into a single supreme power, they come to be regarded as the supernaturally given utterances of the invisible, omniscient, omnipresent, but still manlike governor of the universe. The precept or direction, therefore, takes the form of a command, and right and wrong in action are made synonymous with obedience or disobedience to such command. Along with development in definiteness and consistency of a code thus made up goes increasing stress upon the pleasures and pains by enunciation of which the commands are accompanied. Right action, or obedience to the will of the divine ruler, is attended by divine approval, and is fostered by promises of heavenly reward; wrong action, as disobedience to his will, calls down divine anger and the threat of penalties in the future life.

Whatever may be the particular differences separating the various theological codes of conduct from one another, they thus reveal striking similarities in sundry important respects. With greater or less distinctness they all claim supernatural origin; establish their behests and their interdicts upon the basis of external, ultra-human yet still manlike authority; and find support for their declarations in the presentation of consequences lying outside the natural order. The theological system of conduct of the low savage tribe and that developed among the nations of the civilized world of course differ in the character of the acts distinguished as good and bad, in the quality of the rewards and penalties offered, in the attitude of mind encouraged, and in other equally significant ways. Yet they have these points in common: the commands are supernatural, the sanctions are supernatural, the code is based upon ultra-rational considerations and backed by the presentation of ultra-rational results.

That it is the theological code of conduct which, throughout the Christian ages and down even to our own day, has been almost universally accepted as the one possible foundation of morality, we need not here pause to insist. If the tables of the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai are not still regarded as the original source of our knowledge of the distinctions of conduct, there is still a tacit belief that such knowledge depends upon supernatural revelation. As by one course or another, therefore, our commonly held ideas of morality lead us back to the theological root, it will be well to note the bearings of theological principles upon the questions with which morality is concerned. The following points are, I think, specially worthy of attention:

Since the theological code of conduct regards virtue simply as obedience to divine command, and measures morality by the correspondence of action with the divine will, we are bound to infer