of all men to employ it as a
moral prophylactic.

Thus far he figures as the vindicator of simple veracity against those
who, in the name of morals, would make it of no account. He has still to
meet, indeed, the challenge: What of the ill-disposed among your own way
of thinking? If an unbeliever should see his way to gain by falsehood
or licit fraud, what should deter him? Much satisfaction appears to be
derived by many well-meaning people from the propounding of this
dilemma. They may or may not be gratified by the answer that if a
rationalist should not be, by training and bias, spontaneously averse to
lying and cheating, or generally unwilling to do otherwise than he would
be done by, or sensitive enough to the blame of his fellows to fear it,
there is indeed no more security for his veracity or honesty than for
that of a typical Jesuit or a pious company promoter. One can but add
that, seeing that in the terms of the case he began by unprofitably
avowing an unpopular opinion, he is presumably, on the average, rather
less likely to lie for gain than those who confessedly find the sheer
fear of consequences a highly important consideration in their own plan
of life, and who have at the same time the promise from their own code
of plenary pardon for all sins on the simple condition of ultimate
repentance.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Even Professor F. H. Bradley, the ablest of living English
philosophers, is responsible for the proposition that 'to wish to be
better than the world is to be already on the threshold of immorality'
(_Ethical Studies_, 1876, p. 180). As the book has not been reprinted,
despite much demand, it may be inferred that the author no longer stands
to all its positions.

[5] Thus we are told of the heroic Gordon that he was 'perplexed
perpetually, and perpetually in doubt as to the precise will of God with
him' (W. S. Blunt, _Gordon at Khartoum_, 1911, p. 88).

[6] The logical analysis may be carried further, as by Mr. A. J.
Balfour:--'To assume a special faculty which is to announce ultimate
moral laws can add nothing to their validity, nor will it do so the more
if we suppose its authority supported by such sanctions as remorse or
self-approval. Conscience regarded in this way is not ethically to be
distinguished from any external authority, as, for instance, the Deity,
or the laws of the land' (_A Defence of Philosophic Doubt_, 1879, p.
345).

[7] The same might be said of Mrs. Browning's minatory