frequent line of attack
that empirical moralists make upon Intuitionalism is to
examine and compare the various "intuitions" of right conduct
which have been held by men in different ages and places.

The traditional method of combating intuitionalism from the time
of John Locke to that of Herbert Spencer has been to present the
reader with a list of cruel and abominable savage customs, ridiculous
superstitions, acts of religious fanaticism and intolerance, which
have all alike seemed self-evidently good and right to the peoples or
individuals who have practised them. There is hardly a vice or a
crime (according to our own moral standard) which has not at some
time or other in some circumstances been looked upon as a moral
and religious duty. Stealing was accounted virtuous for the young
Spartan, and among the Indian caste of Thugs. In the ancient
world, piracy, that is, robbery and murder, was a respectable
profession. To the mediaeval Christian, religious persecution was the
highest of duties, and so on.[1]

[Footnote 1: Rashdall: _loc. cit._, p. 59.]

The Empiricist asks: If all these intuitions are absolute;
if men at various times and at various places, indeed, if,
as is the case, men of different social classes and situations at
the present time, differ so profoundly in their "intuitions" of
the just, the noble, and the base, which of the conflicting
intuitions, all equally absolute, is _the_ absolute? The Intuitionalist
continually appeals to the universal intuition and assent of
Mankind. But there is scarcely a single moral law for which
universal assent in even a single generation can be found.
One has but to survey the heterogeneous collection of customs
and prohibitions collected in such a work as Frazer's _Golden
Bough_, to see how little unanimity there is in the moral
intuitions of mankind.

The Empiricist finds the origin of these divergent moral
convictions in the divergent environments to which individuals
in different places, times, and social situations are exposed.
The intensity and apparent irrefutability of these
convictions, which the Intuitionalist ascribes to their innateness,
the Empiricist ascribes to their early acquisition, and
the deep emotional hold which early acquired habits have
over the individual. Those moral beliefs which we hold with
the utmost conviction and intensity are, instead of being
thereby guaranteed as most reasonable and genuinely moral,
thereby rendered, says th