that its originating
source is likewise of a moral character. This argument, however, appears
to me of a questionable character, seeing that, for anything we can tell
to the contrary, the moral sense may have been given to, or developed
in, man simply on account of its utility to the species--just in the
same way as teeth in the shark or poison in the snake. If so, the
occurrence of the moral sense in man would merely furnish one other
instance of the intellectual, as distinguished from the moral, nature of
God; and there seems to be in itself no reason why we should take any
other view. The mere fact that to _us_ the moral sense seems such a
great and holy thing, is doubtless (under any view) owing to its
importance to the well-being of our species. In itself, or as it appears
to other possible beings intellectual like ourselves, but existing under
unlike conditions, the moral sense of man may be regarded as of no more
significance than the social instincts of bees. More particularly may
this consideration apply to the case of a Mind existing, according to
the theological theory of things, wholly beyond the pale of anything
analogous to those social relations out of which, according to the
scientific theory of evolution, the moral sense has been developed in
ourselves[28].

The truth is that in this matter natural theologians begin by assuming
that the First Cause, if intelligent, _must_ be moral; and then they are
blinded to the strictly logical weakness of the argument whereby they
endeavour to sustain their assumption. For aught that we can tell to the
contrary, it may be quite as 'anthropomorphic' a notion to attribute
morality to God as it would be to attribute those capacities for
sensuous enjoyment with which the Greeks endowed their divinities. The
Deity may be as high above the one as the other--or rather perhaps we
may say as much external to the one as to the other. Without being
supra-moral, and still less immoral, He may be un-moral: our ideas of
morality may have no meaning as applied to Him.

But if we go thus far in one direction, I think, _per contra_, it must
in consistency be allowed that the argument from the constitution of the
human mind acquires more weight when it is shifted from the moral sense
to the religious instincts. For, on the one hand, these instincts are
not of such obvious use to the species as are those of morality; and,
on the other hand, while they are unquestionably very general,