usiness of Moral Science to deduce, from the laws of life and
the conditions of existence, what kinds of action necessarily tend
to produce happiness, and what kinds to produce unhappiness. Having
done this, its deductions are to be recognised as laws of conduct;
and are to be conformed to irrespective of a direct estimation of
happiness or misery."

Nor is this the only enunciation of what I conceive to be the primary
basis of morals, contained in this same letter. A subsequent paragraph
separated by four lines only from that which Mr. Hutton extracts,
commences thus:--

"Progressing civilization, which is of necessity a succession of
compromises between old and new, requires a perpetual re-adjustment
of the compromise between the ideal and the practicable in social
arrangements: to which end, both elements of the compromise must be
kept in view. If it is true that pure rectitude prescribes a system
of things far too good for men as they are, it is not less true that
mere expediency does not of itself tend to establish a system of
things any better than that which exists. While absolute morality
owes to expediency the checks which prevent it from rushing into
Utopian absurdities, expediency is indebted to absolute morality for
all stimulus to improvement. Granted that we are chiefly interested
in ascertaining what is _relatively right_, it still follows that we
must first consider what is _absolutely right_; since the one
conception presupposes the other."

I do not see how there could well be a more emphatic assertion that
there exists a primary basis of morals independent of, and in a sense
antecedent to, that which is furnished by experiences of utility; and
consequently, independent of, and, in a sense antecedent to, those moral
sentiments which I conceive to be generated by such experiences. Yet no
one could gather from Mr. Hutton's article that I assert this; or would
even find reasons for a faint suspicion that I do so. From the reference
made to my further views, he would infer my acceptance of that empirical
utilitarianism which I have expressly repudiated. And the title which
Mr. Hutton gives to his paper clearly asserts, by implication, that I
recognize no "parentage for morals" beyond that of the accumulation and
organization of the effects of experience. I cannot believe that Mr.
Hutton intended to convey this erroneous imp