again, and moral beliefs are
supposed to depend upon some affirmation of these truths; and excellent
people are naturally shy of any open admission which may appear to
throw doubt upon the ultimate grounds of morality.

Indeed, if it could be really proved that men have to choose between
renouncing moral truths and accepting unproved theories, it might be
right--I will not argue the point--to commit intellectual suicide. If
the truth is that we are mere animals or mere automata, shall we
sacrifice the truth, or sacrifice what we have at least agreed to call
our higher nature? For us the dilemma has no force: for we do not admit
the discrepancy. We believe that morality depends upon something deeper
and more permanent than any of the dogmas that have hitherto been
current in the churches. It is a product of human nature, not of any of
these transcendental speculations or faint survivals of traditional
superstitions. Morality has grown up independently of, and often in
spite of, theology. The creeds have been good so far as they have
accepted or reflected the moral convictions; but it is an illusion to
suppose that they have generated it. They represent the dialect and the
imagery by which moral truths have been conveyed to minds at certain
stages of thought; but it is a complete inversion of the truth to
suppose that the morality sprang out of them. From this point of view
we must of necessity treat the great ethical questions independently.
We cannot form a real alliance with thinkers radically opposed to us.
Divines tell us that we reject the one possible basis of morality. To
us it appears that we are strengthening it, by severing it from a
connection with doctrines arbitrary, incapable of proof, and incapable
of retaining any consistent meaning. Theologians once believed that
hell-fire was the ultimate sentence, and persecution the absolute duty
of every Christian ruler. The churches which once burnt and
exterminated are now only anxious to proclaim freedom of belief, and to
cast the blame of persecution upon their rivals. Divines have
discovered that the doctrine of hell-fire deserves all that infidels
have said of it; and a member of Dante's church was arguing the other
day that hell might on the whole be a rather pleasant place of
residence. Doctrines which can thus be turned inside out are hardly
desirable bases for morality. So the early Christians, again, were the
Socialists of their age, and took a view of Di