34 PEOF. H. SIDGWICK :

has as yet passed out of this stage ; but I think that it is beginning to pass out of it, and that a continually increasing number of reflective persons are conscious of no moral impulse to " award external ill " to their fellow-creatures, except as a means to some ulterior good. I have made these preliminary remarks, because, while the main object of this paper is to show the erroneousness of Dr. Martineau's account of the moral judgments which we, here and now, habitually pass, it is important to make clear at the outset that the question discussed does not seem to me to admit of being answered so decisively as Dr. Mar- tineau assumes. I think that the assumption of a common moral consciousness which we all share, and which each of us can find in himself by introspection, is to a great extent true ; that to a great extent we educated members of the same society tend, in our ordinary thought and dis- course, to pass similar judgments of approbation and dis- approbation, feel similar sentiments of liking or aversion for the conduct so judged, and similar promptings to encourage or repress it. But, after carefully reflecting on my own moral sentiments and comparing them with those of others to whom I have no reason to attribute a less careful reflection I do not find in the result anything like the extent of agreement which Dr. Martineau assumes. This is the expla- nation of the "hesitation" that Dr. Martineau finds in my attempt to formulate the morality of common sense : on any point on which opposing opinions appear to me tolerably balanced, so that neither can fairly be described as eccentric, I represent common sense as hesitating : to decide any such point either way would be an improper substitution of my own judgment for that common judgment of educated and thoughtful persons which I am trying to ascertain and formulate. Nor do I consider the verdict of common sense, so far as it is clearly pronounced, as final on the question of ethical truth or falsehood ; since a study of the history of human opinion leads me to regard the current civilised morality of the present age as merely a stage in a long pro- cess of development, in which the human mind has I hope been gradually moving towards a truer apprehension of what ought to be. As reflection shows us in the morality of earlier stages an element of what we now agree to regard as confusion and error, it seems reasonable to suppose that similar defects are lurking in our own current and accepted morality ; and, in fact, observation and analysis of this morality, so far as I have been able to ascertain what it is, has led me to see such defects in it. How to eliminate, if