The Scientific Basis of National Progress by George Gore

Author:George Gore [Gore, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Literary, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780367147853
Google: QKj0DwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 46179931
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-05T00:00:00+00:00

MORAL PROGRESS.

At the present time few competent persons have largely investigated the fundamental relations of morality to Physical Science, consequently moral actions are usually considered not to have a scientific basis, and the doctrine is still extensively taught that some moral phenomena are essentially supernatural.

As new scientific knowledge has increased, belief in witchcraft, sorcery, demonology, exorcism, evil influences and omens, unseen spirits, a God of evil, supernatural and occult powers, supernatural sources of strange diseases, evil presages from comets and eclipses, fetishism, worship of images and of the Sun, a belief that the Earth is the chief body in the Universe, that man is the “Lord of Creation,” &c., &c., have largely passed away, and beliefs more consistent with facts and with true inferences drawn from them, have taken their place. Belief in the supernatural nature of the human will however is still largely retained. A writer on morality, says—“In every genuine volitition we have a phenomenon not law-determined, law-regulated, and law-explained.”* A popular expositor of religion says—“The phenomena of the human soul are essentially different from the phenomena with which the student of science is most familiar, and must be investigated on other principles and by other methods.” “The voluntary activity of man lies beyond the limits of science.” “Every language man has ever spoken—no matter how perfect or how rude—the literature of the ancient and the modern world, the indestructible instincts of the human soul, the testimony of consciousness, unite to affirm that the human will is independent of natural law.” “The will is a supernatural power.” “I myself am not under the dominion of natural law;” “my moral life is essentially a supernatural thing.” “As soon as you approach the intellectual and moral life of man, you enter a region in which you have to do with a new order of facts.” &c.*

Morality, the subject of duty, or of right and wrongdoing in conscious creatures, is usually considered to relate only to those actions over which a man has or might have had control, and which it was his duty either to perform or avoid, and not to those which are entirely beyond his influence, it is therefore essentially dependent upon the power of selection or choosing. As then all moral actions require voluntary choice between right and wrong, and every act of choice is a mental one of comparison of two or more things, all moral actions are mental ones. We cannot compare things which have not made any mental impression upon us. We know further, and the evidence already given proves, that mental actions are intimately dependent upon the principles of nature operating within and around us. If then all acts of morality (or immorality) are mental ones, and if all mental actions are intimately dependent upon the great principles of nature; then all acts of morality are dependent upon those principles. Morality also cannot be properly understood without a knowledge of various sciences, especially biology, because it relates to human creatures, all of whom

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