Excerpt from The Evolution of Morality, Vol. 1: Being a History of the Development of Moral Culture Before entering on the consideration of the process by which man has come to recognise certain fixed principles, according to which it is necessary that his moral con duct should be guided, it is advisable to examine some what at large the opinions hitherto held on this subject. Prof. Whewell, in his preface to Mackintosh's Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, observes that it is allowed on all sides that we have a conception of moral obligation. This is admitted by Mr Mill who says The internal sanction of duty, whatever our standard of duty may be, is one and the same - a feeling in our own mind; and he adds, this feeling, when disinterested, and connecting itself with the pure idea of duty, and not with some particular form of it, or with any of the merely accessory circumstances, is the essence of Conscience. 1 Whether or not man originally had any conception of moral obligation will have to be con sidered hereafter. It is a weakness in the argument of most writers that they have never thought of asking this question, it being assumed that man's faculties are now the same as they have ever been. In the comparison of opposing systems however, this is of little moment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.