writes Westermarck, [Footnote: 2 _The Origin and Development of the
Moral Ideas_, chapter i, p. 17.] "being a chimera, there can be no
moral truth in the sense in which this term is generally understood. The
ultimate reason for this is, that the moral concepts are based upon
emotions, and that the contents of an emotion fall entirely outside the
category of truth. But it may be true or not that we have a certain
emotion, it may be true or not that a given mode of conduct has a
tendency to evoke in us moral indignation or moral approval. Hence a
moral judgment is true or false according as its subject has or has not
that tendency which the predicate attributes to it. If I say that it is
wrong to resist evil, and yet resistance to evil has no tendency whatever
to call forth in me an emotion of moral disapproval, then my judgment is
false." The conclusion drawn from this is that there are no general moral
truths, and that "the object of scientific ethics cannot be to fix rules
for human conduct"; it can only be "to study the moral consciousness as a
fact."

20. THE APPEAL TO REASON JUSTIFIED.--The words of so high an authority
should not be passed over lightly. One is impelled to seek for their
proper appreciation and their reconciliation with the judgment of other
moralists. Such can be found, I think, by turning to two truths dwelt
upon in what has preceded: the truth that the moralist should not assume
that he is possessed of a "given" analogous to that of the geometer--a
standard in no need of criticism; and the equally important truth that
the moralist cannot hope to frame a code which will simply replace the
codes of individual communities and will prescribe the details of human
conduct while ignoring such codes altogether.

But it does not seem to follow that, because the moralist may not set up
an arbitrary code of this sort, he is also forbidden to criticize and