compare moral judgments, to arrange existing codes in a certain order as
lower and higher, to frame some notion of what constitutes progress. He
may hold before himself, in outline, at least, an ideal of conduct, and
not one taken up arbitrarily but based upon the phenomena of the moral
consciousness as he has observed them. And in the light of this ideal he
may judge of conduct; his appeal is to an objective standard.

Thus, he who says that it is false that it is right to reduce to slavery
prisoners taken in war may, if he be sufficiently unreflective, have no
better reason for his judgment than a feeling of repugnance to such
conduct. But, if he has risen to the point of taking broad views of men
and their moral codes, he may very well assert the falsity of the
statement even when he feels no personal repugnance to the holding of
certain persons as slaves. His appeal is, in fact, to such a standard as
is above indicated, and his condemnation of certain forms of conduct is
based upon their incompatibility with it.

Hence, a man may significantly assert that certain conduct is objectively
desirable, although it may not be desired by himself or by his community.
He may judge a thing to be wrong without _feeling_ it to be wrong.
Whether anything would actually be judged to be wrong, if no one ever had
any emotions, is a different question. With it we may class the question
whether anything would be judged to be wrong if no one were possessed of
even a spark of reason. There is small choice between having nothing to
see and not being able to see anything. [Footnote: That, in the citation
above given, WESTERMARCK'S attention was concentrated upon the extreme
position taken by some moralists touching the function of the reason in
moral judgments seems to me evident. He is far too able an observer to
overlook the significance of the diversity of moral codes and the meaning
of progress. He writes: "Though rooted in the emotional side of our