All
Incitements To Great Crimes Are Thus Wanting, And Petty Ones Are
Repressed, Partly By The Influence Of Public Opinion, But Chiefly
By That Natural Sense Of Justice And Of His Neighbour's Right,
Which Seems To Be, In Some Degree, Inherent In Every Race Of Man.
Now, although we have progressed vastly beyond the savage state
in intellectual achievements, we have not advanced equally in
morals.
It is true that among those classes who have no wants
that cannot be easily supplied, and among whom public opinion has
great influence; the rights of others are fully respected. It is
true, also, that we have vastly extended the sphere of those
rights, and include within them all the brotherhood of man. But
it is not too much to say, that the mass of our populations have
not at all advanced beyond the savage code of morals, and have in
many cases sunk below it. A deficient morality is the great blot
of modern civilization, and the greatest hindrance to true
progress.
During the last century, and especially in the last thirty years,
our intellectual and material advancement has been too quickly
achieved for us to reap the full benefit of it. Our mastery over
the forces of mature has led to a rapid growth of population, and
a vast accumulation of wealth; but these have brought with them
such au amount of poverty and crime, and have fostered the growth
of so much sordid feeling and so many fierce passions, that it
may well be questioned, whether the mental and moral status of
our population has not on the average been lowered, and whether
the evil has not overbalanced the good.
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