Progressive Morality
Progressive Morality
An Essay in Ethics
Book Excerpt
ially conservative,
it occasionally happens that, on some points, the average moral
sentiment is in advance of the law. I may select as examples, from
comparatively recent legal history, the continuance of religious
disabilities and the excessive punishment of ordinary or even trivial
crimes; and, perhaps, I may venture to add, as a possible reform in the
future now largely demanded by popular sentiment, some considerable
modifications of the laws regulating the transfer of and the succession
to landed property. Thus it will be seen that law and the sentiment of
society may each be employed as corrective of the other, and that,
consequently, their comparison implies a higher standard than either, by
means of which each may be tested, and to which each, in its turn, may
be referred. This higher or common standard it will be our business to
consider in a subsequent part of this Essay. Meanwhile, it may be
pointed out that, in addition to its function as an occasional
corrective of the legal sanction, the social
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