and Marx suggests that all morality is derived from class-interest. This latter view, in its strict economic form, is undoubtedly too narrow; but when we include other groups, national, religious, et cetera, it becomes far more plausible. Without committing ourselves to this opinion, let us see what could be said for it by an advocate.
In the first place (he would say) if you wish to understand the nature of the moral sentiments, you should study the occasions on which they are most strongly aroused. At the outbreak of the war, there was an extraordinary wave of moral sentiment in all the belligerent countries; we felt a moral horror of the Germans because of their invasion of Belgium, and they felt an exactly equal moral horror of us because of the blockade—at any rate those were the reasons assigned. The Times feels moral horror of the Bolsheviks whenever it is proposed that something should be done to diminish the misery in Russia. Anarchists feel moral horror of the tyrants whom they assassinate. Judges are full of moral fervour when they condemn men to be flogged. The Charity Organization Society is full of moral condemnation of the undeserving poor, and socialists who advocate confiscation are full of moral condemnation of the undeserving rich.
From these facts, our moral advocatus diaboli draws the conclusion that morality is a device for inhibiting our natural sympathies on occasions when we wish to inflict pain, whether from motives of self-preservation, ambition, or sheer cruelty. He will say that sympathy conflicts with egoism, and that morality enables us to camouflage the victory of egoism as really a higher form of sympathy. He will point out that the conception of sin is anterior, historically and anthropologically, to the conception of virtue, and that to this day the occasions when we feel most moral are the occasions when we are administering punishment. He will go on to say that, if the moralists really desired a happier world, as they say they do, they would work for the abolition of morality, since, if it were extinct, sympathy would have free play, and men would not torture each other so much as they do. But he will not press this argumentum ad hominem, since his position debars him from the tempting conclusion that all moralists are immoral, and that he is moral when he inflicts pain upon them.
There are, of course, answers to this position, whether valid or invalid. But although Professor Laing's first chapter is headed
