The final triumph will be the union of the nations in one brotherhood, and the abolition of war.
The red Indian does not think it immoral to murder an Indian of another tribe. The European does not think it immoral to kill thousands of men in battle. The evolution of morality has not yet carried us as far as universal peace. Nor has any revelation of God forbidden war.
We do not need to think long, nor to look far to see that different conditions have evolved different moral codes.
But all morals may be divided into two classes: True Morals and Artificial Morals.
True morals are all founded on the rule that it is wrong to cause needless injury to any fellow-creature.
Artificial morals are those morals invented by priests, kings, lawyers, poets, soldiers, and philosophers.
Moral codes made by rulers, or by ruling classes, are generally founded on expediency; and expediency, as understood by the rulers or the ruling classes, usually means those things that are expedient for themselves.
Now that which is expedient for a king, a tyrant, or an aristocracy may be far from expedient for the people over whom they rule. So we need not be surprised to find that many of the laws of barbarous and civilised nations are immoral laws. Our British game laws, land laws, poor laws, and very many of the criminal laws, and the laws relating to property, are immoral laws.
But there is no revelation of God condemning those laws. Nor does any European church oppose those laws, nor denounce them as immoral.
Then as to public opinion—our unwritten moral code—there is no clear and logical system of moral principles. For instance, the public think it a pity that men should be out of work, that women should starve, that little children should be sent to school unwashed and unfed. But the public do not think these things immoral. The fact is, the British people, after more than a thousand years of Christian teaching, do not know what true morality is. And how should they know, when their teachers in the church do not know?