It is probable that as the world goes on morals will move more and more in the direction I have described. There will be at the same time a steadily increasing tendency to judge moral qualities and courses of conduct mainly by the degree in which they promote or diminish human happiness. Enthusiasm and self-sacrifice for some object which has no real bearing on the welfare of man will become rarer and will be less respected, and the condemnation that is passed on acts that are recognised as wrong will be much more proportioned than at present to the injury they inflict. Some things, such as excessive luxury of expenditure and the improvidence of bringing into the world children for whom no provision has been made, which can now scarcely be said to enter into the teaching of moralists, or at least of churches, may one day be looked upon as graver offences than some that are in the penal code.
FOOTNOTES:
[11] St. Francis de Sales.
[12] St. Philip Neri.
[13] St. Teresa.
[14] 'Cum dictus Johannes Hus fidem orthodoxam pertinaciter impugnans, se ab omni con ductu et privilegio reddiderit alienum, nec aliqua sibi fides aut promissio de jure naturali divino vel humano, fuerit in præjudicium Catholicæ fidei observanda.' Declaration of the Council of Constance. See Creighton's History of the Papacy, ii. 32.
[15] I have collected some illustrations of this in my History of European Morals, ii. 235-242.
[16] See, e.g. his funeral oration on Marie Thérèse d'Autriche.
[17] See the enthusiastic eulogy of the persecution of the Huguenots in his funeral oration on Michel le Tellier. It concludes: 'Épanchons nos cœurs sur la piété de Louis; poussons jusqu'au ciel nos acclamations, et disons à ce nouveau Constantin, à ce nouveau Théodose, à ce nouveau Marcien, à ce nouveau Charlemagne ce que les six cent trente Pères dirent autrefois dans le Concile de Chalcédoine: "Vous avez affermi la foi; vous avez exterminé les hérétiques; c'est le digne ouvrage de votre règne; c'en est le propre caractère. Par vous l'hérésie n'est plus, Dieu seul a pu faire cette merveille. Roi du ciel, conservez le roi de la terre; c'est le vœu, des Églises; c'est le vœu des Évêques."'
[18] See Migne, Encyclopédie Théologique, 'Dict. de Cas de Conscience,' art. Avortement.