The question really depends upon the more fundamental one, of whether man's entire mental and moral nature is the product and outcome of that material organization whose laws of growth and development Mr. Spencer has so well elucidated. If mind with all its powers is simply a function of organized matter, then Mr. Spencer's theory of the origin of morals is the only one which can be held by a student of science. If, however, there is any thing in man more than his physical organization, then it becomes a subject of strict scientific and philosophical inquiry to determine from a study of the phenomena of his mind in various stages of growth and under various conditions, what is the mental substratum required to account for the development of the faculties we actually find in him. The utilitarian sanction for truthfulness is by no means very powerful or universal.
Few laws enforce it.
No very severe reprobation follows untruthfulness. A certain amount of untruthfulness is a necessary part of politeness in the east and west alike, while even severe moralists have held a lie justifiable to elude an enemy or prevent a crime. Yet it is a fact that such a mystical sense of wrong does attach to untruthfulness, not only among the higher classes of civilized people, but among whole tribes of utter savages. As a remarkable instance of this quality the following fact is given. A number of prisoners, taken during the insurrection, were allowed to go free on parole, to work at a certain spot for wages.