congregated together for mutual protection and support, their separate interests as families were found to be conflicting, and so a modus vivendi was sought in the same principle which governed relations within the family:  the common interests of the grouped families, the tribe, must prevail over the separate and conflicting interests of the separate families; that which disrupted the tribe was wrong, while that which strengthened and consolidated it was right.  Thus tribal morality was established.  The next step was taken as tribes grouped themselves together and became a nation, and morality extended so as to include all who were within the nation; that which disrupted the nation was wrong, and that which consolidated and strengthened it was right.  Thus national morality was established.  Further than that, utilitarian morality has not progressed, and international relations have not yet been moralised; they remain in the savage state, and recognise no moral law.  Germany has boldly accepted this position, and declares formally that, for the State, Might is Right, and that all which the State can do for its own aggrandisement, for the increase of its power, it may and ought to do, for there is no rule of conduct to which it owes obedience; it is a law unto itself.  Other nations have not formularised the statement in their literature as Germany has done, but the strong nations have acted upon it in their dealings with the weaker nations, although the dawning sense of an international morality in the better of them has led to the defence of international wrong by “the tyrant’s plea, necessity”.  The most flagrant instance of the utter disregard of right and wrong as between nations, is, perhaps, the action of the allied European nations against China—­in which the Hun theory of “frightfulness” was enunciated by the German Kaiser—­but the history of nations so far is a history of continual tramplings on the weak by the strong, and with the coming to the front of the Christian white nations, and their growth in scientific knowledge and thereby in power, the coloured nations and tribes, whether civilised or savage, have been continually exploited and oppressed.  International morality, at present, does not exist.  Murder within the family, the tribe, and the nation is marked as a crime, save that judicial murder, capital punishment, is permitted—­on the principle of (supposed) Utility.  But multiple murder outside the nation—­War—­is not regarded as criminal, nor is theft “wrong,” when committed by a strong nation on a weak one.  It may be that out of the widespread misery caused by the present War, some international morality may be developed.

We may admit that, as a matter of historical and present fact, Utility has been everywhere tacitly accepted as the basis of morality, defective as it is as a theory.  Utility is used as the test of Revelation, as the test of Intuition, and precepts of Manu, Zarathushtra, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, are acted on, or disregarded, according as they are considered to be useful, or harmful, or impracticable, to be suitable or unsuitable to the times.  Inconsistencies in these matters do not trouble the “practical” ordinary man.