That, in cases where either of several courses of conduct are
allowable, the act of the law maker may lay upon me an obli-
gation of duty, we freely concede, as also that there are obliga-
tions that a man may owe to society as a citizen, and which it
is the province of the law maker to define; but the civil law is
not the general power, making things right or wrong. It aims to
be declarative of right but not creative. Few advocates of the
legal origin of moral relations will fail in a half-hour's discussion
to pronounce some law good or bad. Besides, we can not
afl&rm in any case that the law has made something right
without assuming an obligation to obey the law; and if there
be no law but statute, where did the statute get its authority?
In short, we are compelled to assume in human nature in
society, a somewhat outside of the law, which makes the law
obligatory upon me. If moral distinctions have no authority
other than the will of the civil ruler, it might not be difficult
to make an apology for the Nihihstic utterance we have quoted.
3. It has been urged that moral relations originate in the
public opinion of communities. That what public sentiment
approves as right is right, what it condemns is wrong. Much



THE ORIGIN OF MORAL RELATIONS 69

the same answer will apply to this as to the civil ruler theory.
