All of this may or may not explain why people make moral judgments; But this does not explain how people can be right. If the naturalists' point of view is correct, "I must" is the same as "I hiccup" or "I feel sick." In life, when they say "I must", we say "you are right" or "you are wrong". In the world of naturalists (if they really take their philosophy beyond the limits of books), the answer must be: "Is that so?"

There is no internal contradiction in this. A naturalist can, if he wants, stand his ground. "Yes," he will say, "there is no right and no wrong. No moral judgment is right or wrong, and thus all moral systems are of equal value. All ideas about good and evil are pure hallucinations, shadows of organic impulses over which we still have no control." Many naturalists say this with considerable pleasure.

But then they must stand to the end. Fortunately, this almost never happens. Recognizing both good and evil as illusions, they immediately call upon us to sacrifice ourselves for the future, to teach, to rebel, to transform, to live and perish in the name of the human race. This is exactly what the naturalist Wells did throughout his long life. Isn't it strange? Just as all books about spiral nebulae, atoms, and cavemen give the impression that naturalists know something important, so their teachings suggest that they believe in some idea of good—say, their own—and think of it better than others. Otherwise, why should we be indignant and denounce evil? After all, for them, it would seem, all this is like the taste of beer: I like weak, and many prefer porter. If the opinions of Wells and, say, Franco are only impulses imposed on them by nature, there can be no argument and anger. Do natural believers, when they call us to a better life, remember that even the word "best" means nothing if there is no measure of goodness?

In fact, to their great credit, not everyone remembers. Their philosophy is inhuman, but they themselves are people. When they see a lie, they discard their theories and speak, I repeat, like people, and noble people. They are better than they think. And when everything is calm, they try to somehow make ends meet.

They reason something like this: "Morality (or 'bourgeois morality', or 'conventional morality', or 'ordinary') is, of course, an illusion. But we have discovered what behaviors help the human race survive. Don't take us for moralists! It's different here!" and so on, as if it made any difference. It would help if we could establish for certain, first, that life is better than death, and second, that the lives of our descendants are no less important to us than ours. However, both are moral judgments, and natural trust will not explain them. Of course, we feel that this is true; but natural confidence tells us to believe that such feelings have nothing to do with truth. Perhaps my altruism is like my addiction to cheese. If he has not lost his natural trust, I submit to him; If I'm weak, I'd rather spend money on cheese. There is no particular reason to indulge him. The naturalists who destroyed my respect for conscience on Monday have no right to demand that I should revere it on Tuesday.

So, there is no way out. If we do not renounce moral judgments, we will have to believe that conscience is extra-natural. It has meaning and value only if it at least reflects some absolute moral wisdom that exists in itself, and is not generated by an irrational and immoral nature. In the previous chapter we recognized the source of reason as supernatural, and in this chapter we recognize the source of the ideas of good and evil as the same. If you think that moral judgment is a very different thing from reasoning, you will say, "We now know another attribute of God." If, as I do, you regard them as phenomena of the same order, you will say, "We now know more about the divine mind."

We are almost ready for the main arguments. However, first, let's look at a few more misunderstandings that could arise.

VI. A FEW MORE ANSWERS

What is the daylight for bats,

Such is the reason in our soul

which by its nature is the most obvious.

Aristotle. Metaphysics, 1 (A), 1

It must be understood that so far the arguments have not led to the idea of any spirits or souls hovering over nature (I avoid these words altogether). We do not deny, but accept, many of the opinions which are commonly regarded as arguments against the supernatural. Not only can we think, but we must think that rational thinking is conditioned by an element of nature (the brain). Wine or a blow to the head can suspend it. It weakens with old age, disappears with death. In the same way, the moral system of society is indeed closely related to history, economics and geographical environment. Related to this are the moral concepts of the individual. It is no accident that parents and teachers say that they will endure any vice, except for deceit; After all, lying is the only protection for a child. In short, there is no new difficulty, this is what we have been waiting for. Reason and morality in our consciousness are the very points where the extra-natural enters nature, using the conditions that nature offers. If there are no conditions, it cannot enter; If the conditions are bad, it is not easy for him to enter. The human mind contains the eternal Mind just as much as the state of the brain allows. The morality of the people contains the Eternal Morality as much as the environment, economy, etc. allows. If we break the receiver, we won't hear anything. The apparatus does not generate news, we would not listen to it if there were no person there. The different and complex conditions under which morality and reason appear to us are the curves of the boundary between the natural and the extra-natural. That is why we can, if we wish, dismiss the extra-natural, and consider the facts only from the natural point of view, just as we might look at a map of England and say, "What we call the Devonshire promontory is really a notch in Cornwall." And that's right; in a certain sense of the word, the Devonshire salient is a notch in Cornwall. What we call rational thinking is a brain process, and ultimately a kind of movement of atoms. Yet Devonshire is not just the "end of Cornwall," the mind is not just biochemistry.