$6. Conscience.

As used by ordinary folk, conscience often means little more than a particular judgment on one's conduct, together with that form of moral emotion last described, viz. remorse for one's own recognized wrongdoing. In this sense it is personal, and implies no objective validity. Used in a wider sense it covers moral cognition with the accompanying approbation and disapprobation, as when we say in advance, “I cannot do that, it is against my conscience." It is simply the moral faculty, and this is the sense in which it is most frequently used by intuitive moralists, usually with an implication that the moral judgment and emotion refer to our own acts.

Such moralists have usually maintained that it is intuitive, underived, and universal. That our moral cognitions are not always immediate has already been shown (chap. i., § 3). That like the outcome of other innate capacities of thought and feeling, our moral judgments and emotions are partly due to the reaction of society on the individual, is easily seen. This fact

in itself would lead us to expect that moral judgments and feelings will differ in different ages and among different races of men; and observation shows that this is the case. But we may fairly assert that conscience is universal, in the sense that no race has been discovered which is entirely without judgments of conduct as right and wrong, and accompanying emotions. That the matter of the judgments and

the nature of the emotions vary does not disprove this.1

The psychological question as to the origin of our moral emotions which has been referred to above, may be expressed in the following way :-Do I feel bound not to steal, do I loathe the idea of stealing, because my ancestors and myself have found that stealing leads to unpleasant consequences to us? Or in other words, is our conscience due to "the experience of social discipline?"

The general drift of modern opinion answers this question in the affirmative. Our egoistic hatred of pain leads us to shrink from what brings on us physical suffering, whether due to the unconscious action of external things, or the conscious action of parents, governors, or magistrates. It leads us to shrink from risking disapproval of others, whether expressed in a slight and negative way, by rigorous social ostracism, or by outspoken condemnation. Thus conscience comes to be the reflection within of the external government and the opinion of society. We come to shrink quite automatically from what is. associated with such physical or mental pain. And these factors have been always in action since society began to exist. Private revenge and public authority have helped to cut off undesirable members of society, and the forces of selection and heredity have helped to intensify and widen that "imitation of the government without us "" which we call conscience. The Compare the relativity of the æsthetic faculty.

1

authority of society is exercised by parents and teachers as well as by the civil magistrate. The suppression of impulse in accordance with the command of others is a necessary step in the formation of conscience. The life of the well-ordered family and school with its opportunities of rivalry and of affection plays an important part in the development.1

Thus mingled with these purely egoistic elements due to the discipline of society, are others of a more altruistic character. The desire for the company and the esteem of others is only in part egoistic; it is an important example of the ego-altruistic group of feelings. And the effects of sympathy, of direct and spontaneous desire for the wellbeing of others, are of considerable importance in the later development of conscience, though probably they have small influence in the earlier stages of civilization. Other moral co-cperatives, as Stewart calls them, are feelings of reverence, and the aesthetic feelings.

In the same way the sentiment of beauty is perhaps developed from purely animal feelings, the delight in play due to surplus of animal energy. But this does not make us question the validity and objectivity of our æsthetic judgments, nor need the comparatively lowly origin of our moral sentiment throw doubt on the reality of morality.

1

On the growth of the moral faculty see Sully, "Outlines,” pp. 369-371;"Human Mind," vol. ii., pp. 161-166.

§ 7. Pleasure and Desire.

As sympathy is the most important of the moral co-operatives, and as most systems of ethics, especially the traditional Christian view, lay stress on the duty of unselfish regard for others, an important psychological question may be here noticed.

It has been almost universally assumed by Hedonists, and frequently by other writers, that all our actions are necessarily directed towards the attainment of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. If this be so we can never be really unselfish, for all our acts are self-regarding, determined, as Bentham says, by our two sovereign masters, pleasure and pain. Cynical writers have insisted that even justice and benevolence can be resolved into a far-sighted regard for our interest. The virtuous man is benevolent because doing good to others is a source of satisfaction to himself. Such a view we feel to be extravagantly paradoxical, although we may be ready to grant with Aristotle that not only does the truly virtuous man take pleasure in good actions, but that he would not be really virtuous unless he did so.

The assertion that our own pleasure (or avoidance of pain) is the object of all our volition is open to grave doubt. Butler long ago pointed out in opposition to the "licentious reasoners "of the school of Mandeville, that we must make a distinction between self-love, the desire of happiness for ourselves, and the particular desires directed towards particular

objects.1 Our impulses are naturally directed towards things. Pleasure may be aimed at, but this is a new feature in conduct which may be superinduced in the simpler desires, which indeed it really assumes and implies. I desire my own pleasure, but what is my pleasure except the gratification of my desires? The experience of pleasure is not more often the antecedent of desire, than the experience of desire is antecedent to the existence of pleasure. There are some pleasures which can only be attained by artificially stimulating the growth of a desire, as in the case of gambling, fox-hunting, and stamp-collecting. Again, desires often bear no proportion to the pleasures which arise from their gratification; as Dr. Ward puts it, they become "more imperious, though less productive of pleasure as time goes on." And some desires we seem to have before we can be supposed to remember the pleasures which their gratification produces; for the child desires food long before we can suppose it to have any mental representation of the "ideal pleasure" of satisfied hunger.

2

Those who hold the view that all desire is ultimately directed towards pleasure indeed admit: (1) that through association we may come to desire objects for themselves alone, at least so far as introspection can discover, and (2) that in the special case of "fixed ideas we may aim at what is not conceived

1

"Sermons on Human Nature," I.

2 Hence the Hedonistic Paradox, that the best way to secure happiness is not to aim at it directly.