and we express this effect in a judgment of value. When we characterize an act as right or wrong in this way, we are really characterizing ourselves. We evaluate the act because it makes a certain impression upon us, just as we call an object beautiful because it arouses certain feelings in us. If these feelings were absent, if acts did not, for some reason or other, arouse in us feelings of approval, disapproval, and obligation, we should not judge as we do, or make moral evaluations.

All the processes which we have just mentioned we may gather together and embrace under one general term, conscience. We must emphasize the fact that conscience is a mere general name used to designate a series of complex phenomena, and not a separate special faculty. Hence to say, as common sense does, that we make moral judgments because we have a faculty for making them,1 does not help us. It is not an explanation of the fact that we remember, to refer to a faculty or power of memory. To say that we remember because we have the power of memory, is like saying that we remember because we remember.2

3. The Feeling of Obligation. We find in conscience a complexus of psychical elements. Let us consider some of the more characteristic ones a

1 Cf. chap. ii, § 3.

2 All these explanations remind us of Molière's physician, who, when asked why opium made one sleep, sagely replied: "Because there is in it a dormitive power."

little more in detail. We have a mixture of feeling and impulse which we may call the feeling of obligation, or oughtness.1 This feeling, which Butler emphasized so strongly,2 is, however, not merely a feeling of "impulsion toward" a line of conduct, not the same as any other impulse, as Guyau asserts. To say that a "pointer ought to point," is not, as Darwin seems to think, the same as to say that a man ought to be honest. Nor, again, is this feeling of obligation identical with the feeling of logical necessity, as Clarke would appear to hold.5 Moral obligation is a peculiar kind of obligation, a unique mental process. We cannot describe it, we must experience it in order to understand it. In this regard, however, it is like all other psychical states. It is as impossible to describe obligation to a being that does not feel it, as it is to talk to a blind man of colors.

It is this feeling of obligation which inspires men with awe, and makes them believe that conscience is a voice from another world. Instead of explaining the phenomenon they personify it, looking upon it as something outside of themselves, as a direct messenger from heaven. Even philosophers find it

difficult to account for the authoritativeness of con

1 The state of consciousness which we call the feeling of obligation contains an active or impulsive element.

2 See chap. ii, § 5 (1).

8 Esquisse d'une morale sans obligation ni sanction. 4 The Descent of Man, Part I, chap. iv, p. 116.

5 See chap. ii, § 3 (3).

science without having recourse to the supernatural or suprasensible. "The faculty," says Martineau, "is the communion of God's life and guiding love entering and abiding with an apprehensive capacity in myself. We encounter an objective authority without quitting our own centre of conscience."1 "The authority which reveals itself within us, reports itself not only as underived from our will, but as independent of our idiosyncrasies altogether." 2 Kant likewise discovers in himself this feeling or impulse of obligation or authority accompanying certain ideas, and finds that it is expressed in language by the imperative mood: Thou shalt, Thou shalt not. He abstracts from the content of these promptings of conscience that which seems to be common to all of them, their authoritative character, the feeling of obligation, and makes an entity of this abstraction. It is a form of the mind like space, time, and causality. But since this form or category of obligation is concerned with action or practice, Kant calls it a category of the practical reason, or the will.3

1 Types of Ethical Theory, Vol. II, chap. iv, p. 104.

2 Ib., p. 102.

3 See Simmel, Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft, Vol. I, chap. i. Kant, of course, does not regard obligation as a feeling, but as a deliverance of the practical reason, or will, thereby evidently emphasizing the impulsive nature of the feeling of obligation. He afterward tries to give this abstract form of oughtness a content. He searches for a principle common to acts which are accompanied in consciousness by obligation, and finds as the gen

G

In answer to Kant we may say that the feeling or impulse of obligation is no more a category or form of the mind than any other feeling. Nor is it something outside of my empirical consciousness, as I experience it. To say that a feeling of authority or obligation is present in consciousness, means that I feel bound or constrained or obliged to perform certain acts. Obligation is not a special category or faculty or form of the reason; it is a psychical fact which is never found in consciousness apart from other mental states. To say that this feeling or impulse is an innate form, does not help us any more than to say that the feeling of hope is such a form. Of course, hope and fear and love are all "innate forms," if we mean by this that human beings experience them in connection with certain concrete ideas. What we wish to know is what modes of conduct are felt to be obligatory, and, if possible, why they are felt to be so.

4. The Feelings of Approval and Disapproval. Some thinkers emphasize this feeling of obligation, and regard it as constituting the very essence of the moral consciousness, or conscience. But, as we noticed before, the idea of an act is, or at least may be, suffused with feelings of approbation and reprobation. The contemplation of a deed arouses feelings

eral characteristic of all obligatory acts their fitness to become universal law. See chap. ii, § 7, (1); also chap. vii, § 15.

1 These feelings, too, like the feeling of obligation, contain active or impulsive elements, which express themselves in bodily

movements.

1

of condemnation, contempt, disgust, abhorrence, indignation, etc., or feelings of approval, admiration, respect, reverence, enthusiasm, etc. Some philosophers have laid stress on such feelings, and have identified them with conscience. The moral-sense philosophers 1 belong to this class, which is very apt to overlook the authoritative element in morality. Esthetic feelings may also arise in connection with those we have mentioned. I may feel æsthetic pleasure in the contemplation of a deed. This fact has led some authors to identify the moral sentiments with the æsthetic feelings, and to look upon ethics as a branch of æsthetics. We must insist, however, that conscience is a complexus of psychical states, and that the characteristic emotional elements peculiar to it are the feelings of approval (or disapproval) and the feeling of obligation or authority.

3

5. Conscience as Judgment. But conscience also judges, and in' so far is cognitive, or intellectual in character. Let us see how we come to make moral judgments. The perception or thought of an act arouses feelings of obligation and feelings of approval. We express these feelings in language by saying, This act is right and ought to be done. We make a moral judgment. The judgment here is based on feeling. When I declare an act to be right or wrong, I am expressing my feelings with

1 See chap. ii, § 4. 2 See Sully, Human Mind, Vol. II, p. 167. 8 See Herbart and Volkmann.