CHAPTER IV.

IDEA AND COGNIZANCE OF THE RIGHT.

§ I.--IDEA OF RIGHT.

_The Idea of Right a Conception of the Mind._--Among the conceptions which constitute the furniture of the mind, there is one, which, in many respects, is unlike all others, while, at the same time, it is more important than all others; that is, the notion or idea of _right_.

_Universally prevalent._--When we direct our attention to any given instance of the voluntary action of any intelligent rational being, we find ourselves not unfrequently pronouncing upon its character as a _right_ or _wrong_ act. Especially is this the case when the act contemplated is of a marked and unusual character. The question at once arises, is it right? Or, it may be, without the consciousness of even a question respecting it, our decision follows instantly upon the mental apprehension of the act itself--this thing is right, that thing is wrong. Our decision may be correct or incorrect; our perception of the real nature of the act may be clear or obscure; it may make a stronger or weaker impression on the mind, according to our mental habits, the tone of our mental nature, and the degree to which we have cultivated the moral faculty. There may be minds so degraded, and natures so perverted, that the moral character of an act shall be quite mistaken, or quite overlooked in many cases; or, when perceived, it shall make little impression on them. Even in such minds, however, the _idea_ of right and wrong still finds a place, and the understanding applies it, though not perhaps always correctly, to particular instances of human conduct. There is no reason to believe that any mind possessing ordinary endowments, that degree of reason and intelligence which nature usually bestows, is destitute of this idea, or fails altogether to apply it to its own acts, and those of others.

_The Question and its different Answers._--But here an important question presents itself: _Whence come_ these ideas and perceptions; their origin? How is it, why is it, that we pronounce an act right or wrong, when once fairly apprehended? How come we by these notions? The fact is admitted; the explanations vary. By one class of writers our ideas of this nature have been ascribed to _education_ and _fashion_; by another, to _legal restriction_, human or divine. Others, again, viewing these ideas as the offspring of nature, have assigned them either to the operation of a _special sense_, given for this specific purpose, as the eye for vision; or to the joint action of certain associated emotions; while others regard them as originating in an exercise of _judgment_, and others still, as _natural intuitions_ of the mind, or reason exercised on subjects of a moral nature.

_Main Question._--The main question is, are these ideas _natural_, or _artificial and acquired_? If the latter, are they the result of education, or of legal restraint? If the former, are they to be referred to the _sensibilities_, as the result of a special sense or of association, or to the _intellect_, as the result of the faculty of judgment or as intuitions of reason?

1. _Education._--Come they from _Education and Imitation?_--So Locke, Paley, and others, have supposed. Locke was led to take this view, by tracing, as he did, all simple ideas, except those of our own mental operations, to sensation, as their source. This allows, of course, no place for the ideas of right and wrong, which, accordingly, he concluded, cannot be natural ideas, but must be the result of education.

_Objection to this View._--Now it is to be conceded that education and fashion are powerful instruments in the culture of the mind. Their influence is not to be overlooked in estimating the causes that shape and direct the opinions of men, and the tendencies of an age. But they do not account for the _origin_ of any thing. This has been ably and clearly shown by Dugald Stewart, in answer to Locke; and it is a sufficient answer. Education and imitation both _presuppose_ the existence of moral ideas and distinctions; the very things to be accounted for. How came they who first taught these distinctions, and they who first set the example of making such distinctions, to be themselves in possession of these ideas? Whence did _they_ derive them? Who taught _them_, and set _them_ the example? This is a question not answered by the theory now under consideration. It gives us, therefore, and can give us, no account of the origin of the ideas in question.

2. _Legal Enactment._--Do we then derive these ideas from legal _restriction and enactment_? So teach some able writers. Laws are made, human and divine, requiring us to do thus and thus, and forbidding such and such things, and hence we get our ideas originally of right and wrong.

_Presupposes Right._--If this be so, then, previous to all law, there could have been no such ideas, of course. But does not law _presuppose_ the idea of right and wrong? Is it not built on that idea as its basis? How, then, can it originate that on which itself depends, and which it presupposes? The first law ever promulgated must have been either a just or an unjust law, or else of no moral character. If the latter, how could a law which was neither just nor unjust, have suggested to the subjects of it any such ideas? If the former, then these qualities, and the ideas of them, must have existed _prior_ to the law itself; and whoever made the law and conferred on it its character, must have had already, in his own mind, the idea of the right and its opposite. It is evident that we cannot, in this way, account for the _origin_ of the ideas in question. We are no nearer the solution of the problem than before.

In opposition to the views now considered, we must regard the ideas in question, as, directly or indirectly, the work of nature, and the result of our constitution. The question still remains, however, in which of the several ways indicated, does this result take place?

3. _Special Sense._--Shall we attribute these ideas to a _special sense_? This is the view taken by Hutcheson and his followers. Ascribing, with Locke, all our simple ideas to sensation, but not content with Locke's theory of moral distinctions as the result of education, he sought to account for them by enlarging the sphere of sensation, and introducing a new sense, whose specific office is to take cognizance of such distinctions. The tendency of this theory is evident. While it derives the idea of right and its opposite from our natural constitution, and is, so far, preferable to either of the preceding theories, still, in assigning them a place among the sensibilities, it seems to make morality a mere _sentiment_, a matter of feeling merely, an impression made on our sentient nature--a mere subjective affair--as color and taste are impressions made on our organs of sense, and not properly qualities of bodies. As these affections of the sense do not exist independently, but only relatively to us, so moral distinctions, according to this view, are merely subjective affections of our minds, and not independent realities.

_Hume and the Sophists._--Hume accedes to this general view, and carries it out to its legitimate results, making morality a mere relation between our nature and certain objects, and not an independent quality of actions. Virtue and vice, like color and taste, the bright and the dull, the sweet and the bitter, lie merely in our sensations.

These skeptical views had been advanced long previously by the Sophists, who taught that man is the measure of all things, that things are only what they seem to us.

_Ambiguity of the term Sense._--It is true, as Stewart has observed, that these views do not necessarily result from Hutcheson's theory, nor were they, probably, held by him; but such is the natural tendency of his doctrine. The term _sense_, as employed by him, is, in itself, ambiguous, and may be used to denote a _mental perception_; but when we speak of _a_ sense, we are understood to refer to that part of our constitution which, when affected from without, gives us certain sensations. Thus the sense of hearing, the sense of vision, the sense of taste, of smell, etc. It is in this way that Hutcheson seems to have employed the term, and his illustrations all point in this direction. He was unfortunate, to say the least, in his use of terms, and in his illustrations; unfortunate, also, in having such a disciple as Hume, to push his theory to its legitimate results.

If, by a special sense, he meant only a direct perceptive power of the mind, then, doubtless, Hutcheson is right in recognizing such a faculty, and attributing to it the ideas under consideration. But that is not the proper meaning of the word _sense_, nor is that the signification attached to it by his followers.

_No Evidence of such a Faculty._--But if he means, by sense, what the word itself would indicate, some adaptation of the sensibilities to receive impressions from things without, analogous to that by which we are affected through the organs of sense, then, in the first place, it is not true that we have any such special faculty. There is no evidence of it; nay, facts contradict it. There is no such _uniformity_ of moral impression or sensation as ought to manifest itself on this supposition. Men's eyes and ears are much alike, in their activity, the world over. That which is white, or red, to one, is not black to another, or green to a third; that which is sweet to one, is not sour, or bitter, to another. At least, if such variations occur, they are the result only of some unnatural and unusual condition of the organs. But it is otherwise with the operation of the so-called special sense. While all men have probably, some idea of right and wrong, there is the greatest possible variety in its application to particular instances of conduct. What one approves as a virtue, another condemns as a crime.

_No Need of it._--Nor, secondly, have we any need to call in the aid of a special sense to give us ideas of this kind. It is not true, as Locke and Hutcheson believed, that all our ideas, except those of our own mental operations, or consciousness, are derived ultimately from sensation. We have ideas of the true and the beautiful, ideas of cause and effect, of geometrical and arithmetical relations, and various other ideas, which it would be difficult to trace to the senses as their source; and which, equally with the ideas of right and wrong, would require, in that case, a special sense for their production.

4. _Association._--Shall we, then, adopt the view of that class of ethical writers who account for the origin of these ideas by _the principle of association_? Such men as Hartley, Mill, Mackintosh, and others of that stamp, are not lightly to be set aside in the discussion of such a question. Their view is, that the moral perceptions are the result of certain combined antecedent emotions, such as gratitude, pity, resentment, etc., which relate to the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents, and which very easily and naturally come to be transferred, from the agent himself, to the action in itself considered, or to the disposition which prompted it; forming, when thus transferred and associated, what we call the moral feelings and perceptions. Just as avarice arises from the original desire, not of money, but of the things which money can procure--which desire comes, eventually, to be transferred, from the objects themselves, to the means and instrument of procuring them--and, as sympathy arises from the transfer to others of the feelings which, in like circumstances, agitate our own bosoms, so, in like manner, by the principle of association, the feelings which naturally arise in view of the conduct of others, are transferred from the agent to the act, from the enemy or the benefactor, to the injury or the benefaction, which acts stand afterward, by themselves, as objects of approval or condemnation. Hence the disposition to approve all benevolent acts, and to condemn the opposite; which disposition, thus formed and transferred, is a part of conscience. So of other elementary emotions.

_Makes Conscience a mere Sentiment._--It will be perceived that this theory, which is indebted chiefly to Mackintosh for its completeness, and scientific form, makes conscience wholly a matter of sentiment and feeling; standing in this respect, on the same ground with the theory of a special sense, and liable, in part, to the same objections. Hence the name _sentimental_ school, often employed to designate, collectively, the adherents of each of these views. While the theory, now proposed, might seem then to offer a plausible account of the manner in which our moral _sentiments_ arise, it does not account for the origin of our _ideas_ and _perceptions_ of moral rectitude. Now the moral faculty is not a mere sentiment. There is an intellectual perception of one thing as right, and another as wrong; and the question now before us is, Whence comes that perception, and the idea on which it is based? To resolve the whole matter into certain transferred and associated emotions, is to give up the inherent distinction of right and wrong as qualities of actions, and make virtue and vice creations of the sensibility, the play and product of the excited feelings. To admit the perception and idea of the right, and ascribe their origin to antecedent emotion, is, moreover, to reverse the natural order and law of psychological operation, which bases emotion on perception, and not perception on emotion. We do not first admire, love, hate, and then perceive, but the reverse.

_Further Objections._--The view now under consideration, while it seems to resolve the moral faculty into mere feeling, thus making morality wholly a relative affair, makes conscience, itself, an acquired, rather than a natural faculty, a secondary process, a transformation of emotions, rather than itself an original principle. It does it, moreover, the further injustice of deriving its origin from the purely _selfish_ principles of our nature. I receive a favor, or an injury; hence I regard, with certain feelings of complacency, or the opposite, the man who has thus treated me. These feelings I come gradually to transfer to, and associate with, the act in itself considered, and this with other acts of the same nature; and so, at last, I come to have a moral faculty, and pronounce one thing right, and another wrong.

_At Variance with Facts._--This view is quite inadmissible; at variance with facts, and the well-known laws of the human mind. The moral faculty is one of the earliest to develop itself. It appears in childhood, manifesting itself, not as an acquired and secondary principle, the result of a complicated process of associated and transferred emotion, requiring time for its gradual formation and growth, but rather as an original instinctive principle of nature.

_Sympathy._--Adam Smith, in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments," has proposed a view which falls properly under the general theory of association, and may be regarded as a modification of it. He attributes our moral perceptions to the feeling of _sympathy_. To adopt the feelings of another is to approve them. If those feelings are such as would naturally be awakened in us by the same objects, we approve them as morally proper. Sympathy with the gratitude of one who has received a favor, leads us to regard the benefaction as meritorious. Sympathy with the resentment of an injured man, leads us to regard the injurer as worthy of punishment, and so the sense of demerit originates; sympathy with the feelings of others respecting our own conduct gives rise to self-approval and sense of duty. Rules of morality are merely a summary of these sentiments.

_This View not sustained by Consciousness._--Whatever credit may be due to this ingenious writer, for calling attention to a principle which had not been sufficiently taken into account by preceding philosophers, we cannot but regard it as an insufficient explanation of the present case. In the first place, we are not _conscious_ of the element of sympathy in the decisions and perceptions of the moral faculty. We look at a given action of right or wrong, and approve of it, or condemn it _on that ground_, because it _is_ right or wrong, not because we sympathize with the feelings awakened by the act in the minds of others. If the process now supposed intervened between our knowledge of the act, and our judgment of its morality, we should know it and recognize it as a distinct element.

_No imperative Character._--Furthermore, sympathy, like other emotions, has no _imperative_ character, and, even if it might be supposed to suggest to the mind some idea of moral distinctions, cannot of itself furnish a foundation for those feelings of _obligation_ which accompany and characterize the decisions of the moral faculty.

_The Standard of Right._--But more than this, the view now taken makes the standard of right and wrong _variable_, and dependent on the feelings of men. We must know how others think and feel, how the thing affects them, before we can know whether a given act is right or wrong, to be performed or avoided. And then, furthermore, our feelings must agree with theirs; there must be sympathy and harmony of views and feelings, else the result will not follow. If any thing prevents us from knowing what are the feelings of others with respect to a given course of conduct, or if for any reason we fail to sympathize with those feelings, we can have no conscience in the matter. As those feelings vary, so will our moral perceptions vary. We have no fixed standard. There is no place left for right, as such, and absolutely. If no sympathy, then no duty, no right, no morality.

_Result of the preceding Inquiries._--We have, as yet, found no satisfactory explanation of the origin of our moral ideas and perceptions. They seem not to be the result of education and imitation, nor yet of legal enactment. They seem to be natural, rather than artificial and acquired. Yet we cannot trace them to the action of the sensitive part of our nature. They are not the product of a special sense, nor yet of the combined and associated action of certain natural emotions, much less of any one emotion, as sympathy. And yet they are a part of our nature. Place man where you will, surround him with what influences you will, you still find in him, to some extent at least, indications of a moral nature; a nature modified, indeed, by circumstances, but never wholly obliterated. Evidently we must refer the ideas in question, then, to the intellectual, since they do not belong to the sensitive part of our nature.

5. _Judgment._--Are they then the product and operation of the faculty of judgment? But the judgment does not _originate_ ideas. It compares, distributes, estimates, decides to what class and category a thing belongs, but creates nothing. I have in mind the idea of a triangle, a circle, etc. So soon as certain figures are presented to the eye, I refer them at once, by an act of judgment, to the class to which they belong. I affirm that to be a triangle, this, a circle, etc.; the judgment does this. But judgment does not furnish my mind with the primary idea of a circle, etc. It deals with this idea already in the mind. So in our judgment of the beauty and deformity of objects. The perception that a landscape or painting is beautiful, is, in one sense, an act of judgment; but it is an act which presupposes the idea of the beautiful already in the mind that so judges. So also of moral distinctions. Whence comes the _idea_ of right and wrong which lies at the foundation of every particular judgment as to the moral character of actions? This is the question before us, still unanswered; and to this there remains but one reply.

6. _These Ideas intuitive._--The ideas in question are _intuitive_; suggestions or perceptions of _reason_. The view now proposed may be thus stated: It is the office of reason to discern the right and the wrong, as well as the true and the false, the beautiful and the reverse. Regarded subjectively, as conceptions of the human mind, right and wrong, as well as beauty and its opposite, truth and its opposite, are simple ideas, incapable of analysis or definition; _intuitions of reason_. Regarded as objective, right and wrong are realities, qualities absolute, and inherent in the nature of things, not fictitious, not the play of human fancy or human feeling, not relative merely to the human mind, but independent, essential, universal, absolute. As such, reason recognizes their existence. Judgment decides that such and such actions do possess the one or the other of these qualities; are right or wrong actions. There follows the sense of obligation to do or not to do, and the consciousness of merit or demerit as we comply, or fail to comply, with the same. In view of these perceptions emotions arise, but only as based upon them. The emotions do not, as the sentimental school affirm, originate the idea, the perception; but the idea, the perception, gives rise to the emotion. We are so constituted as to feel certain emotions in view of the moral quality of actions, but the idea and perception of that moral quality must _precede_, and it is the office of reason to produce this.

_First Truths._--There are certain simple ideas which must be regarded as first truths, or first principles, of the human understanding, essential to its operations, ideas universal, absolute, necessary. Such are the ideas of personal existence, and identity, of time and space, as conditions of material existence; of number, cause, and mathematical relation. Into this class fall the ideas of the true, the beautiful, the right, and their opposites. The fundamental maxims of reasoning and morals find here their place.

_How awakened._--These are, in a sense, intuitive perceptions; not strictly innate, yet connate; the foundation for them being laid in our nature and constitution. So soon as the mind reaches a certain stage of development they present themselves. Circumstances may promote or retard their appearance. They depend on opportunity to furnish the occasion of their springing up, yet they are, nevertheless, the natural, spontaneous development of the human soul, as really a part of our nature as are any of our instinctive impulses, or our mental attributes. They are a part of that native intelligence with which we are endowed by the author of our being. These intuitions of ours, are not themselves the foundation of right and wrong; they do not make one thing right and another wrong; but they are simply the reason why we so regard them. Such we believe to be the true account of the origin of our moral perceptions.

§ II.--COGNIZANCE OF THE RIGHT.

_The Cognition distinguished from the Idea of Right._--Having, in the preceding section, discussed the _idea_ of the right, in itself considered, as a conception of the mind, we proceed now to consider _the action of the mind as cognizant of right_. The theme is one of no little difficulty, but, at the same time, of highest importance.

_Existence of this Power._--After what has been already said, it is hardly necessary to raise the preliminary inquiry, as to the _existence_ of a moral faculty in man. That we do possess the power of making moral distinctions, that we do discriminate between the right and the wrong in human conduct, is an obvious fact in the history and psychology of the race. Consciousness, observation, the form of language, the literature of the world, the usages of society, all attest and confirm this truth. We are conscious of the operation of this principle in ourselves, whenever we contemplate our own conduct, or that of others. We find ourselves, involuntarily, and as by instinct, pronouncing this act to be right, that, wrong. We recognize the obligation to do, or to have done, otherwise. We approve, or condemn. We are sustained by the calm sense of that self-approval, or cast down by the fearful strength and bitterness of that remorse. And what we find in ourselves, we observe, also, in others. In like circumstances, they recognize the same distinctions, and exhibit the same emotions. At the story or the sight of some flagrant injustice and wrong, the child and the savage are not less indignant than the philosopher. Nor is this a matter peculiar to one age or people. The languages and the literature of the world indicate, that, at all times, and among all nations, the distinction between right and wrong has been recognized and felt. The [Greek: to dikaion] and [Greek: to kalon] of the Greeks, the _honestum_ and the _pulchrum_ of the Latins, are specimens of a class of words, to be found in all languages, the proper use and significance of which is to express the distinctions in question.

Since, then, we do unquestionably recognize moral distinctions, it is clear that we have a moral faculty.

_Questions which present themselves._--Without further consideration of this point, we pass at once to the investigation of the subject itself. Our inquiries relate principally to the _nature_ and _authority_ of this faculty. On these points, it is hardly necessary to say, great difference of opinion has existed among philosophers and theologians, and grave questions have arisen. What _is_ this faculty as exercised; a judgment, a process of reasoning, or an emotion? Does it belong to the rational or sensitive part of our nature: to the domain of intellect, or of feeling, or both? What is the value and correctness of our moral perceptions, and especially of that verdict of _approbation_ or _censure_, which we pass upon ourselves and others, according as the conduct conforms to, or violates, recognized obligation? Such are some of the questions which have arisen respecting the nature and authority of conscience.

I. _The Nature of Conscience._--What is it? A matter of _intellect_, or of _feeling_; a _judgment_, or an _emotion_?

A careful analysis of the phenomena of conscience, with a view to determine the several elements, or mental processes, that constitute its operation, may aid us in the solution of this question.

ANALYSIS OF AN ACT OF CONSCIENCE.

_Cognition of Right._--Whenever the conduct of intelligent and rational beings is made the subject of contemplation, whether the act thus contemplated be our own or another's, and whether it be an act already performed, or only proposed, we are cognizant of certain ideas awakened in the mind, and of certain impressions made upon it. First of all, the act contemplated strikes us as _right_ or _wrong_. This involves a double element, an _idea_, and a _perception_ or _judgment_. The _idea_ of right and its opposite are, in the mind, simple ideas, and, therefore, indefinable. In the act contemplated, we _recognize_ the one or the other of these simple elements, and pronounce it, accordingly, a right or wrong act. This is simply a _judgment_, a perception, an exercise of the understanding.

_Of Obligation._--No sooner is this idea, this cognition, of the rightness or wrongness of the given act, fairly entertained by the mind, than another idea, another cognition, presents itself, given along with the former, and inseparable from it, viz., that of _obligation_ to do, or not to do, the given act: the _ought_, and the _ought not_--also simple ideas, and indefinable. This applies equally to the future and to the past, to ourselves and to others: I ought to do this thing. I ought to _have done_ it yesterday. He ought, or ought not to do, or to have done it. This, like the former, is an intellectual act, a perception or cognition of a truth, of a reality for which we have the same voucher as for any other reality or apprehended fact, viz., the reliability of our mental faculties in general, and the correctness of their operation in the specific instance. It is a conviction of the mind inseparable from the perception of right. Given, a clear perception of the one, and we cannot escape the other.

_Of Merit and Demerit._--There follows a third element, logically distinct, but chronologically inseparable, from the preceding: the cognition of merit or demerit in connection with the deed, of good or ill desert, and the consequent approval or disapproval of the deed and the doer. No sooner do we perceive an action to be right or wrong, and to involve, therefore, an obligation on the part of the doer, than, there arises, also, in the mind, the idea of merit or demerit, in connection with the doing; we regard the agent as deserving of praise or blame, and in our own minds do approve or condemn him and his course, accordingly. This approval of ourselves and others, according to the apprehended desert of the act and the actor, constitutes a process of trial, an inner tribunal, at whose bar are constantly arraigned the deeds of men, and whose verdict it is no easy matter to set aside. This mental approval may be regarded by some as a matter of feeling, rather than an intellectual act. We speak of _feelings_ of approval and of condemnation. To approve and condemn, however, are, properly, acts of the judgment. The feelings consequent upon such approval or disapproval are usually of such a nature, and of such strength, as to attract the principal attention of the mind to themselves, and, hence, we naturally come to think and speak of the whole process as a matter of feeling. Strictly viewed, it is an intellectual perception, an exercise of judgment, giving sentence that the contemplated act is, or is not, meritorious, and awarding praise or blame accordingly.

This completes the process. I can discover nothing in the operation of my mind, in view of moral action, which does not resolve itself into some one of these elements.

_These Elements intellectual._--Viewed in themselves, these are, strictly, intellectual operations; the recognition of the right, the recognition of obligation, the perception of good or ill desert, are all, properly, acts of the intellect. Each of these cognitive acts, however, _involves a corresponding action of the sensibilities_. The perception of the right awakens, in the pure and virtuous mind, feelings of pleasure, admiration, love. The idea of obligation becomes, in its turn, through the awakened sensibilities, an impulse and motive to action. The recognition of good or ill desert awakens feelings of esteem and complacency, or the reverse; fills the soul with sweet peace, or stings it with sharp remorse. All these things must be recognized and included by the psychologist among the phenomena of conscience. These emotions, however, are based on, and grow out of, the intellectual acts already named, and are to be viewed as an incidental and subordinate, though by no means unimportant, part of the whole process. When we speak of conscience, or the moral faculty, we speak of a _power_, a faculty and not _merely_ a feeling or susceptibility of being affected. It is a cognitive power, having to do with realities, recognizing real distinctions, and not merely a passive play of the sensibilities. It is simply the mind's power of recognizing a certain class of truths and relations. As such, we claim for it a place among the strictly cognitive powers of the mind, among the faculties that have to do with the perception of truth and reality.

_Importance of this Position._--This is a point of some importance. If, with certain writers, we make the moral faculty a matter of mere feeling, overlooking the intellectual perceptions on which this feeling is based, we overlook and leave out of the account, the chief elements of the process. The moral faculty is no longer a cognitive power, no longer, in truth, a faculty. The distinctions which it seems to recognize are merely _subjective_; impressions, feelings, to which there may, or may not, be a corresponding reality. We have at least no evidence of any such reality. Such a view subtracts the very foundation of morals. Our feelings vary; but right and wrong do not vary with our feelings. They are objective realities, and not subjective phenomena. As such, the mind, by virtue of the natural powers with which it is endowed by the Creator, recognizes them. The power by which it gives this, we call the _moral faculty_; just as we call its power to take cognizance of another class of truths and relations, viz., the beautiful, its _æsthetic_ faculty. In view of these truths and relations, as thus perceived, certain feelings are, in either case, awakened, and these emotions may, with propriety, be regarded as pertaining to, and a part of, the phenomena of conscience, and of taste; the full discussion of either of these faculties will include the action of the sensibilities; but in neither case will a true psychology resolve the faculty into the feeling. The mathematician experiences a certain feeling of delight in perceiving the relation of lines and angles, but the power of perceiving that relation, the faculty by which the mind takes cognizance of such truth, is not to be resolved into the feeling that results from it.

_Result of Analysis._--As the result of our analysis, we obtain the following elements as involved in, and constituting, an operation of the moral faculty:

(1.) The mental perception that a given act is right or wrong.

(2.) The perception of obligation with respect to the same, as right or wrong.

(3.) The perception of merit or demerit, and the consequent approbation or censure of the agent, as doing the right or the wrong thus perceived.

(4.) Accompanying these intellectual perceptions, and based upon them, certain corresponding emotions, varying in intensity according to the clearness of the mental perceptions, and the purity of the moral nature.

II. _Authority of Conscience._--Thus far we have considered the _nature_ of conscience. The question arises now as to its _authority_--the reliableness of its decisions.

If conscience correctly discerns the right and the wrong and the consequent obligation, it will be likely to judge correctly as to the deserts of the doer. If it mistake these points, it may approve what is not worthy of approval, and condemn what is good.

_What Evidence of Correctness._--How are we to know, then, whether conscience judges right? What voucher have we for its correctness? How far is it to be trusted in its perceptions and decisions? Perhaps we are so constituted, it may be said, as invariably to judge that to be right which is wrong, and the reverse, and so to approve where we should condemn. True, we reply, this may be so. It may be that I am so constituted, that two and two shall _seem_ to be four, when in reality they are five; and that the three angles of a triangle shall _seem_ to be equal to two right angles, when in reality they are equal to three. This may be so. Still it is a presumption in favor of the correctness of all our natural perceptions, that they are the operation of original principles of our constitution. It is not probable, to say the least, that we are so constituted by the great Author of our being, as to be habitually deceived. It may be that the organs of vision and hearing are absolutely false; that the things which we see, and hear, and feel, through the medium of the senses, have no correspondence to our supposed perceptions. But this is not a probable supposition. He who denies the validity of the natural faculties, has the burden of proof; and proof is of course impossible; for the simple reason, that, in order to prove them false, you must make use of these very faculties; and if their testimony is not reliable in the one case, certainly it is not in the other. We must then take their veracity for granted; and we have the right to do so. And so of our moral nature. It comes from the Author of our being, and if it is uniformly and originally wrong, then he is wrong. It is an error, which, in the nature of the case, can never be detected or corrected. We cannot get beyond our constitution, back of our natural endowments, to judge, _à priori_, and from an external position, whether they are correct or not. Right and wrong are not, indeed, the creations of the divine will; but the faculties by which we perceive and approve the right, and condemn the wrong, are from him; and we must presume upon their general correctness.

_Not infallible._--It does not follow from this, however, nor do we affirm, that conscience is infallible, that she never errs. It does not follow that our moral perceptions and judgments are invariably correct, because they spring from our native constitution. This is not so. There is not one of the faculties of the human mind that is not liable to err. Not one of its activities is infallible. The reasoning power sometimes errs; the judgment errs; the memory errs. The moral faculty is on the same footing, in this respect, with any and all other faculties.

_Its Value not thus destroyed._--But of what use, it will be said, is a moral faculty, on which, after all, we cannot rely? Of what use, we reply, is _any_ mental faculty, that is not absolutely and universally correct? Of what use is a memory or a judgment, that sometimes errs? We do not wholly distrust these faculties, or cast them aside as worthless. A time-keeper may be of great value, though not absolutely perfect. Its authorship and original construction may be a strong presumption in favor of its general correctness; nevertheless its hands may have been accidentally set to the wrong hour of the day.

_Actual Occurrence of such Cases._--This is a spectacle that not unfrequently presents itself in the moral world--a man with his conscience pointing to the wrong hour; a strictly conscientious man, fully and firmly persuaded that he is right, yet by no means agreeing with the general convictions of mankind; an hour or two before, or, it may be, as much behind the age. Such men are the hardest of all mortals to be set right, for the simple reason, that they are conscientious. "Here is my watch; it points to such an hour; and my watch is from the very best maker. I cannot be mistaken." And yet he is mistaken, and egregiously so. The truth is, conscience is no more infallible than any other mental faculty. It is simply, as we have seen, a power of perceiving and judging, and its operations, like all other perceptions and judgments, are liable to error.

_Diversity of Moral Judgment._--And this which we have just said, goes far to account for the great diversity that has long been known to exist in the moral judgments and opinions of men. It has often been urged, and with great force, against the supposed existence of a moral faculty in man, as a part of his original nature, that men think and act so differently with respect to these matters. Nature, it is said, ought to act uniformly; thus eyes and ears do not give essentially conflicting testimony, at different times, and in different countries, with respect to the same objects. Certain colors are universally pleasing, and certain sounds disagreeable. But not so, it is said, with respect to the moral judgments of men. What one approves, another condemns. If these distinctions are universal, absolute, essential; and if the power of perceiving them is inherent in our nature, men ought to agree in their perception of them. Yet you will find nothing approved by one age and people, which is not condemned by some other; nay, the very crimes of one age and nation, are the religious acts of another. If the perception of right and wrong is intuitive, how happens this diversity?

_This Diversity accounted for._--To which I reply, the thing has been already accounted for. Our ideas of right and wrong, it was stated, in discussing their origin, depend on circumstances for their time and degree of development. They are not irrespective of opportunity. Education, habits, laws, customs, while they do not originate, still have much to do with the development and modification of these ideas. They may be by these influences aided or retarded in their growth, or even quite misdirected, just as a tree may, by unfavorable influences, be hindered and thwarted in its growth, be made to turn and twist, and put forth abnormal and monstrous developments. Yet nature works there, nevertheless, and in spite of all such obstacles, and unfavorable circumstances, seeks to put forth, according to her laws, her perfect and finished work. All that we contend is, that nature, under favorable circumstances, develops in the human mind, the idea of moral distinctions, while, at the same time, _men may differ much in their estimate of what is right, and what is wrong_, according to the circumstances and influences right and wrong to particular cases, and decide as to the morality of given actions, is an office of judgment, and the judgment may err in this, as in any other of its operations. It may be biassed by unfavorable influences, by wrong education, wrong habits, and the like.

_Analogy of other Faculties._--The same is true, substantially, of all other natural faculties and their operations. They depend on circumstances for the degree of their development, and the mode of their action. Hence they are liable to great diversity and frequent error. Perception misleads us as to sensible objects, not seldom; even in their mathematical reasonings, men do not always agree. There is the greatest possible diversity among men, as to the retentiveness of the memory, and as to the extent and power of the reasoning faculties. The savage that thinks it no wrong to scalp his enemy, or even to roast and eat him, is utterly unable to count twenty upon his fingers; while the philosopher, who recognizes the duty of loving his neighbor as himself, calculates, with precision, the motions of the heavenly bodies, and predicts their place in the heaven, for ages to come. Shall we conclude, because of this diversity, that these several faculties are not parts of our nature?

_General Uniformity._--We are by no means disposed to admit, however, that the diversity in men's moral judgments is so great, as might, at first, appear. There is, on the contrary, a general uniformity. As to the great essential principles of morals, men, after all, do judge much alike, in different ages and different countries. In details, they differ, in general principles, they agree. In the application of the rules of morality to particular actions, they differ widely, according to circumstances; in the recognition of the right and the wrong, as distinctive principles, and of obligation to do the right as known, and avoid the wrong as known, in this they agree. It must be remembered, moreover, that men do not always act according to their own ideas of right. From the general neglect of virtue, in any age or community, and the prevalence of great and revolting crimes, we cannot safely infer the absence, or even the perversion, of the moral faculty.

_Precisely in what the Diversity consists._--It is important to bear in mind, throughout this discussion, the distinction between the _idea_ of right, in itself considered, and the _perception_ of a given act as right; the one a simple conception, the other an act of judgment; the one an idea derived from the very constitution of the mind, connate, if not innate, the other an application of that idea, by the understanding, to particular instances of conduct. The former, the _idea_ of moral distinctions, may be universal, necessary, absolute, unerring; the latter, the _application_ of the idea to particular instances, and the decision that such and such acts are, or are not, right, may be altogether an incorrect and mistaken judgment. Now it is precisely at this point that the diversity in the moral judgments of mankind makes its appearance. In recognizing the distinction of right and wrong, they agree; in the application of the same to particular instances in deciding _what_ is right and _what_ is wrong--a simple act of the judgment, an exercise of the understanding, as we have seen--in this it is that they differ. And the difference is no greater, and no more inexplicable, with respect to this, than in any other class of judgments.

_Conscience not always a safe Guide._--I have admitted that conscience is not infallible. Is it, then, a safe guide? Are we, in all cases to follow its decisions? Since liable to err, it cannot be, in itself, I reply, in all cases, a safe guide. We cannot conclude, with certainty, that a given course is right, simply because conscience approves it. This does not, of necessity, follow. The decision that a given act is right, or not, is simply a matter of judgment; and the judgment may, or may not, be correct. That depends on circumstances, on education partly, on the light we have, be it more or less. Conscientious men are not always in the right. We may do wrong conscientiously. Saul of Tarsus was a conscientious persecutor, and verily thought he was doing God service. No doubt, many of the most intolerant and relentless bigots have been equally conscientious, and equally mistaken. Such men are all the more dangerous, because doing what they believe to be right.

_It is, nevertheless, to be followed._--What, then, are we to do? Shall we follow a guide thus liable to err? Yes, I reply, follow conscience; but see that it be a right and well-informed conscience, forming its judgments, not from impulse, passion, prejudice, the bias of habit, or of unreflecting custom, but from the clearest light of reason, and especially of the divine word. We are responsible for the judgments we form in morals, as much as for any class of our judgments; responsible, in other words, for the sort of conscience we have. Saul's mistake lay, not in acting according to his conscientious convictions of duty, but in not having a more enlightened conscience. He should have formed a more careful judgment; have inquired more diligently after the right way. To say, however, that a man ought not to do what conscience approves, is to say that he ought not to do what he sincerely believes to be right. This would be a very strange rule in morals.

_Conscience not exclusively intellectual._--I have discussed, as I proposed, the _nature_ and _authority_ of conscience. In this discussion I have treated of the moral faculty as an intellectual, rather than an emotional power I would not be understood, however, as implying that conscience has not also an emotional character. Every intellectual act, and faculty of action, partakes more or less of this character, is accompanied by feeling, and these feelings are in some degree peculiar, it may be, to the particular faculty or act of mind to which they relate. The exercise of imagination involves some degree of feeling, either pleasurable or painful, and that often in a high degree; so also the æsthetic faculty. It is peculiarly so with the exercise of the moral faculty. As already stated, in our analysis of an act of conscience, it is impossible to view our past conduct as right or wrong, and to approve or condemn ourselves accordingly, without emotion; and these emotions will vary in intensity, according to the clearness and force of our intellectual conception of the merit or demerit of our conduct.

These feelings constitute an important part of the phenomena of moral action, and consequently of psychology; as they belong, however, to the department of _sensibility_, rather than of _intellect_, their further discussion is not here in place. They will be considered in connection with other emotions in the subsequent division of the work.

INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES

SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS.