3 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the inherent quality of moral rightness ; it is still a blind respect for 

 what is enjoined by certain persons who are respected and beloved. In 

 order that the blind, sympathetic regard may pass into an intelligent 

 appreciation, another kind of experience is necessary. 



Thrown with others from the first, a child soon finds that he is af- 

 fected in various ways by their actions. Thus another child takes a toy 

 from him or strikes him, and he suffers, and experiences a feeling of 

 anger, and an impulse to retaliate. Or, on the contrary, another child 

 is generous and shares his toys, etc., with him, and so his happiness is 

 augmented, and he is disposed to be grateful. In such ways the child 

 gradually gains experience of the effect of others' good and bad actions 

 on his own welfare. By so doing his apprehension of the meaning of 

 moral distinctions is rendered clearer. " Right " and " wrong " acquire 

 a certain significance in relation to his individual well-being. He is 

 now no longer merely in the position of an unintelligent subject to a 

 command ; he becomes to some extent an intelligent approver of that 

 command, helping to enforce it, by pronouncing the doer of the selfish 

 act " naughty," and of the kind action " good." 



Further experience and reflection on this would teach the child the 

 reciprocity and interdependence of right conduct ; that the honesty, 

 fairness, and kindness of others toward himself are conditional on his 

 acting similarly toward them. In this way he would be led to attach 

 a new importance to his own performance of certain right actions. He 

 feels impelled to do what is right, e. g., speak the truth, not simply 

 because he wants to avoid his parents' condemnation, but because he 

 begins to recognize that network of reciprocal dependence which binds 

 each individual member of a community to his fellows. 



Even now, however, our young moral learner has not attained to a 

 genuine and pure repugnance to wrong as such. In order that he may 

 feel this, the higher sympathetic feelings must be further developed. 



To illustrate the influence of such a higher sympathy, let us sup- 

 pose that A suffers from B's angry outbursts or his greedy propensi- 

 ties. He finds that C and D also suffer in much the same way. If his 

 sympathetic impulses are sufficiently keen he will be able, by help of 

 his own similar sufferings, to put himself in the place of the injured 

 one, and to resent his injury just as though it were done to himself. 

 At the beginning he will feel only for those near him, and the objects 

 of special affection, as his mother or his sister. Hence the moral im- 

 portance of family relations and their warm personal affections, as serv- 

 ing first to develop habitual sympathy with others and consideration 

 for their interests and claims. As his sympathies expand, however, 

 this indignation against wrong-doing will take a wider sweep, and 

 embrace a larger and larger circle of his fellows. In this way he 

 comes to exercise a higher moral function as a disinterested spectator 

 of others' conduct, and an impartial representative and supporter of 

 the moral law. 



