476 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



question whether they are done from duty can not arise at all, since they even 

 conflict with it. I also set aside those actions which really conform to duty, but 

 to which men have no direct inclination, performing them because they are im- 

 pelled thereto by some other inclination. For in this case we can readily distin- 

 guish whether the action which agrees with duty is done from duty, or from a 

 selfish view. It is much harder to make this distinction when the action accords 

 with duty, and the subject has besides a direct inclination to it. For example, 

 it is always a matter of duty that a dealer should not overcharge an inexperienced 

 purchaser, and wherever there is much commerce the prudent tradesman does not 

 overcharge, but keeps a fixed price for every one, so that a child buys of him as 

 well as any other. Men are thus honestly served ; but this is not enough to make 

 us believe that the tradesman has so acted from duty and from principles of hon- 

 esty : his own advantage required it ; it is out of the question in this case to sup- 

 pose that he might besides have a direct inclination in favor of the buyers, so that, 

 as it were, from love he should give no advantage to one over another [ ! ]. Accord- 

 ingly the action was done neither from duty nor from direct inclination, but 

 merely with a selfish view. On the other hand, it is a duty to maintain one's 

 life ; and, in addition, every one has also a direct inclination to do so. But on 

 this account the often anxious care which most men take for it has no intrinsic 

 worth, and their maxim has no moral import. They preserve their life as duty 

 requires, no doubt, but not "because duty requires. On the other hand, if adversity 

 and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away the relish for life ; if the unfort- 

 unate one, strong in mind, indignant at his fate rather than desponding or de- 

 jected, wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it — not from 

 inclination or fear, but from duty — then his maxim has a moral worth. 



" To be beneficent when we can is a duty ; and besides this, there are many 

 minds so sympathetically constituted that without any other motive of vanity or 

 self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take de- 

 light in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain 

 that in such a case an action of tliis kind, however proper, however amiable it may 

 be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclina- 

 tions" (pp. 17-19). 



I have given this extract at length that there may he fnlly 

 understood the remarkable doctrine it embodies — a doctrine es- 

 pecially remarkable as exemplified in the last sentence. Let us 

 now consider all that it means. 



Before doing this, however, I may remark that, space permit- 

 ting, it might be shown clearly enough that the assumed dis- 

 tinction between sense of duty and inclination is untenable. The 

 very expression sense of duty implies that the mental state sig- 

 nified is a feeling ; and if a feeling it must, like other feelings, be 

 gratified by acts of one kind and offended by acts of an opposite 

 kind. If we take the name conscience, which is equivalent to 

 sense of duty, we see the same thing. The common expressions 

 " a tender conscience," " a seared conscience," indicate the percep- 

 tion that conscience is a feeling — a feeling which has its satisfac- 

 tions and dissatisfactions, and which inclines a man to acts which 

 yield the one and avoid the other — produces an inclination. The 



