1 86 Prehistoric and Savage Man 



act, and not in the feeling. That it is so is plain, since the 

 latter may be altogether absent, while no amount of feeling 

 will make an action ' moral ' if not accompanied or preceded 

 by a perception that the action is a right one. 



Yet another distinction should be noted. An action to 

 be moral must be accompanied by a good intention, though 

 its goodness need not, of course, be specially adverted to. 

 This is plain, since no one would call the good nursing of a 

 wearisome patient a ' virtuous act ' if he knew that this was 

 only done to secure a large legacy. 



How little mere feeling has to do with morality any 

 example of a victory of conscience over temptation will make 

 plain enough.i A man may judge that he ought to renounce 

 a tender friendship without its becoming one bit less delight- 

 ful to him to continue it. More than this, let him have 

 done so. Suppose further that he, from a conscientious 

 regard to the just claims of one who has paramount rights, 

 has severed such ties. In spite of his perception that he has 

 acted rightly, his act may occasion him keen emotional 

 suffering for years. Let us suppose that the struggling 

 father of a family becomes aware that the property he lives 

 on really belongs to another, and that he therefore relin- 

 quishes it. He may continue to judge that he has done a 

 proper action, whilst tortured by the trials in which his act 

 of justice has involved him. 



By morality, then, is not meant merely a feeling of 

 sympathy, a deference to the desires of others, or some 

 emotional excitement tending to produce beneficial action. 

 What is meant is an intellectual activity evinced by the 

 expression of definite judgments passed upon certain modes 

 of action to the effect that they are or are not good, bad, or 

 indifferent. No preference of the interests of the tribe 

 over self, or anger at the absence of such preference, is 



^ See ante, p. 50. 



