CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



punishment. The very appropriate term jural, : 

 has been applied to the class of duties and rights 

 which are made the subjects of express enactment. . 

 These, however, are far from affording scope for j 

 the whole moral nature of man. Not content with 

 such acts of humanity as it would be a reproach 

 to neglect, the more benevolent natures feel 



thereby; no more does any healthy man. All 

 such acts are prompted or guided by one or 

 both of two motives pleasure and pain. What- 

 ever gives pain, is avoided or repelled, and that, 

 not from the thought that it endangers life, but 

 simply because it gives pain. Whatever, on the 

 other hand, relieves the cravings of hunger or any 



prompted to widen the sphere of their action, to other appetite, and in doing so affords gratifica- 

 go out of their way in search of objects for their * : ~ "- il 

 beneficence, and to labour in every way to add to 

 the existing sum of human happiness. Not con- 

 tent, again, with merely giving every one what is 

 rightfully his own, generosity prompts to many 

 spontaneous acts of self-sacrifice. In short, the 

 virtues are carried beyond the limits of the neces- 

 sary, until they often arrive at the noble and sub- 

 lime. Persons capable of acting in this way, do 

 so because they feel a moral call a constraint, if 

 not from without, yet from within ; and even those 

 who in the same circumstances would act other- 

 wise, yet feel constrained, as on-lookers, to approve 

 and admire. Now, in the case of this secondary 

 morality, no less than in that of the primary, the 



tion to the senses, is sought. The exercise of the 

 various active faculties of body and mind is also 

 attended with pleasure, and under the promptings 

 of this stimulus, such exercise is indulged in. All 

 this is common to man with the lower animals, 

 and thus far no consideration of a moral nature is 

 discernible ; the word ought would be out of place 

 in such cases. 



But it is soon discovered that it is not safe to 

 indulge every impulse of this kind. Some pleas- 

 ures are found to cost too dear that is, they 

 bring painful consequences in their train ; some 

 pains, again, if submitted to, ward off greater 

 pains, or secure more than counterbalancing pleas- 

 ure. And here begins a struggle between two 



ground of the obligation rests, we believe, on the parts of man's nature ; between the impulses of 

 utility of the actions ; they all conduce to the more sense, urging him to seize on a present pleasure, 

 complete well-being and happiness both of the and that reason which, ' looking before and after,' 



can depict an overbalancing pain, or the loss of a 

 higher pleasure, awaiting him in the future as the 

 consequence. The intellectual capacity of thus 

 bringing the idea of absent and future things into 

 comparison with things present, is the foundation 

 of man's moral nature makes it possible for him 

 to be a moral being ; and the judgment which 

 dictates that the lower gratification, though pres- 

 ent, must yield to the higher, though absent 

 which utters the solemn voice C 7 ought] is that 

 moral nature in activity it is an act of conscience. 

 If, consulting the ease of to-day, he omit doing 

 something which to-morrow he will be compelled 



actor and of all concerned. It not unfrequently 

 happens, that a course of action, long looked upon 

 as virtuous, and held in high repute, is discovered 

 to be productive, not of good consequences, but 

 the contrary ; in such a case, the sentiments 

 of society regarding that course of action are 



changed, and the 

 departs from it. 



character of being a virtue 



This theory as to the foundation of moral obli- 

 gation, appears to many to give a low and grovel- 

 ling aspect to virtue ; and they apply to it the 

 terms 'utilitarian' and 'the happiness principle,' 

 by way of stigma. Duty they hold to consist in 



the pursuit of the right, and not in the pursuit of to do, and with twice the amount of labour, he 



the useful; but what right is, as distinct from the 

 useful, has never yet been made clear. The 

 objections felt to the utility or happiness principle 

 derive their force from taking a narrow view of 

 utility, and considering it as equivalent to low, 

 selfish interest ; while the pursuit of happiness as 

 an end is spoken of with contempt, being almost 

 invariably confounded with low pleasure or the 

 gratification of the merely animal propensities. 

 When happiness is taken in its right meaning, as 

 that state of enjoyment which arises from the 

 highest gratification of man's nature as a whole, 

 we are unable to conceive any higher object that 

 could be set up as an end ; and, what is more, 

 though another and higher end were proposed, we 

 cannot conceive human nature pursuing any but 

 the one now mentioned. But the best way, per- 



feels moral indignation against himself, as having 

 been his own enemy. This humble virtue of 

 prudence this enlightened self-love, as it has 

 been called contains the same essential element 

 as the most exalted social virtue ; it is grounded 

 in a conflict between two promptings or impulses, 

 the one arising from immediate sense, the other 

 out of ideas of reason, and in the universal feeling 

 that the latter ought to outweigh the former. 

 That this is the essential element in social morality 

 also, appears thus : 



The happiness of a man is not made up solely 

 of those gratifications of which he is capable in 

 his own person. Through sympathy, he can 

 enjoy the enjoyments of others, and suffer in 

 their sufferings. In the young, this faculty is 

 extremely imperfect. Children are at first bound 



haps, of making these objections and some others ; up in self, and think only of their own enjoy- 

 ments. It is only gradually, and chiefly through 

 the exercise of special affection for individuals 

 connected with them in family relation, that they 

 learn to sympathise with human feeling in general. 

 It has been well observed that the man or woman 

 who has once experienced the passion of love, 

 which forcibly draws the individual out of self, 

 and makes a second self of another, is ever after 

 more capable of sympathising with everything that 

 lives and feels. 



The individual has thus his capacity for joy 

 and sorrow increased. His very consciousness 

 and sensibilities are virtually extended beyond 



disappear will be to consider the internal impulses 

 or motives from which human actions proceed, 

 and what is implied in such terms as Ought, Self- 

 love, Selfishness, Disinterestedness. 



Motives of Action. 



Pleasure and Pain. Ought. In order to detect 

 the moral element in human conduct, we must 

 begin with those instinctive actions that are con- 

 nected with the preservation of the individual life. 

 Not that the preservation of life is the motive of 

 these acts. In the act of eating, no animal, no 

 child thinks of keeping itself alive and in health 



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